Coetail post 3

Bedtime and GAFE

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Jeffrey Wrensen

Here in Pakistan dinner starts around 9 or 10 and if you are lucky or rich enough to set your own work schedule, you roll in around noon.  I know I’m generalizing, but this is all information I’ve been told by my Pakistani colleagues and friends.  Some of the local teachers are a bit ostracized from their community because they go to bed at a reasonable(for a teacher) hour, and are up at 5 am.  My students are from the wealthiest Pakistani families and tend to follow their parent’s schedule.

We all know that our kids need around 10 hours as they are growing, but when you tuck in at 12 and are up at 6:30, you won’t be getting the most out of school.

Google Docs’ favorite tool of mine might be the revision history (ctrl+alt+shift+g) or File –> revision history.  It logs the time that kids are doing their work.  At first I viewed it as a great way to see who was contributing to group projects.  Then I started paying more attention to when.

As teachers we become pseudo-parents as well.  We talk about bullying, eating right, recycling and can monitor all of this on campus.  Once the bell rings, the kids are off to their own lives where it seems to be a land of little supervision and lots of time spent with the nanny.  Again, I’m generalizing, but it seems like a fair generalization to make in my current and past schools.

I have been starting most of my ESL classes by pulling up the revision history and reviewing the importance of sleep.  I’m glad that the kids are working at home and on their own, but not when it is at 11:45 pm.  I encourage them to do their work earlier (I assign almost no ESL homework – we are usually previewing their other class work as a group), and if they have to, log onto their document, type that it is late and they had other homework to do and GO TO BED!  I’m lucky enough to have a small ESL group where they aren’t using this to get out of work.  However, they aren’t going to bed.

I’m fighting a losing battle though.  Their parent’s push for them to work hard and study late beats my argument for sleep and brain development everytime.

I also have enjoyed reviewing the full revision history to talk about group-work balance and I have the facts(history) to back up the students stories of who flaked out on the group or who was up till 1 A.M. typing away.