考研阅读精选：我们缘何剥夺孩子们的睡眠？
『尽管有许多的科学研究表明，增加孩子们的睡眠时间有助于他们大脑的发育，但调整孩子们作息的行动却迟迟未执行。这背后有何难言之隐？长此以往又会对孩子们造成何种影响？怎样才能缓解这其中的种种影响？』Why Are We Depriving Our Teens of Sleep？
我们缘何剥夺孩子们的睡眠？
Nov 18th, 2011 | from Time
http://images.koolearn.com/casupload/upload/fckeditorUpload/2011-12-12/image/9de5c96e731842498db09af56d910b6a.jpg
Daylight is at a premium these days, and if your family is anythinglike ours, your teenagers are having a hard time getting out of bed inthe morning. “Delayed sleep phase” is what affects them: the maddeningshift in circadian rhythms that causes adolescents to fall asleep andawake at ever-later hours. Adolescents need an average of 9.25 hours ofsleep per night to support their developing brains, which are explodingat a rate akin to infancy. But we treat access to sleep as if it were anillegal drug, commonly requiring teens to start school at 7:00 a.m. orearlier.
This puts students at a serious disadvantage. Numerousstudies show that later start times are associated with lower rates ofobesity, fewer car accidents and lower drop-out rates, as well asimproved academic performance. In one study, shifting the start timefrom 7:20 to 8:40 a.m. significantly reduced depression as well. A fewdistricts have shifted start times successfully, so why hasn’t thepractice been adopted more widely despite overwhelming scientificevidence?
There are all sort of logistical excuses: delayingstart times means parents might not be able to get to work as early; busschedules would have to be shifted; a later school day would interferewith sports games and practices; teenagers would get home from schoollater, which would reduce family time.
But our inability tochange start times is also illustrative of a larger pattern ofneglecting the wellbeing and potential of our young people. We know, forexample, that playtime and music increase cognitive development; yetschool systems nationwide have dramatically slashed budgets for thosecritical activities. We know that children are sickened by junk food;yet we peddle unhealthy snacks in school cafeterias — and Congress justvoted down proposed changes to the school lunch program that wouldrequire including fruits and green vegetables. We know that Americanteachers are poorly paid and supervised compared to teachers in manyother countries; yet teacher-blaming is a favorite pastime.
Onthe sleep issue, like so many things related to children, adults oftenassume that there are impossible tradeoffs: if we “coddle” students bygiving them adequate sleep, they might lose their competitive edge.Perhaps this is why, when an online petition was recently launched onthe White House website requesting federal action to delay start timesfor teenagers, it didn’t meet the threshold of 5,000 signatures to meritan official response.
Making the switch would require collectiveaction: we’d all have to make the switch together. Until the late1960’s, the people of Sweden all drove on the left side of the road,like they do in England today. Then, one day, overnight, all the roadsigns in Sweden were changed, and everyone — together — started drivingon the right side of the road. There were very few accidents and manybenefits. Any major change in the social status quo is hard, but it isnot impossible, and it often needs to be dramatic. (497 words)
文章地址: http://ideas.time.com/2011/11/18/why-are-we-depriving-our-teens-of-sleep/
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