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Comment by brightball | Hacker News Reader

Schools can still help with this by trying to schedule the core academic stuff later in the the day and the less mentally intense stuff like PE earlier in the morning.

My kids' elementary school actually does this. They tell parents "if your child has a doctor's appointment or needs to be out for a portion of the day, schedule it at the beginning or end of the day to make sure they don't miss anything important."

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The problem with that is rotating schedules is more economically efficient than loading all the class-types onto one time of the day. This would mean you need more PE teachers in the morning, more math teachers in the mid-day. There's a reason schools have multiple periods of each course, and that those periods rotate day-to-day.

One interesting follow-up study could be to compare night-owls/morning-larks in rotating schedule schools vs schools with fixed schedules. We could then see do night-owls do significantly worse in the classes they only take in the morning, vs night-owls who take classes rotating throughout diff periods of the day?

At the root of it, they define "core" as Math and English with the goal to centralize those two in the middle of the day as much as possible.

Physical Education, Art, Spanish, Music, History, Science, etc are scheduled around those accordingly.

The main reasoning is simply that math and English are the two subjects that build upon each other the most from grade level to grade level and because of that, they are considered the "core".

It's not about which subjects build on each other. These two are the subjects that have mandated federal testing in the US [1]. Low test scores in reading and math have consequences for schools and their leaders, so they get the priority slots.

[1] https://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/every-student-succeeds-act/...

hm, that's very debatable. alot would contend history and science are core but others aren't. I've heard many complain that they never use math in the real world. I think math is core but the problem is its very opinion based. I don't see how other subjects don't build on each other.

If you sleep through European history, you can still learn American history. If you sleep through biology, you can still learn chemistry.

If you sleep through algebra, you can't do calculus, period.

> If you sleep through algebra, you can't do calculus, period.

Despite my best efforts in high school

100%

so true. STEM master race.

that's why anyone can just sit in a history or physics graduate level course and be fine because they don't build on each other.

Organic chemistry would never depend on bio or chem 1.

however, if you sleep through algebra 1, its not used at all in geometry so its fine. And neither are used in discrete math.

such a bubble..

what if i told you most students don't learn anything past algebra anyway?

Physics is applied Maths, of course they build on each other. History and historical knowledge builds on other things, geography most obviously, but primarily on itself. It’s easier to learn and remember history if you already know some. But having studied history it’s quite obvious that at an undergraduate level it builds on itself much, much less than something like Math or Physics. The degree to which upper level courses depend on lower level courses is minimal.

Different fields differ in how much they are built on mental models and how much they’re just a grab bag of connected facts you have to know and learn. Biology has more disconnected you just need to know it stuff than Chemistry.

I think you're reading a lot more into my comment than what's there. I'm not claiming that math classes have a completely linear dependency chain, nor am I saying that no other subjects have classes with meaningful dependencies, and I'm especially not claiming anything about graduate level course work in any subject.

Organic chemistry is not an elementary school course. Science taught in grade school usually has few inter-dependencies because it aims to cover a very broad range of topics at a very basic level. Ditto history.

Math is like going to the gym but for your brain. I consider it the most expensive sport that you can play. to do math You may never need anything you learn in math but I know it changes my problem solving abilities for the better. The more Math I know the more creative I can be when solving problems.

I agree with you 100% that the average person doesn't need math throughout their lives. We need to stress teaching statistics though in schooling (high school especialy) because that is something that manipulates people constantly .

I suspect it depends on the age of the students. In grade school when kids are learning to read and do addition, it's hard to imagine anything more core than that and science/history taught at that age is more about getting kids exposed to those concepts rather than actual learning. But once kids get to secondary school and English transitions to British Lit, American Lit and other variations on "read books and write an essays", the actual class time seems much less important than science classes where high school students actually learn the core tenets of Bio, Chem and Physics.

This policy is at an elementary school, but it’s probably a good assumption that a similar policy could adjust in high school for exactly that reason.

the importance of the ability to calculate and communicate are debatable only by people in total denial about how pervasive both are in our society. should those people really have any say in the curriculum of our children's future?

hm, that isn't what i said. You were ranking them relative to eachother and i said people might disagree on the relative rankings. I said that "people may disagree that math and english are more important than history and science". You responded as if i said "Math and english aren't important". Those are two completely different arguments.

