With the school year starting back up, I know many are having trouble adapting to waking up so early. The thing is, we shouldn’t have to wake up this early. In fact, abundant amounts of evidence point to the American school schedule being unhealthy.

The issue here is our bodies aren’t made for waking up that early. In fact, the average human body wakes up from 7-9 a.m. This is multiple hours after a traditional school day starts. I believe it’s absurd how the school system is expecting students to wake up this early, spend 8 hours daily at school, and still have the motivation to try in their classes.

There are many ways a later school start can benefit EVERYONE.

For example, when students get better sleep they will perform better academically. There are also many mental and physical health benefits.

Some of you in the older generations may be thinking, “We had to wake up early for school, why shouldn’t you guys?” But ask yourself, did you ever enjoy waking up early and being miserable the entire day? Do you not remember the mental and physical strains you dealt with? Now think about how much this small change could benefit the future of our children and their educations.

In addition to school and chores many students are balancing, work, school, sports, and extracurricular activities. This balance is extremely unhealthy and not even slightly good for students’ mental health when their bodies are not well-rested.

Some people may argue that starting later could disrupt your schedule for activities
after school. However, the benefits far outweigh these challenges. The scheduling may change,
but students would perform and feel much better and more motivated to perform tasks
throughout the school day. The change in scheduling could even be seen as an opportunity to
change things up and develop new communicative and behavioral skills.

A later start to the school day would get our society one step closer to a society where we prioritize our youth’s mental health. School isn’t good for human beings in general. We aren’t meant to sit inside classrooms every day for eight hours at a time.  The human body needs sunshine, exercise and family interaction.

We may not be able to change that entirely, but later starts are a great way to start. The evidence is clear, starting school a bit later in the day enhances how students work and feel on a day to-day basis. Whether you like it or not, this is the healthiest option for our future.

As we think about the future of our education, let’s consider all our options and work to make the educational system a better environment.