More Sleep, More Focus

If there is one thing that you always hear people complaining about at school, it will almost one hundred percent of the time be related to the amount of sleep they got. There is a solution to this problem that would allow anyone to get more sleep and be more ready for the day: school starting later.

This seemed to be the consensus around the halls of Seabury. Sophomore Alex White says, “I think it should. At least 8:30.”

Sophomore Aris Grady thinks the same thing. “Definitely,” she says.

Eighth grader Ben Barnett has similar feelings. “I think it should because people get tired if they have to wake up early and a lot of people I know have to come in from longer distances.” Barnett says that his ideal school start time would be the same time as the Friday start, at about 8:20.

White says that the reason for his opinion is not based off of how well rested he would like to be, but how prepared he would like to be. “It would give people more time to get themselves ready for the day,” says White.

There are two sides to this story, however, as sixth grader Tara Jampa Thompson-Glodich has the opposite opinion of Barnett and White. “I think that’d be a waste of time,” says Thompson-Glodich. “You get home later and have less time to do homework.” Many students at Seabury would say that over anything else, they would like to get a little more sleep. Not Thompson-Glodich. “I’d rather get up earlier,” says Thompson-Glodich. “It moves everything back, so things in general would get harder.”

One thing that everyone probably pays no mind to is the amount of time they spend doing unproductive non-school activities after school. The main example of this would likely be people procrastinating on their homework until they absolutely have to start. “I have 2 hours at the most of free time,” says Barnett. He says he spends about one hour of this time doing non-school activities. White also expressed that he has about two hours of free time spent doing non-school activities, but his homework load is a bit larger than Barnett’s, so it takes a bit longer.

Another thing that most Seabury students would attest to is that staying focused while doing homework is tough. When students are less focused on homework, they often end up getting less sleep because they have to finish homework late at night. Sophomore Aris Grady says she uses something called the 10-3 rule. This involves studying for ten minutes, and then taking a short three minute break. Barnett and White also remarked that they take breaks.

The last major thing that most students struggle with is getting in bed on time and not getting distracted. White says he gets in bed at about 10:00 and wakes up at 5:30. This seems a little early, but like Barnett says, there are many people who go to Seabury that have to come to school from a farther distance. Grady and Barnett’s sleep schedule are similar to White’s, but they can afford to wake up a bit later because they live inside of Lawrence.

Take a minute to stop and think. With the amount of time students have to spend after school, thirty minutes to an hour off of this time would put a little more pressure on students to goof around less and be more focused while doing homework. Tack on an extra thirty minutes to an hour of sleep, and suddenly everyone is in a better mood.