Who "stole" the sleep of teenagers

　　□ Our newspaper trainee reporter Zhang Shoukun

　　□ reporter Wang Yang

　　On March 1, the "Chinese National Mental Health Report (2019-2020)" (hereinafter referred to as the Blue Book), which was investigated and compiled by the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was released. It mentioned that the phenomenon of insufficient sleep among Chinese adolescents continued to deteriorate. 95.5% of primary school students, 90.8% of junior high school students and 84.1% of high school students did not sleep up to the standard.

　　Severe sleep time that does not meet the standard will seriously affect the physical development and physical and mental health of primary and secondary school students.

The Ministry of Education recently issued the "Key Points of Work of the Ministry of Education in 2021", which clearly proposes to strengthen the five management of homework, sleep, mobile phones, reading materials, and physical fitness, research and release relevant policy documents, home and school co-governance, and monitoring and assessment.

　　The Ministry of Education included the sleep of elementary and middle school students in the assessment. The starting point is good, but when it comes to the implementation level, many people worry that the index-based assessment may become a new formalist burden for teachers; the "root disease" of insufficient sleep cannot be solved, and sleep assessment may Become the most difficult homework to complete.

　　Experts interviewed by a reporter from the "Rules of Law Daily" believe that the lack of sleep among primary and middle school students cannot be simply attributed to heavy homework and heavy studies. The reasons should be clarified and practical solutions can be put forward so that the problem can be solved fundamentally.

　Primary and secondary school students generally lack sleep

　　Academic burden is not the only reason

　　Insufficient sleep of primary and middle school students is a hot issue that has long been concerned by the society.

The blue book shows that 95.5% of elementary school students sleep less than 10 hours a day, an average of 8.7 hours; 90.8% of junior high school students sleep less than 9 hours a day, an average of 7.6 hours; 84.1% of high school students sleep less than 8 hours a day, an average of 8.7 hours 7.2 hours.

　　In addition, the length of sleep during school days showed a downward trend with the increase of grade, and the phenomenon of supplementary sleep on weekends showed a differentiation in school period.

Compared with more than 10 years ago, the sleep duration of adolescents in all school stages in 2020 will show a downward trend. The average sleep duration of elementary and junior high school on school days will be reduced by about 40 minutes, and the first and second grades will be reduced by 10 to 20 minutes; the average sleep duration of elementary school students on weekends Reduced by about 12 to 25.2 minutes, and reduced by about 20 minutes for the first and second grades. The decline in the third and high school stages is even more serious, with a reduction of 40.2 to 51.3 minutes.

　　Cheng Pingyuan, a professor at the School of Social Development of Nanjing Normal University, believes that lack of sleep in elementary and middle school students may not only affect their academic and physical health, but also may bring about a series of chain reactions, which may even lead to students' psychological depression and suicide.

Who on earth "stole" the sleep of primary and secondary school students?

　　According to a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily, in middle schools in rural areas and other areas with underdeveloped education, and even in high schools in cities where the rate of entering one or two colleges is not very high, most students stay up late to study at night and can go to bed at midnight. It's still early.

Many students will choose to drink coffee and apply wind oil to keep themselves awake during class the next day.

　　Zhao Yun (pseudonym), a teacher at a primary school in Hedong District, Tianjin, told the reporter of the Rule of Law Daily that now the lower grades of their school can be dismissed at 3 o'clock in the afternoon at the earliest. At this time, there are already many remedial class staff at the door waiting to pick up students.

"Not only the upper grades, but also the first and second grades of elementary school students are just after school and go to school."

　　Li Yun (pseudonym), a fourth-grade elementary school student of Lize Branch of Chaoyang Fangcaoyuan International School in Fengtai District, Beijing, told a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily that she usually goes to bed at about 10 in the evening and wakes up at 6:30 in the morning. The main reason for lack of sleep is extracurricular. The homework assigned by the remedial class is more difficult and heavy than the school.

Sometimes school assignments are also time-consuming, such as hand-written newspapers, small science experiments, etc.

　　In Cheng Pingyuan's view, whether it is going to remedial classes or overweighting homework, from the root cause, it is caused by the current education evaluation mechanism.

"With the marketization of education, lack of sleep for students is an inevitable phenomenon. Learning in the normal sense, such as sleeping less because of diligence, or doing some extracurricular activities with passion, is not a problem, and it will not be done for a long time. At present, there are obviously problems with students' learning behaviors and goals."

　　Cheng Fangping, a professor at the School of Education of Renmin University of China, believes that lack of sleep for elementary and middle school students is a comprehensive problem. It cannot be said to be a problem of homework. It is also related to family education and student learning habits.

