Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
Surveys of American teenagers find that about half
of them do not get enough sleep on school nights.
They get an average of sixty to ninety minutes less
than experts say they need. One reason for this
deficit is biology. Experts say teens are
biologically programmed to go to sleep later and
wake up later than other age groups. Yet many
schools start classes as early as seven in the
morning. As a result, many students go to class
feeling like sixteen-year-old Danny. He plays two
sports, lacrosse and football. He is an active teen
-- except in the morning. He says getting up in the
morning is pretty terrible. He is very tired.
Through first and second period of school he can
barely stay awake. Michael Breus is a clinical
psychologist with a specialty in sleep disorders. He
says teenagers need to sleep eight to nine hours or
even nine to ten hours a night. He says sleepy teens
can experience a form of depression that could have
big effects on their general well-being. It can
affect not just their ability in the classroom but
also playing sports and driving a car. Michael Breus
says any tired driver is dangerous, but especially a
teenager with a lack of experience. So what can
schools do about sleepy students? The psychologist
says one thing they can do is start classes later in
the morning. He points to studies showing that
students can improve by a full letter grade in their
first- and second-period classes. Eric Peterson is
the head of St. George's School in the state of
Rhode Island. He wanted to see if a thirty-minute
delay would make a difference. It did. He says
visits to the health center by tired students
decreased by half. Late arrivals to first period
fell by a third. And students reported that they
were less sleepy during the day.Eric Peterson knows
that changing start times is easier at a small,
private boarding school like his. But he is hopeful
that other schools will find a way.Patricia Moss, an
assistant dean at St. George's School, says students
were not the only ones reporting better results. She
says just about all the teachers noticed immediately
much more alertness in class and a more positive
mood. For VOA Special English I'm Alex Villarreal.
You can read, listen and comment on our programs at
voaspecialenglish.com. We're also on Facebook and
Twitter at VOA Learning English.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
