Classes should be more flexible to accommodate students so they would be under way less stress, enjoy their college/university experience, and help improve sleep.
What if kids had the choice to stay home for the day, but still get all of their work done? Students would be under less stress and have more time to have fun and enjoy themselves.
Now that the world has moved into post-pandemic mode, classes are going back to strictly in-person. This isn’t helping students, especially those having trouble sleeping. If they’re tired all the time, the motivation to get up and go to class is constantly fading away.
At this point in a student’s life, they should be allowed to do all of the stupid stuff they know they shouldn’t. We live and we learn. That’s the point.
But even then, students might decide to not partake in any of said “stupid stuff.” They might have troubles elsewhere, such as insomnia or sleep deprivation. They are expected to get up to go to school when they’ve been awake all night long, whether they like it or not.
Take high schoolers as an example. Waking up for school at an ungodly hour is their worst nightmare. They go to sleep at night, dreading what’s to come in the morning. However, if they haven’t slept, then they face the consequences for actions that are out of their control. They’re punished for not paying attention, when in reality, they were lying awake in bed until four a.m. when they needed to be up again at six.
According to The National Library of Medicine, up to 60 per cent of Canadian college students have difficulties sleeping, and 27 per cent of all university students are at a risk of at least one sleep disorder. If this issue is so common, there should be actions being taken to help ease the effects.
The actions that need to be taken are quite simple, and highly effective: class schedules should be flexible. When the pandemic was starting to fade away, classes were hybrid: you could either be online or in-person. In order to allow students to make the most of their time, and ease their stress levels, schools should allow hybrid classes again.