4 ms·

The trouble I see here is you're equating a propensity for high school kids to push the envelope on _everything_ with medical residents and shift workers. Sanc

The trouble I see here is you're equating a propensity for high school kids to push the envelope on _everything_ with medical residents and shift workers. Sanctimonious lecturing? I think you need more time in the field. Stop by any house with kids on a Friday night about 2300 and you'll see kids and adolescents alike dozing off, barely able to keep their heads up. When bed is suggested they sit up a little straighter and protest "I'm not tired." What you missed in my original post (somehow, it was only a paragraph) is that I spent 4 years in high school quoting these sleep studies. Just like I spent 4 years quoting the Tinker decision, and debating Hazelwood. But the truth is that staying out past curfew and putting my homework off until the last possible second and staying up to watch Conan and the Daily Show had absolutely NOTHING to do with my "biological clock." It was me, dozing off, and snapping to, my backbone stiff, saying "I'm ok, i'm not tired."

dgordon 17y ago
I got a head start on you, so I spent six years in school condemning Hazelwood and other criminally unconstitutional decisions, but what's more important are all the years since. I didn't learn to justify eliminating the rights of "minors" for their age alone, like most people seem to. And, more to the point, I never "got used" to waking up before 7 am in school, because you don't get used to sleep deprivation. You just get less and less healthy. Was I perfectly responsible with my sleep time, doing of homework, etc., in school? Of course not. No one was. But that fact doesn't disprove that it's very difficult for most teenagers to follow the sleep schedule that American schools impose on them, and not just because they like to stay up late.
jacobolus 17y ago
> ... I spent 4 years in high school quoting these sleep studies. Just like I spent 4 years quoting the Tinker decision, and debating Hazelwood. What do Tinker/Hazelwood have to do with sleep? Or are you suggesting that siding with the Warren court decision was some kind of youthful indiscretion that thankfully the Rehnquist court backed off on? Though I was never a writer for a high school newspaper, I’m damn glad in CA we have some legitimate protection for student journalists and other student speech. > But the truth is that staying out past curfew and putting my homework off [...] had absolutely NOTHING to do with my "biological clock." How can you possibly assert this? First, your suggestion that you personally would have been fine if you’d just been less stubborn is counter-factual speculation. But second, your assertion is flat out contradicted by careful scientific research on the subject. The whole “personal individual willpower is the only causal mechanism in the world” fallacy so pervasive in our society is really distressing to me. It leads to terrible policy aimed at blaming the suffering rather than trying to help them achieve better outcomes. It’s great that poor diets; low-paying menial jobs; living in physically dangerous gang neighborhoods; getting stiffed out of insurance, pensions, etc. by unscrupulous businesses; deaths from “reckless driving” on poorly planned streets; getting imprisoned for decades for drug possession; getting straight-up scammed by not carefully reading through all the fine print on contracts intentionally designed such that their real implications differ substantially from the signatories’ mutual understanding; becoming pregnant as a teenager; catching a venereal disease; etc. etc. are subject to free will, and can be avoided by the smart and careful. But while that’s good advice for individuals trying to navigate the society – “do your work”, “get enough sleep and exercise”, “eat right”, “read the fine print” – it’s atrocious policy, because it ignores cognitive biases and intuitions and focuses only on narrowly construed technical responsibility. The result is inefficiency, poor health, unnecessary death, &c. &c. And we “teach” people to be “personally responsible” by condemning large numbers of them to bad outcomes, with nearly no evidence that any learning actually occurs as a result. Most importantly, it eliminates empathy for those in rough situations. After all, if all outcomes are based mostly on personal merit, the down-on-their-luck must just deserve what they get.
kiba 17y ago
Have you ever thought that I actually try your all your suggestion and more? Oh lord, I don't even watch the Daily Show and Conan which seem to be mindless trite that other people watch. Heck I don't even know what these shows are. Maybe those teenagers aren't really pushing the envelope. Maybe they just aren't made biologically to sleep at what the American system demand. I took personal responsibility seriously, but don't ever expect me to do the biological impossible. Stop lecturing me about things that I already tried.

dgordon 17y ago

I got a head start on you, so I spent six years in school condemning Hazelwood and other criminally unconstitutional decisions, but what's more important are all the years since. I didn't learn to justify eliminating the rights of "minors" for their age alone, like most people seem to. And, more to the point, I never "got used" to waking up before 7 am in school, because you don't get used to sleep deprivation. You just get less and less healthy. Was I perfectly responsible with my sleep time, doing of homework, etc., in school? Of course not. No one was. But that fact doesn't disprove that it's very difficult for most teenagers to follow the sleep schedule that American schools impose on them, and not just because they like to stay up late.

jacobolus 17y ago

> ... I spent 4 years in high school quoting these sleep studies. Just like I spent 4 years quoting the Tinker decision, and debating Hazelwood. What do Tinker/Hazelwood have to do with sleep? Or are you suggesting that siding with the Warren court decision was some kind of youthful indiscretion that thankfully the Rehnquist court backed off on? Though I was never a writer for a high school newspaper, I’m damn glad in CA we have some legitimate protection for student journalists and other student speech. > But the truth is that staying out past curfew and putting my homework off [...] had absolutely NOTHING to do with my "biological clock." How can you possibly assert this? First, your suggestion that you personally would have been fine if you’d just been less stubborn is counter-factual speculation. But second, your assertion is flat out contradicted by careful scientific research on the subject. The whole “personal individual willpower is the only causal mechanism in the world” fallacy so pervasive in our society is really distressing to me. It leads to terrible policy aimed at blaming the suffering rather than trying to help them achieve better outcomes. It’s great that poor diets; low-paying menial jobs; living in physically dangerous gang neighborhoods; getting stiffed out of insurance, pensions, etc. by unscrupulous businesses; deaths from “reckless driving” on poorly planned streets; getting imprisoned for decades for drug possession; getting straight-up scammed by not carefully reading through all the fine print on contracts intentionally designed such that their real implications differ substantially from the signatories’ mutual understanding; becoming pregnant as a teenager; catching a venereal disease; etc. etc. are subject to free will, and can be avoided by the smart and careful. But while that’s good advice for individuals trying to navigate the society – “do your work”, “get enough sleep and exercise”, “eat right”, “read the fine print” – it’s atrocious policy, because it ignores cognitive biases and intuitions and focuses only on narrowly construed technical responsibility. The result is inefficiency, poor health, unnecessary death, &c. &c. And we “teach” people to be “personally responsible” by condemning large numbers of them to bad outcomes, with nearly no evidence that any learning actually occurs as a result. Most importantly, it eliminates empathy for those in rough situations. After all, if all outcomes are based mostly on personal merit, the down-on-their-luck must just deserve what they get.

kiba 17y ago

Have you ever thought that I actually try your all your suggestion and more? Oh lord, I don't even watch the Daily Show and Conan which seem to be mindless trite that other people watch. Heck I don't even know what these shows are. Maybe those teenagers aren't really pushing the envelope. Maybe they just aren't made biologically to sleep at what the American system demand. I took personal responsibility seriously, but don't ever expect me to do the biological impossible. Stop lecturing me about things that I already tried.