The MUS Lower School Blog

Is Your Child Awake?

Thanks to our former mathematics instructor, Mr. Bruce Ryan, for keeping up with the Lower School blog [his creation :)] as he sent us a recent NYTimes article dealing with high schoolers and their being or not being awake when the first bell rings. Gone are the days of a brisk walk to school in the crisp air which allowed me to wake up before I arrived, not that it really mattered if you ask my former elementary  and junior high teachers!

Not only that, but gone are the days of manual labor before school hours, sure to awaken even the most lethargic soul. Maybe we should have P.E. first period for all, beginning at 7:00am?

Regardless, it is a good read, and it is something for us to consider.

Do Single-Sex Schools Have an Advantage?

Thanks to our own English Department chairman Jim Russell for forwarding a recent NEA article concerning some national trends in single-sex education. I am not alone in being an admirer of Memphis's successful, storied history of excellent single-sex schools. Those newer to our city often remark about the plethora of not only independent schools, but also the single-sex schools, some of which have been in continuous operation for well over 100 years.

In my opinion, the local public schools would transform overnight with the simple solution of making "period 1 English" all boys as "period 2 English" becomes all girls. No new teachers need be hired and no new facilities need be built as the classroom environment and general school discipline would be an entirely different reality. I have presented such to the local heads of state over the years, sadly to deaf ears ultimately.

Maybe the national trends will catch up to the better Memphis single-sex schools who have taken the historical approach to realizing the differences between boys and girls and building their school cultures accordingly...for the betterment of the students as well as for the larger community.

This Is Your (Father’s) Brain on Drugs - New York Times

Link: This Is Your (Father’s) Brain on Drugs - New York Times. When adults act like adolescents, it can be hard to explain the reasons behind our combined efforts at moral education. We begin our Memphis Leaders discussions with the concept of self, centering on "the brain" as we present our self-place-community-world connected discussions. I read this article and thought to myself exactly the same thoughts as the author's ending words, "... if grown-ups really have superior brains, why don’t we act as if we do?" It's an interesting read.

Fatigue and performance

With exams coming up, your sons may be tempted to cut back on sleep, but recent research indicates that isn't an effective strategy for academic success.  An article in the July-August 2005 issue of Harvard Magazine covers the latest thinking on sleep and its effect on performance.

• The human brain functions best with 7-8 hours of sleep each night.
• Repeatedly getting 5 hours of sleep per night causes the brain to function as inefficiently as one after an "all-nighter".
• Inadequate sleep can result in severe lapses of attention (think about sleep trends and the explosion in ADD diagnoses...)
• Inadequate sleep particularly impairs frontal cortex function and critical thinking, the type of thinking required to do well at MUS.
• Well-rested students perform faster and more accurately than their sleep-deprived classmates.

Something to think about as exams approach...