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So what about enrichment activities such as sports or clubs? Would you timeshift them to mornings if we're starting at 10?

Continuing to tack them on to the end of the day would not only cut into traditional family time in the evening and but you'd also run out of daylight which for things like cross-country wouldn't work.

I would have liked to have slept in too, but I wouldn't want to at the expense of killing football and drama club.




I work in the lab of the author of this study. I can tell you that this was also a concern of the high school students; they were given a questionnaire about when THEY would like to start school, and they only wanted to shift start times by about half an hour for this very reason, and were concerned about when to compensate for the time, preferring shorter breaks than ending later. Fortunately for them, Swiss high school schedules are crazy with lots of big gaps, so improvements can be made to start times before sacrificing end times.


Only a small percentage of students take part in any extracurricular, especially the time intensive ones. Better to let everyone sleep in and let various sports and clubs find ways to adapt their schedules


100% of children should do sports, music, etc, especially time intensive ones (especially at a young age) not a small percentage.


That sounds like hell. I was forced into music and soccer for ~6 years as a child, and my complete lack of talent is the only thing that stopped my parents from keeping me at it, they thought like you and didn't care that it was miserable and boring. We are not all the same, and we don't all need to be the same.


> they thought like you and didn't care that it was miserable and boring

If kids were allowed to not do things they identify as find miserable and boring, practically everything in the world would be off the table and the next generatation would be totally and utterly fucked.


I read that as a lack of options. The advocacy here is for some kind of enrichment. Could be a mathematics club or a meditation group, it doesn't matter. Just something.

The theory is that it builds better character.


Yes. Arguably the more important societal benefit to learn in school is the soft skills of sociability, teamwork, and things in that class.

We certainly need the doctors and engineers of tomorrow, but they won't be very useful without healthy functioning societies in which can exercise these skills.

We also need a bunch of artisanal non-knowledge workers and laborers and should stop pretending those are inferior careers. A hard working, say, trashman is just as dignified as any other profession and if that's in someone's future, then we should make sure they can take and do the job with pride.


If 100% should--an I sort of agree--then it should be built into the school day a bit better.


You just invented private schools, or at least everyone I have experienced ... every child (up to about 14/15 - after which you could scale back) mandatory to do sport, music, 1 extra activity/club.

Organised by the school and generally carried out 3-5pm & Saturday morning.


Nah. There was a lot of nothing time in school. Make core hours like 930 to 230, and keep the extra curriculars at the end of the day.


I’m not so sure any more. My teenage kids have:

- 100 minute long lessons - because they found that it minimises transition time between lessons - 35 minute lunch break and very short mid lesson breaks - twilight lessons - lessons both before and after school to study additional subjects (which is optional)


Nah, they will move after. So then we will discuss issue of teenagers never seeing sun. And then teenagers will move late activities even later and push sleep time 2-3 hours up, to make up for it. Then we will discuss that 10am is absurdly soon.




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