4 ms·

In the UK it's normal for schools to start around 9am. I thought this was some kind of avant gate experiment letting teens start at 11am, I would've loved that

• warning26 4y ago
  It's because surburban parents demand these early start times so they can drop their kids off while commuting to work. A ridiculous justification, of course, but that's what you get with a combination of helicopter parenting and a society overreliant on cars.
  • cool_dude85 4y ago
    I had always heard the explanation that early HS start times were to allow the possibility of an after-school job. Not sure which is true.
  • Thlom 4y ago
    I get it for kids younger than 8-10 (depending on the kid), but after that age kids should be able to get out of the house and to school on their own. For the youngest it can be solved with a before school program. The kids just need a place to eat breakfast and chill with their friends before the school day starts.
    • Gigachad 4y ago
      Letting a child under 18 step outside without being in a car or under direct parent supervision is child abuse in the US and the police will usually be called.
      • Nextgrid 4y ago
        As a non-American I can't tell whether this is sarcasm.
        • Gigachad 4y ago
          No, there are countless shocking cases of police showing up for things like a child was playing in the front yard unattended while the parent was inside and in some cases the child was taken from the parent due to this “abuse”. Allowing a 13 year old to walk to a bus stop would be extremely high risk for having police called.
          • SoftTalker 4y ago
            Not universally true in the US. Perhaps in some of the more uptight suburbs. Not at all true in the more rural area where I live.
            • crooked-v 4y ago
              It absolutely happens often enough all across the coutnry to be a serious concern for parents, and you can find plenty of news articles about it with some simple web searches.
            • heavyset_go 4y ago
              It doesn't just happen in uptight suburbs.
          • TinkersW 4y ago
            I see kids wandering around my neighborhood by themself or in groups all the time, and where I grew up(rural CA), I roamed 5-15 miles away from home regularly on a bike or 4-wheeler.
  • quickthrower2 4y ago
    Also wealth erosion. Inflation. Property prices. Both parents have to work full time.
  • Macha 4y ago
    This was also a thing in Ireland. The school building opened at 7:30am, but it was basically just the principal and janitor in that early. As one of the kids getting dropped off relatively early (7:45am), I just did my homework in the school building until classes started at 9:15am, which meant my evenings were free. There was no need to force all the other students to start earlier too. (And I would then nap in first period as a result of getting up early, which teachers would take in different ways. Some just left me, some would try catch me out by asking questions, but since I had just done the homework an hour before and read ahead on the material, usually I could answer)
  • tzs 4y ago
    Early start times in the US long predate both the large growth and suburbs and the shift from almost all kids having a stay at home Mom to having both parents employed outside the home.
• throwaway787544 4y ago
  Wait until you hear how much vacation and health care we get. As pampered as Americans are in a lot of ways, we also screw ourselves over plenty. (But don't tell the citizens that, they think they don't have to do anything to get better living conditions)
• heavyset_go 4y ago
  > 7am seems pretty sadistic to me It is, and a lot of people seemed to take joy in putting kids through the wringer for no reason. Not only do some people enjoy doing that to kids, they are also proud of it, and make up reasons for why the borderline abuse is actually good for kids. At least that was my takeaway from growing up in the US, that adults can be pretty sadistic to the kids whose lives they're in charge of.