Are the people who never use math high earners? If not, then their complaint actually supports the importance of math.

yeah. they start and run successful small businesses across the country. making millions of dollars. Outside of engineering and accounting, very few professions need math.

just because someone doesn't use math in the real world doesn't mean that it wouldn't benefit them to.

The actual problem began when humans invented candles and lightbulbs and started staying up past 8pm, and going to bed at inconsistent hours, therefore waking up tired the next mornings.

Our optimal sleeping time is based on the rotation of earth around the sun. We have removed our brain's natural sleep trigger (lack of light) so our sleep habits have been getting out of whack for the last couple of hundred years.

What is really interesting is that human's natural sleep cycle is not to sleep continuously for 8 hours. Our natural sleep cycle is to go to bed when it gets dark and then to wake up for a few hours in the middle of the night and get up and do things (apparently this is also the time when most sex happened since other family members in the same room were still asleep) and then go back to sleep and get back up at dawn.

Does this mean the natural sleep cycle time is a lot less in summer than it is in winter?

Why would other family members had been asleep? Wouldn't this natural sleep cycle have applied to everyone?

I live at 60 degrees Northern latitude, and I sleep a lot more in the winter. And it's really difficult in the summer too, because it never gets dark and you need to go to bed to get up in the morning.

For some reason it's not difficult for me to sleep past sunrise, but very hard to go to bed before sunset or wake before sunrise. And some people are the opposite.

This just applies to adults. Children and teenagers naturally sleep longer than adults and probably slept throughout the night. Plus, apparently people didn't all get up at the same time during the night. Some would be up from midnight-2am, others from 2am-4am, etc.

For those landing on this comment, some reference: http://slumberwise.com/science/your-ancestors-didnt-sleep-li...

For the most part i agree, but how about summer times in the northern regions in US or the world when sun doesnt set until beyond 9pm or say Norway where it can be until midnight or more than 60 days in some areas?

If you mean day/night, that's the rotation of the Earth around its axis, not the rotation around the Sun.

In most of the US, during elementary school, you generally have 1 teacher throughout the day that teaches all subjects, and you only leave to go to PE, art, or music once per day.

Since the whole getting kids to school early so that someone can watch them while the parents work only really only applies to younger students, this isn't a problem.

> Since the whole getting kids to school early so that someone can watch them while the parents work only really only applies to younger students, this isn't a problem.

I'd guess that a significant fraction of teenagers would have difficulty waking up and getting to school on time if they didn't have a parent around to wake them up, feed them breakfast, push them out the door, etc. Not all teens are self-motivated and independent enough to do this on their own every single day.

> There's a reason schools have multiple periods of each course, and that those periods rotate day-to-day

Could you elaborate on this? What is the reason? Saying it's "more economically efficient" than grouping class types is something many of my teachers would disagree with, as they have lives they would love to get to outside of school (e.g. if a PE teacher gets out early in the morning, they can go to their second job or see their own kids) and complain about having to stay at school because there isn't enough time between similar classes that are spread across different times of day.

Because a single PE teacher can manage five rotating classes of twenty kids throughout the day. If kids didn't rotate periods, then all 100 kids would take PE at the same time. That would require extra PE teachers, because one teacher cannot manage 100 kids. Multiply this effect by every different area (music teachers, art teachers, etc.) and you have to hire a bunch of extra teachers which is a waste of money. Plus, those teachers would only be busy for part of the day, so their wasting a lot of their time.

> That would require extra PE teachers

It would also require a much larger gym and much more equipment. Same for all other subjects: many more musical instruments for music class, etc.

These specialized teachers are non-existent in many schools. You may have a PE teacher, but they may or may not already be full time. Art teacher? LOL

Many school districts around the country are far too broken to worry about start times. The republicans have done a very good job of starving education for money over the last 20 years, and rampant corruption within the teachers unions and school/district administrations doesn’t help the situation.

Everyone keeps saying PE but imagine 1 math teacher trying to teach 150 kids at once. Not effective with traditional teaching. We already struggle with overly large class sizes making it harder to teach.

I got to go to a fancy school where there were like 12 kids in the class. It was amazing, I learned so much during my time there. Conversely, I went to some pretty shoddy city schools as well and the teacher could barely get the students to just be quiet.

