acidtoyman

"The only disadvantages" you say, when I've already given you a few. There are fewer options in the mornings—and one of those fewer options is "getting classes over with" (to bring this back on topic), with people suggesting pushing classes back even later.

There shouldn't be any self-selection if these people don't exist. We're being told that "adolescents" all require sleeping late, thus school should start later for all students.

I suggested this below, and within minutes was mercilessly downvoted. Apparently statistical averages are to be employed as Procrustes Beds against these deviants who don't conform to the statistical average.

Plenty of adolescents are not "biologically driven to stay up late and wake up late". I woke up at 05:00 or so nearly every morning when I was a teenager—per my internal clock—and I'm not alone.

You're not a morning person, are you?

I sure wouldn't have been getting a part-time job or been out playing with my friends at 06:00 in the morning, so, no, I couldn't "use the morning to do whatever [I] want to".

Especially if "what I want to do" is get my classes done and out of the way.

Oh, Jesus Christ—so let's force kids into another Procrustes Bed, eh? Let a different tail wag the dog?

There are those of us who naturally wake up early (I'm one, and I know plenty of others), and there are those of use who naturally sleep until noon.

Obviously, later start times would be awesome for late sleepers. They would also suck hard for those of us who have already been up for hours before school even starts.

A German friend of mine told me her school started at 07:00 every day and finished at noon. She said she preferred it that way, and so would I have.

What's wrong with having staggered start times for high schools? Some students could choose to start at 07:00, others as late as the afternoon. We'd fit more classes into the same school buildings, making potentially more efficient use of public resources.

It's both a myth that Japan is, or ever has been, a "monoculture", and quite the leap to assume a "monoculture" would produce such behaviour.

It depends on where you live. There are areas where you never hear of it, and others where being carded once or twice a year is the norm.

Do you have a source for that? It's certainly not the legal case.

You're considered gaijin even if you're born in the country. My half-Japanese children (born and bred in Japan) get called "gaijin" all the time.

I ... am Canadian ... and have never in my life heard anything so absurd. I'm not going to throw away a lifetime of experience because of some ridiculous and obviously false comment on the internet.

Use your head: a society that couldn't deal with broken bones without months-long lineups would grind to a halt. How can you seriously believe something so ludicrous? Notice how many other Canadians are jumping in to tell you your statement is totally untrue.

"... non-life-threatening illnesses like a broken arm can have waiting times measured in months ..."

It astounds me that people can hear stories such as this and actually believe them. No, of course people don't wait months to get their broken arm taken care of. I broke my foot and had it in a cast that night, and the only reason it took as long as that was because I didn't realize at first that I'd broken it.