Welcome to Nap Club. The first rule of Nap Club is: you do not talk about Nap Club. Actually, that’s not true. While it would be a useful journalistic analogy if Nap Clubs – literally a club where teenagers can nap while at school – resembled the fictitious Fight Club of novel and film fame, you can talk about Nap Club; indeed, it is very much encouraged. Because, in the few US high schools where it has been rolled out, the benefits have been significant.
The idea of letting students nap may, at first, seem an odd one: usually, falling asleep in school hours gets you a sanction. But the evidence around the importance of sleep for learning and behaviour has persuaded some schools to take a different tack.
Dr. Linda Summers, a school nurse in New Mexico, looked into the effects of sleep for disruptive or distressed students. They ended up in the nurse’s office where they were told to lie down and relax, so they could get back into the right frame of mind for learning. They often fell asleep and, upon waking, were in a much better place mentally and could rejoin the class with no further trouble.
So, problem solved? Not really. Summers couldn’t have her office crowded with students all trying to nap, and space was simply not set up to help young people get some shut-eye. Also, Summers’ reading showed the optimum time for effective naps was 20 minutes and the students would sometimes sleep for too long.
Summers found the solution by chance: she spotted an advertisement for what sounded like the perfect “power nap” experience – a sleep pod. These futuristic-looking cocoons are popular with Silicon Valley companies that want to facilitate optimising sleep for staff. Summers saw no reason why they could not work for students, too.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der October 11, 2019-Ausgabe von TES.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der October 11, 2019-Ausgabe von TES.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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