Of Relevance

So another school term began today, and I am not a happy camper.

I hate getting up unreasonably early, and I consider anything before 7:30 to be unreasonable. As things stand, I have to be out of bed at 6:45, and this is not to my liking at all. Not only is it cold and miserable, but by 3pm I am usually exhausted.

I wish schools started their day later. Say, 8:30 or so.

I read recently that pupils at schools in the US that started 30 minutes later had a remarkably increased level of concentration, because apparently that extra 30 or so minutes of sleep in the morning can make all the difference.

And while we are on the subject of school times, I think schools waste so much time that it boggles the mind. Now, I am not advocating that kids go to school and work, work, work straight through (although I am not actually sure why this is such a bad idea), but I think there should be much less of all this crap that is clothed as “school work”.

For example, my kid had to go back to school today, even though she watched the World Cup final yesterday. This is because the school need a certain school days in the year, and it couldn’t sacrifice the Monday. OK. So I considered not sending her, but in the end thought we should be slightly more responsible about it. So she went. And what did she do the whole day? She helped rearrange and clean the classroom. Well. Honestly. She has a whole room of her own she could help me clean.

And I could have slept in.