Teachers generally have duties that extend beyond the classroom. There is no reason that they couldn't do this before class instead of after. If they want to, of course - some of them would probably just have a later day. This "rigid 8am system" is part of the problem and it affects everyone. It certainly isn't the only problem: A lot of professors wind up having to have second jobs. We could pay more - and have slightly more flexible scheduling - and take care of some of the issues.

And realistically, it isn't like they are proposing offering more evening classes. Most proposals for later start times are advocating starting 1-2 hours later, not "lets all work second shift".

I'm sure we could come up with time tables that would allow more senior classes is high school to start later. E.g. year 9 & 10 start one lesson after year 7 & 8. This would mean scheduling challenges for families, school/public transport and other areas but maybe the outcome would be better?

The challenge that will remain is that you might have groups/classes where there are early risers and night owls in one. What to do then?

Why would you want to change starting time based on age?

Early risers can still get up early and lessons won't last till night, so they should not be affected negatively much.

It looks like late wake times peak from ages 14-19. There's a well-documented circadian rhythm shift affecting teens.

Hence schools rejiggering (and California requiring by law) later start times for high school students.

At the school I teach at, middle school students were taken along for the ride, because at our school we need to be on a common schedule (crossover teachers, MS students in HS classes). Of course, on the flip-side, no one wants to push it too late because of things like sports and outings with family wanting to have some daylight after school; we ended up starting 30 minutes later, but also shortening the school day by 15 minutes (and doing some clever schedule changes to claw back most of the instructional time lost).

> Why would you want to change starting time based on age?

Because there primary and secondary education utilizes a single set of busses, and nobody is volunteering to pay for duplicates just so everyone can start as late as you'd like. Locally, this means our elementary kids go first, then the high school kids, then the middle schoolers.

Anecdotally, this is a good arrangement. The middle schoolers really need the late start. The high schoolers are a bit more mature and can handle a slightly earlier start, and generally have an increased amount of extracurricular activities competing for daytime.

That you cannot fill some roles in an organisation is a problem of, well, organisation and motivation, isn’t it?

My “conspiracy” remark was with /s which meant sarcasm. It’s just that it can very practically suck to be an outlier from the blessed “norm” of having your sleep schedule more or less synced with day-night cycle.

Classroom and gear utilization of only 8hrs/day would be unacceptable in the industry. I never envisioned that some people might want 8pm classes but maybe it’s an idea. I know that my father, headmaster for high schools, sometimes received threats at home from teachers at 8am on Sunday during the period of establishing the schedules, to tell him that he’d better not assign this or that teacher to the 8am class or…

It's a conspiracy without the quotes alright, the early risers aren't a huge part of the population[1] yet somehow the rest of us need to conform to them in every way.

[1] https://www.appliedchronobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2022...

That's a lovely chart, but it doesn't seem to be using solar time? I wake just as the sun stretches over the horizon and peeks though my window. In the summer, it's very early; in the winter, it's quite late.

If we're to set the start for the official day, it should probably happen an hour or so after the sun has risen. Sadly, on the western side of time zones, like Grand Rapids MI, it's often pitch black when the workday starts.

I can choose to believe that graph, or I can choose to believe it's getting something wrong and the majority of people want to get up relatively early. For whatever reason that may be. If the early risers were indeed such a minority, how exactly are they forcing the vast majority to conform?

Idk, how is the rich minority forcing the rest of humanity to slave away dusk till dawn to buy them superyachts and private islands?

By being the ones in position of authority of course. It doesn't take more than one or two examples for the rest of the world to copy something verbatim out of practical conformist reasons.