…that is the question.  If you spend any amount of time around teenagers, like I do, you’re probably familiar with their ever-present sleepy look.  In class, in the hallway, in the library, almost everywhere one looks you’ll see at least one teenager on the verge of falling asleep.  When asked why, students will often respond by saying “I was up late doing homework.”  Being a teacher I’m familiar with the homework demands placed on students, and as a former teenager I remember the added exhaustion that comes with sports, activities, relationships, and working a part-time job (a experience many of our international students aren’t familiar with).  Of course most teachers won’t standby and let students sleep in their class, and I would argue that if they’re trying to you might want to rethink some of the teaching strategies being used in your classroom.  However, what about the other spaces in the school?  Should students be allowed a place in school to rest during study hall?  How about a quick nap over lunch in the quiet library?  Is this ok?

At the risk of sharing a “when I was your age story”, I don’t remember many teachers allowing students the liberty to find a comfy corner to sleep when I was a student.  Yet, I know there is a lot of research about the benefits of napping, and as a fan of quick-naps to boost productivity, I often wish we’d encourage this practice more in the workplace.  After all don’t all those cutting edge companies in Silicon Valley providing napping rooms, video game consoles, and other non-work distractions.

The truth is although most of our students won’t get their own futuristic napping pod when they start working (unless they get a job at google), the demands of the modern work experience are changing from the old nine-to-five office experience, to an always on-call lifestyle, which might allow for some restful downtime at 1 PM, and some more work after dinner.

Yet, despite all these rationalizations for letting students catch up on zzz’s during the school day, I also question the message we’re sending students.  Truthfully, as much as I’d like a midday nap, I don’t usually get one, and I don’t know many other professionals that do.  Also as much as I like the idea of trusting that my students can manage their own time, I find that most of them cannot. Many of them don’t use their study hall time well, they let a 10 minute study breaks in the evening turn into a 2-hour video game binge, and then get to bed extra late, knowing that they might be able to sneak a nap into study hall to even things out…albeit at the cost of a productive math, social studies, or science class that was earlier in the day.

So have times changed and so should our expectations of focused student productivity?  Or should the school day be used to instill disciplined study habits into our students?  What do you do at your school?