　　Xue Nan, the head teacher of the third grade of Sucheng No. 1 Junior High School in Suzhou City, Anhui Province, told the reporter of Rule of Law Daily that even though the entrance examination was approaching, the students' homework did not increase too much.

The school has conducted a survey, and students generally report that they can complete their homework within two hours.

"Although there are not many homework assignments, some students have low learning efficiency. Sometimes they do not start writing until ninety o'clock in the evening. Most of the students who go to bed late are students with lower academic levels. In addition, there are also mobile phones, Playing games, not many students sleep late because of studying."

　　The "2019 White Paper on Sleep Index of Chinese Adolescents and Children" issued by the Chinese Sleep Research Association shows that the three major factors affecting children's sleep are schoolwork pressure, playing with mobile phones or computers, and parents failing to set a good example; among teenagers and children with poor sleep conditions, 41.9% of people will be exposed to TV, mobile phones, computers, etc. before going to bed, and about 67% of parents will often play mobile phones or computers in front of their children.

　　The inclusion of sleep monitoring causes controversy

　　Ensuring sleep requires the right medicine

　　In order to ensure the sleep of elementary and middle school students, the Ministry of Education previously issued the "Management Standards for Compulsory Education Schools" and the "Work Plan for Prevention and Control of Myopia for Elementary and Secondary School Students", suggesting that it should guarantee 10 hours of sleep for elementary school students, 9 hours for junior high school students, and 8 hours for high school students. .

　　Recently, the Ministry of Education has proposed to do a good job in the management of homework, sleep, mobile phones, reading materials, and physical fitness of primary and secondary school students. The quality and time of sleep of primary and secondary school students will be handed over to the home and school for "co-governance" and included in the monitoring assessment.

　　The Ministry of Education proposed that in sleep management, the boundary between family and school should be demarcated, the school’s way of exerting power should be studied, how the school should cooperate with parents in specific ways, and the assessment should be monitored to ensure that the children sleep adequately, according to the growth process of Chinese children. The average sleep time standard during the middle and physiological development process is assessed.

　　However, when implemented at the implementation level, many people expressed concern: "home-school co-governance, monitoring and assessment", how the school monitors, how the family cooperates, whether it will be reduced to formalism such as small program check-in and parent group solitaire. Can the sleep assessment fail to meet the standard to "re-sleep"?

　　Wang Xin (pseudonym), director of the political education department of a high school in Jiangsu Province, also expressed his doubts to the reporter of the Rule of Law Daily: “For students living in schools, we can also check their sleep conditions every day by checking their bed. We can only ask parents to cooperate every day. As time goes by, teachers are annoying, and parents are also annoying. Some parents can only rely on the students themselves when they are out of town. We don’t know whether they have enough sleep or not."

　　Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, pointed out that the main reason for lack of sleep is still related to the evaluation mechanism of education. Students are queued according to a single standard. Not only do students sleep well, but parents and teachers also do not sleep well. Change the evaluation mechanism. It is the most effective and valuable method.

　　Chu Zhaohui said that after the evaluation mechanism is changed, sleep monitoring of students is no longer necessary.

Students have time and space for autonomous activities, and their evaluation of children will also take into account various factors such as personality characteristics.

　　But at present, it is difficult to change the education evaluation mechanism in a short period of time.

So, how can primary and middle school students sleep well and sleep well in the current education evaluation mechanism?

　　The Blue Book recommends that with the goal of eating, sleeping, exercising, and cultivating healthy living habits in an all-round way, including increasing the intake of vegetables and fruits by teenagers, extending the sleep duration of teenagers’ school days, and increasing the frequency of exercise for primary and middle school students.

At the same time, schools, families, communities, and the Internet should be combined to comprehensively improve the mental health of young people, including the establishment of a sound mental health prevention and intervention system in schools and the establishment of a sound mental health prevention and intervention assistance system in the country.

　　Cheng Fangping reminded that if solving the sleep problem of elementary and middle school students is regarded as a rigid rule, all parties are likely to be passive.

"Students lack of sleep, whether it is physical or psychological, the school and parents must provide necessary help. Students should also find the problem in time, if it is because of low learning efficiency, addiction to mobile phones, the Internet, etc., they must also take responsibility. Correct in time."

　　Cheng Fangping said that to solve the problem of insufficient sleep for primary and middle school students, administrative attention is certainly important, but all aspects of polarity, simple and understandable principles, and practical methods should be kept up. Otherwise, sleep monitoring may become a social pressure rather than a problem. Power.