What time do most high school students in Argentina start morning classes? At 7:31, according to the first new national map of high school start times. This recently published research reveals that this table is historic and has remained unchanged for decades.
Of course, just because it is “traditional” is not true. In fact, many experts on sleep and development issues suggest changing it, because the attention of the brain of children at that time is not yet fully “awake”, and this seems to have its share of influence on the deterioration and poor school performance shown by educational tests taken year after year.
“This is the first report of this kind to be carried out in our country and is an important tool to better understand the impact of school start times during adolescence,” Maria Juliana León, visiting professor of education at Di Tella University and research associate at the Center for Public Policy (CEPE) of the same entity, told PROFILE.
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What is striking is that although data on this situation in the country existed in a dispersed manner, there was no room to consolidate it, work on drawing conclusions and developing policies. The problem is that each jurisdiction, and sometimes each school, has the ability to determine the start time of the semester. It is worth noting that the record indicates that there are more than 13 thousand secondary schools in the country.
León, who conducted this research with Pablo Jerez, from the National Institute of Technological Education, highlighted for this newspaper some of the highlights of the work they published and explained in detail how it can be used as an input to improve educational policies across the country. Among the results that emerged are the following:
◆ The “average” morning start time for secondary schools in Argentina is 07:31.
◆ 83% of the state’s morning-shift schools begin classes before 8:00 a.m.
◆ The start time of the morning shift varies in each governorate and is logically related to the geographical location. However, the reality is that – in many districts – the morning session begins, for much of the school year, when it is still night.
◆ This happens to the point that the bell rings across the country while it is still night on average 85 days into the school year. In some jurisdictions, they even “start at night,” that is, more than a hundred days into each cycle.
Temporal types. According to the newspaper, “good” sleep means achieving three elements. Sleeping a sufficient number of hours varies depending on age: a teenager needs at least eight hours, while an adult needs seven hours. In addition, it is necessary to have good quality sleep (continuous and uninterrupted). Finally, respect appropriate schedules, sleep during the night and not during periods of intense sunlight, and maintain a stable routine between work days and vacation days, in line with our internal schedule or chronotype.
León summed up the situation in detail: “We have teenagers who tend to stay up all night, and this is especially increasing in the Argentine culture where, for example, we eat dinner very late. In contrast, in adolescence, children go to school in the morning, several times while it is still night, at a time that contributes to reducing the necessary hours of sleep.”
This is compounded by other objective data. For example, school admission times are very similar, even though the institution is located in the east or west of the country, on the Andes mountain range, approximately 1,500 kilometers in geographic length.
This data is “average”. Therefore, there are counties, such as Santa Fe, where most of their schools start classes before 7:15.
Comparisons. What is happening in other countries? “There are differences,” Leon says. “For example, we know that in the United States – on average – morning classes at the secondary level start at 8:00 a.m. The same happens in many European countries, including some that show the best rates of school performance.”
The interesting thing is that when the transformation begins later, many positive changes are seen. Among them, there was improved academic performance, lower rates of absenteeism, higher graduation rates, and even a lower rate of road accidents in that group.
Ultimately, the researchers suggest, one possible tool to improve school performance is for jurisdictions to adjust start times so that teens do not start classes at night.
The other general recommendation is for Argentina to finally regain its natural geographical time zone.
“Today Argentina has adopted and follows the -3 time zone. But due to the longitude of the planet, it corresponds to -4. If we achieve this natural change, classes in high schools, almost in all parts of the country, will begin under the sunshine.
Biology day and night
For example.
“From biology, we know that during adolescence people become more ‘nocturnal’ for various reasons. On the other hand, in Argentina, our culture is particularly nocturnal, not only among teenagers, but among adults in general, even for social reasons,” Leon said. He explained, “This means that during this vital period we sleep “a little.” What does this circumstance affect? In many aspects related to health, but it also has an impact on school performance.
According to available studies in this field, many of these children who go to the morning shift sleep less than six hours on average, and suffer from high levels of what is called “social jet lag.”
For experts, today we have “a lot of scientific evidence showing that poor sleep and social jet lag or having different and irregular schedules, between rest days and work days, affects academic cognitive performance. Not only that, it also leads to poor health. There are a number of studies that show that this chronic lack of sleep has an impact on mental health. There is an association between lack of sleep and mood-related problems, and chronic diseases, among other things.”