You ask about our students and sleep... with consideration to morning activities.
It's all quite clear in the research. (e.g., Balastiel, 1990; Strangeweale, 1993) Adolescents timeshift, so whereas at nine years of age, a child will wake earlier than her parents wish and is sleepy by seven or eight o'clock, by age twelve or thirteen, a young person will have begun both waking later and falling asleep later. This is not merely a matter of their interests keeping them engaged longer into the evening; indeed, studies show that it is a quite natural function of the maturing process.
Equally, adolescents require more hours of sleep than children do. Inconveniently so. The upshot is that at the same time that their internal clocks shift, urging them to stay awake longer past the fall of darkness (and as their academic obligations increase, requiring them complete more hours of homework), their bodies also begin to require more and more rest to enable them to replenish their reserves.
Consequently, it is extremely difficult to wake adolescents in the morning. And if one does demand early morning wakefulness from eleven to seventeen year olds, it is more than likely that one will produce whole classrooms full of dullards, nodding off between sentences of the lectures they are meant to be attending. Worse still, studies of adolescents and accidental injury show a strong correlation between injury and insufficient rest.
I can provide a list of relevant studies if you wish more information.
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Re: Private message to Aurora Sinistra and Poppy Pomfrey
Date: 2012-09-19 02:32 am (UTC)It's all quite clear in the research. (e.g., Balastiel, 1990; Strangeweale, 1993) Adolescents timeshift, so whereas at nine years of age, a child will wake earlier than her parents wish and is sleepy by seven or eight o'clock, by age twelve or thirteen, a young person will have begun both waking later and falling asleep later. This is not merely a matter of their interests keeping them engaged longer into the evening; indeed, studies show that it is a quite natural function of the maturing process.
Equally, adolescents require more hours of sleep than children do. Inconveniently so. The upshot is that at the same time that their internal clocks shift, urging them to stay awake longer past the fall of darkness (and as their academic obligations increase, requiring them complete more hours of homework), their bodies also begin to require more and more rest to enable them to replenish their reserves.
Consequently, it is extremely difficult to wake adolescents in the morning. And if one does demand early morning wakefulness from eleven to seventeen year olds, it is more than likely that one will produce whole classrooms full of dullards, nodding off between sentences of the lectures they are meant to be attending. Worse still, studies of adolescents and accidental injury show a strong correlation between injury and insufficient rest.
I can provide a list of relevant studies if you wish more information.