I will say in yet another school (I moved A LOT) for my final semester of high school I went to an alternative school where you did all your coursework on the computers. You could work as fast or as slow as you wanted. It didn't take very many teachers to run that at all. The computer took care of most of it, including hints and letting you rewatch how to solve the problem. I loved this-- school was always kind of boring and I was always one of the first to finish and just end up reading a book...but I was able to finish up my whole class extremely quickly (I think a month or so, it's been a few years).

At least where I went to school, teachers generally had full schedules with maybe one period empty for prep. If they are teaching multiple sections of the same class, it isn't feasible to lump all classes of a certain kind into one part of the day. The same person can't teach multiple classes at once.

I remember nothing worse in High School than waking up showering and getting dressed for school, only to have PE class first period.

Ah, that is a bummer. My high school allowed us to take PE in the summer, for a couple weeks. It was only, maybe, a few hours a day. That way when school started we already had credit for it and none of us smelled awful (well most of us anyway).

What was so traumatizing about the showers available to you in high school? Because I certainly remember first period gym, and I just took a shower afterwards. Then I was right as rain.

It was partly social consequence, and party not wanting to be late for class. Since no one used the showers, the ones who did were usually considered weird or creepy. Even more so when the showers are open designed and you are naked in front of the entire locker room(high school only I think). The bigger half though is not wanting to be late for class. Most schools operate on a 5 minute timer between classes and even being a few seconds late is grounds for punishment. Being that you rarely ever get into the locker room and dressed back into your day clothes before the class is over, you're already pressed for time before you even consider using the shower.

Yep. When I went to high school, literally no one showered. I never saw a single person shower after gym class.

The thing that baffles me about it, is that if you're going to do physical activity like that, a shower after should be mandatory unless you are going home. Otherwise it's pretty gross. The result will be people not trying hard in gym, or people being unsanitary.

I guess this is all because we're ashamed of our bodies or afraid of sexual perverts? What the hell happened to us that we are this way?

I would have been afraid to shower in high school, the way it was. I have since showered in front of many strangers in the military and nothing bad has ever happened to me as a result. If you do have something odd happen, then that should be dealt with. But come on man, high school is not a prison. You are pretty safe to take a shower there.

tl;dr our society would rather be dirty and gross than see the naked bodies of our peers or be seen.

Would partitioned showers help with this problem?

Middle schools already have partitioned showers. At least mine did, I imagine most others that have them do as well. The biggest issue with the showering are the time constraints. The social stigma is present, just in a minor fashion. Being late to class trumps all else.

My middle school did not. No doors on the bathroom stalls either.

The time constraints are imposed by a school administration that assumes you will not shower or does not want you to shower. The real problem is people are afraid of nudity.

My school didn't allow us to use the showers after PE. First period PE meant you could either minimize your participation or be sweaty all day. The showers were only available for the sports teams after school.

Don't know how common that is.

My middle and high schools both required showering after PE class. You had about 10 minutes to shower and dress after class. It was part of the grade actually, if you skipped the shower you got docked a letter.

As I recall it was because all the other teachers didn't want a bunch of sweaty smelly kids in their classes.

I have never asked, but never saw anyone use the shower after PE at my school.

Middle school and high school kids can be viciously cruel and disgusting. Things that if done by adults would land them in jail and on a registry. Your school probably made the right call.

We all showered, and there was plenty of time allocated. This was in Sweden, though. Yet another weirdness about American schools...

Probably the effort of getting ready once and then having to get ready again. Not traumatizing, just a pain. Some people are particular about their routines.

All people are particular about their routines. Some to greater degrees than others.

Are you familiar with the phrase: "There are two types of jobs, those you shower before, and some you shower afterwards."

What's that have to do with routine?

You shower after manual labor jobs. That's just a matter of practicality.

Yeah, but that's at the end of the work day. Difference here. Though I just wouldn't shower in the morning.

I really have no idea what this side tangent is about.

I made a comment that getting ready twice in short order is a pain, which is why people wouldn't want to have PE first thing.

I don't see what any of this has to do with the difference in showering schedules between white collar and blue collar labor.

My dad worked in a factory and showered after he got home from work. That was the time of day that made sense because his work was hot and sweaty and dirty.

