California is Turning Children Into Wimps...

[Joe Guy]

California may pause student fitness tests due to bullying

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The governor of California wants to pause physical education tests for students over concerns with bullying and discrimination.

During a three-year suspension, the state would study whether the current test for children in fifth, seventh, and ninth grades can be modified or a new assessment should be drawn up.

The proposal, first reported by Politico, was tucked inside Gov. Gavin Newsom’s education budget bill for next year.

H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the Department of Finance, said the state has received complaints that the current examination’s measurement of body mass index is discriminatory to non-binary students. A measurement calculated from weight and height, BMI screenings require students to select “male” or “female,” he said.

Physical education classes would continue to be a requirement for graduation, however.

“The issue of BMI screening plays a role in the issues of both body shaming and bullying,” Palmer wrote in an email.

The move comes after other steps taken in California to address the health of students, including a bill signed into law last year that mandates high schools in the nation's most populous state can't begin before 8:30 a.m. and middle schools can't start before 8 a.m. It was aimed at easing sleep deprivation for students.

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[Scooter]

The later start time is absolutely the right thing to do. When I was in school, elementary and secondary, we began at 9:00 and finished at 3:30. Forcing kids to start school before 8:00 is sleep depriving and can't possibly be conducive to learning.

[TPFKA@W]

I seem to recall being in band in elementary school and having to be there at 745am. It was one long episode of being perpetually hungry and sleepy.

[Joe Guy]

It must have made you extra tired carrying that tuba around.

[Bicycle Bill]

Dear Joe:


-"BB"-

[Joe Guy]

No wonder she got so tired. A sousaphone would probably have been easier to carry.

[MajGenl.Meade]

discriminatory to non-binary students. A measurement calculated from weight and height, BMI screenings require students to select “male” or “female,” he said.

And some people wonder why it is that some other people vote for Trump?

[Big RR]

The later start time is absolutely the right thing to do. When I was in school, elementary and secondary, we began at 9:00 and finished at 3:30. Forcing kids to start school before 8:00 is sleep depriving and can't possibly be conducive to learning.

My high school was on split session, and in my senior year my first class was 6:45 AM (I was done at 1:30). No reason to be sleep deprived--just go to bed earlier if you are tired. It's a lesson most people have to learn after high school, but it is a necessary lesson in life.

As for phys ed, we do have provide employment for those who can only teach gym--remember, those who can, do; those who can't, teach; and those who can't teach, teach gym.

[Gob]

Hen used to get up at 5.30 am, to go and do an hours swim training before school.

[eddieq]

Start school later, no gym class, what's next? Ensure that schools are not uphill both ways to all future grandfathers?

[Big RR]

I guess so; global warming is taking care of the 10 feet of snow part of that account.

[Long Run]

Notwithstanding the anecdotal evidence of kids successfully waking up early for school (and I was one of those), the research I have seen pretty consistently concludes that on average teenagers do better with a later start time. Stopping P.E. over the stated issue is ridiculous as there are any number of ways to deal with the concern that don't involve ending or "pausing" a vital program that has also been shown to help teenagers do better in academics.

[MGMcAnick]

When I was in school, all 12 grades rode the same bus. The grade school started at 8:45, the HS at 9:00. They were a little over a mile or five minutes apart. Today, I see older kids waiting for their bus at 6:15 for a 7:00 start time. The younger kids are an hour later. There can't be any logical reason for it.

[BoSoxGal]

Teenagers have a greater need for sleep than adult humans, just like younger kids. This has been studied very extensively by people without an agenda to prove how tough they were in high school and how much shit they endured and because they did, kids today damned well better, too!

I had to drag my ass out for Madrigal show choir rehearsals at 7:45am every morning (which meant getting up 6:30) and no, with the load of homework and the babysitting jobs and wanting some time to just listen to Pink Floyd and watch ST-TNG after being in school until 3:30/4 with all the activities, I didn’t get to bed by 8:45pm every night to get the 8-10 hours that many teenagers need for optimal mental performance. As a consequence I started with migraines and depression, both linked very closely to sleep disorder. Burning the candle at both ends to be a high achiever for the 3.5 decades since high school I’ve continued to suffer the chronic physical and mental health conditions that are all tied back into sleep deprivation/disorder.

Teen suicide is at an all time (epidemic) high; I think we might want to do whatever we can to make the conditions of teen existence better and put aside our value judgments on what wimps they are. Or not; let the little fuckers off themselves, or become school shooters or whatever.

Sleep is profoundly undervalued by our society, and the results - the insanity and physical illness - is all around us as proof. Do some reading about advances in the neuroscience explaining exactly why our brains need sleep and maybe you’ll be convinced enough to want the young people you love to have it better than you did. (I’ll never quite understand the compulsion to see others suffer just because we did.)

[Guinevere]

Lordy yes, sleep is so important to everyone.

Although I certainly don’t need a lot less sleep as I age. I get less, because my sleep quality sucks. But when I have time and space to sleep, I try to get as much as I can. It makes a huge difference in how a body functions.

Weekend naps are wonderful things, too.