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Sandy

Excerpt from Book One

Chapter 4: “Sleep Deprivation and Competency”

(this text can be found on pages 59 – 60 of the first “Teaching Smarter” book)

Here are a few more concepts I try to cover in the first few days. One is the concept of sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is such a national problem even Oprah devoted a whole show to it. In America, we have so much to fill our days. Back when computers were first becoming popular, (there I go, showing my age again!) we were assured the computer would make our lives simpler. Wellll, didn’t work out that way! I once read that the average American receives more information in one day than the pioneers got in one year. Add to that the use of pagers and cell phones and it gets a little crazy. What happened to “down time?” In order to get everything done, we only have one place to get the time. We frequently rob from sleep time.

The increase in accidents where cars go off the road, with no evidence of braking, points to an increase in people falling asleep at the wheel. Sadly, we lost a fine young man from our high school due to sleep deprivation. He was working two jobs to earn money for college. On his way home from the night job, he fell asleep at the wheel and his car crossed the center line into a large truck.

Students need to know the symptoms of sleep deprivation. They need to know it is slow to come on and slow to go away – WE NEED TO KNOW IT TOO. I have included some pages, suitable for copying, if you would like to make plastic overlays for a short presentation to your class. (See figure 4-1 and figure 4-2 at the end of this chapter). Please do cover this topic. It is important for us all to know that maybe everyone else is not irritating, maybe we are just sleep deprived and irritable! I have not found that awareness reduces the number of people who are robbing sleep time. However, it does make a difference in how students and teachers react to it.

When presenting these overheads, be sure to cover up the data and uncover one part at a time. This keeps students focused on just what you are talking about.

One of the “tests” for sleep deprivation is, “Can you fall asleep in 10 minutes or less in the middle of the day?” This question usually brings comments like, “Dude, I’ve got it!” like it’s a disease. I guess in a way it is an American epidemic.

If we are all aware of the signs of sleep deprivation, at least we will realize we are seeing the world through tired eyes, and not how the world may really be. We also can take comfort in the fact that it may not always have to be this way. There is a “cure.”

I have found that students are less reluctant to write reminders to themselves like, “test – Earth Science – Wednesday on chapter 12,” if they feel it is because of sleep deprivation, rather than thinking it is because they are stupid.