Hacker News Reader

Comment by vl | Hacker News Reader

In Soviet Union and then Russia there was not enough school capacity. So schools worked in two shifts. Half of my school years I started school at 1pm. Wasn’t that bad, I actually preferred it.

As for “natural sleep cycle” and “improved quality” I can tell you that this is self-made (or rather parent-made) problem in this case. If I take my children’s devices away at 8pm, then they go to bed by themselves after 9, have a good sleep and ready for school.

Ironically, similar thing happens to me, but sadly there is nobody to take away my phone, as time of this comment shows.

View on HN

> As for “natural sleep cycle” and “improved quality” I can tell you that this is self-made (or rather parent-made) problem in this case. If I take my children’s devices away at 8pm, then they go to bed by themselves after 9, have a good sleep and ready for school.

When talking about adolescents, which this study does, this is false since in adolescents the sleep phase is biologically delayed.

Biologically delayed relative to what? Circadian rhythms have to be cued off some external driver, whether that's daylight hours, mealtimes or whatever.

> Biologically delayed relative to what?

Relative to humans at others stages of development.

> Circadian rhythms have to be cued off some external driver, whether that's daylight hours, mealtimes or whatever.

Yes, and our bodies react differently to those cues depending on our stage of development.

> If I take my children’s devices away at 8pm, then they go to bed by themselves after 9, have a good sleep and ready for school.

You have forgotten to mention the age of your children.

(Noting that there is a change in circadian rhythm - around 20:30 up until puberty, and then much later - 23:00 or so for late teens - and then later it shifts back earlier. This is fairly well understood and agreed science. So for children under 13 or 14, you'd expect comparable sleep patterns to adults - but for that 15-20 range, not so much.)

Anecdotal evidence, but in my school the afternoon shift was associated with more "problematic" behaviour, both boys and girls. More rough and tumble play, that is the technical term I think, more abuse and fighting. Might have something to do with all those mornings without parental supervision.

> Ironically, similar thing happens to me, but sadly there is nobody to take away my phone, as time of this comment shows.

You sent this at about 1330 Moscow time.

Fair enough, I’m in Seattle, ie Pacific time zone. So it was around 2-3am.

Soviet union spanned several timezones. The person writing the comment could have been in Vladivostok for example.

Vladivostok is UTC+10, Moscow is UTC+3. So 2030 if they wrote it by candlelight in Kamchatka. Still not really that late.

As the other responder said maybe they are in California but didn't give any other hints and left us this puzzle to work out what they heck they meant.

They could be in California.

lived in USSR till 1993 and never heard about two shift schools...

interesting

USSR ceased to be a political entity in 1991, but that nitpick aside, it still happens in Russia. It's not ubiquitous but it's not rare - about 20% of schools

> There were 13,100 double shift and 75 triple shift schools in 2007–2008

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Russia

There's a UNESCO report on double shift shcools

> In South Africa and Namibia, double-shift schooling is called ‘platooning’ – a term which echoes a usage in the USA dating from 1920 (Kleinhans, 2002: 10).

> In Zimbabwe, double-session schooling is also called ‘hot seating’ because the school seats are said never to have time to cool down

> Double-shift schooling is most common in poor countries. Financial pressures in these countries are so severe that administrators are forced to investigate all ways to minimize costs. But all administrators wish to maximize cost-effectiveness. For this reason, double shifts are also used in relatively prosperous countries such as Brazil

https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000163606

I'm from South Africa and have never heard of it. But if anything I think it's a great idea to make more efficient use of school funding, physical resources etc.

It’s common in Mexico also.

In Croatia most of the schools run in two shifts, with pupils switching shifts every week.

I would have probably died if I had to go at 8 AM every week.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com