I suppose the idea could have been that you could have just not showered at all and showered once you were done with PE, but still unsure where this detour is headed.

It’s a class marker, a sign of social status. Sweating is shameful, as is being low social status. You don’t see your father’s job, which he showered afterwards, as something shameful but loads of middle class people would because they’re insecure in their social status, they associated with people of similar income but lower social status. People with much higher status don’t care because they don’t, there’s no chance of them being associated with those with lower status.

At least in my high school gym class, you weren't given enough time at the end to both shower AND get to your next class on time.

That's great. I showered and then continued to sweat for 2 hours though (I was massively obese). HS Gym was a nightmare.

Funny enough, I did lose the weight, and am in much better shape now, through activities that are the antithesis of HS gym (turns out riding a bike and swimming for my own pleasure beat the torture of team sports any day)

It’s an awkward time for many kids. Personally, I dreaded the experience.

Here's a secret: we all did.

But ask yourself this. Think back in time to those dreadful experiences and remember the people who didn't _appear_ to dread the experience.

Those people dreaded walking naked amongst their 14 year old peers as well, they just did a better job at convincing you that they dreaded it less than you.

You could even say that those were the victors who wrote your history.

Um, no. Other than some awkward jokes on the first few occasions, it was fine. Possibly this is because the school I went to was pretty new and didn't have any kind of established social hierarchy or bullying culture - it existed, but more as personal animosity.

I just laid out the derivative of your behavior, and then you said

"thats ridiculous, we quickly adapted over a short amount of time".

So, if I hear you correctly, what your saying is that as your understanding over time, lets call this du/dt, has a positive rate of change?

You're probably right though, the biggest trick Copernicus ever pulled was convincing everyone of heliocentricity by employing mathematics. We've been under the illusion ever since.

14 year old me made many decisions that don't seem particularly rational from the perspective of 14+<20-something> me.

People have different perspectives on these sorts of things.

Excactly. When I was about 4, paper cuts were the worst thing I could imagine. Now they are trivial.

It doesn't mean that 4 year old me was stupid because I thought they hurt so bad, it just means that I've experienced things that hurt much worse.

I wonder how they schedule that. Does that mean that all PE classes (assuming PE is part of the "unimportant" category) are either at the beginning or the end of the day? What does the PE teacher do in the middle of the day, then?

Often PE teachers (and coaches) are also teachers. My civics, geography and geometry teachers were all football coaches. Incidentally, they were also not very learned in their respective courses.

This was the same for us. The exception was the teacher that made me fall in love with history as a subject. He was also an assistant basketball coach, but he was passionate about history.

Teach health? Sex Ed? Preparation and setup? My PE teachers in JHS and HS were more than just PE teachers. Was my school just an outlier?

It probably depends on the size of the school or school district.

I went to large schools for both MS and HS, and all of our PE teachers only taught PE throughout the day, as it was offered all seven class periods as there were simply too many students to only offer the class two to three periods.

In HS, freshman tended to have the largest class sizes as they only had two class periods to choose from, and were split between male and female. They'd rotate through all sports during the school year. All other years got to choose their class period and were able to select the sport(s) they wanted, and would rotate through different teachers quarterly, within that same class period, based on those selections.

Coaches that only taught electives usually rotated in teaching Health/Sex Ed and Driver's Ed.

Yeah my high school had 2,500 students, there's no way they could've even fit everyone onto the field in the morning let alone have the staff to handle that.

It depends on the school and the state.

I went to a small district where they shared roles. My wife went to a huge school where the PE teachers taught only PE and were paid coached as well.

In some districts, you need certification in a subject... a gym teacher can’t teach math.

And they couldn't be certified for both? In NRW, Germany afaik (almost) all teachers have two or more roles.

Probably -- I think the specifics vary from place to place.

This brings back memories for me. My friends and I realized even at a young age that we shouldn't have hard classes in the morning, and we almost always chose PE/arts first.

So and how about the people who would like to have the mentally intense stuff early in the morning? For example, I have the clearest mind about 5 minutes after I got out of bed.

Anecdotally I definitely did better in High School when I had band first thing in the morning.

Sorry, not from the US. What does PE mean?

Physical education. In India, in our schools it mostly meant playing Soccer.

The irony of defining a regional term in the context of other regional terms.

Physical Education

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