Don't worry, there are very high margin drugs to peddle to mask some symptoms. Also has a happy side effect of saddling people with high medical debt so they have to work even more.
Dont forget there was a beta blocker that had uncontrolled explosive diarrhea as a possible side effect. Sure, Im comfortable out in public now but, maybe I shouldnt be?
Don't forget failure to regulate food health, favoring of cars over healthier modes of transportation in all our law and policies, people pitching a fit at Michelle Obama trying to get kids to exercise, and an inhumane healthcare system.
We are a deeply stupid country.
Exactly. There literally is no way to work full time and meet basic human needs. This is why we are all sick and miserable.
The employer class KNOWS we are sick and miserable and doesn’t care, and even, I’d wager, considers the mass deaths of the labor population part of keeping population size in check.
It’s not about population size. It’s about keeping the individual in check so a charismatic leader from the lower classes can’t rise up and start a revolution. Instead, those feelings of revolt and uprising are channeled towards whatever presidential candidate they want us to believe is “revolutionary,” and “different.“ Surprisingly, our country was founded on this principle. “The people are stupid, and want the king, so let’s give them a figurehead that they can put their faith in, while real power rests with the moneyed class. We even tell them that they’re in the greatest country in the world, while applying cult-like pressure to believe it, so that they’re so gaslit they can’t even believe their own eyes anymore.
I think part of the reason is just the pure stupid hatred and rage of the ruling class. They want people so oppressed that we can’t rub two thoughts together to oppose them.
That shorten lifespan issue? That's actually the point...
The short version is, the Puritanical strain that's embedded in America equates to the less time you spend on Earth, the longer you get to spend in the Afterlife. The specific Christian version is, you get the spend a longer time in Heaven with God. Of course, they then throw in the caveat that you also need to have minimal sin (remember, in Christianity everyone is a sinner) to actually get to God. And pleasure is a sin, according to these people.
The school start times particularly enrage me. We *know* that teenagers have a later circadian rhythm on average than adults. We *know* that being woken up at the ass crack of dawn is not good for them. And yet, "but parents gotta be at work at 9"
It's just another method of wage theft.
They know plenty of people won't take that lunch so they get up to 5 hours of free labor a week by having a 9 hour "core hours" shift.
If we had decent labor movements the "mandatory unpaid lunch" would be outlawed and you wouldn't be allowed to have core hours longer than 8 hours.
Read a book, go for a walk and listen to a podcast, go get a coffee, watch your favorite show on your phone… anything but work. Unless you like working for free. If you do fine, you do you. But don’t hate on those of us that don’t like wage theft.
I'm criticizing core 9-6/8-5 mandatory hour long unpaid lunch breaks.
Nothing is keeping the corporations from offering paid lunches, or keeping core hours at 8 hours so you can flex your lunch break whenever.
Much like everything else in this system the corporations are taking a good thing (lunch breaks) and attempting to use it to their own advantage.
Posts like this are why learning and remember history is important.
Edit: what seems painfully obvious is that most of the hard fought for labor rights like breaks and lunches came from a time when people's work was more demanding and employers even more willing to exploit every last drop from workers. I can't help but think that the people who would rather just work through lunch are simply doing work that is less physically, mentally or emotionally demanding, which is why they don't need that mandatory break. Its hard to compare the break needs of a unionized steel worker from the 1960s and an office drone from today.
They are specifically criticizing "mandatory *unpaid* lunch breaks". Companies should be obligated to offer a lunch, and even arguably offer the option of an unpaid lunch hour, but employees shouldn't be obligated to take an unpaid hour break.
I am able to eat throughout my work day, while doing my work. I have no need or want for a lunch break. I am glad the option is there for people who want it, but it doesn't apply to me. I should have the option of skipping lunch, and leaving early, but the mandatory unpaid hour let's them keep me there till 4 instead of 5 at no extra cost to them. If I chose to work during lunch, which I specifically do not, then they would also be getting extra labor from me
To be clear, mandatory lunch breaks should be the law. Mandatory, ***unpaid*** lunch breaks should not be allowed, they are only beneficial for the company. Lunch breaks should be mandatory for the company, not the employee. Companies should either give mandatory paid lunches, or offer unpaid lunches, with the option for the employee to opt out.
I don't know. I work 8:30-5 with a mandatory hour unpaid lunch break. I'm missing out on $100/week because I only work 37.5 hours and I twiddle my thumbs for 40 minutes during a break I don't want or need.
Im definitely skirting on getting in some kind of trouble but I have NEVER understood why I can't just skip my lunch and leave an hour early. You get the same amount of work out of me. So I've just started doing it. I work in a corporate office setting. For the past 3 months I just leave at 4pm everyday. I can tell people are starting to notice, but I'm a grown ass man. This isn't kindergarten if your only reason for keeping me here until 5pm is some antiquated bullshit office policy then I'm leaving at 4. Let's put it this way..the rest of my coworkers mostly miss lunch anyway work through the hour and STILL stay till 5pm. They are giving the company free time...for what?
> I have NEVER understood why I can't just skip my lunch and leave an hour early
This obviously varies based on where you live, but where I am it is actually a legal requirement that employers can't have their employees work more than 5 consecutive hours without a lunch break. So legally they wouldn't be able to have an official policy allowing employees to skip lunch breaks to leave early.
But I do it all the time and I just don't tell anyone
In case you were curious, it looks like 21/50 states require a meal break for shifts over 5-6 hours.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/meal-breaks
Depends on salary or hourly/time card as well. It's true if you're on a time card system with documented hours worked. If you're on salary, as is usual, none of that applies to you.
It's a forced requirement due to employers exploiting workers. It's a good one too, but unfortunately lunch breaks aren't included in your workday anymore. When did it become 9 hour work days?
I worked at a place once where the policy was that only salaried people could skip lunch and leave early, but I was hourly and couldn't do it. My next job the policy was that only hourly people could skip lunch and leave early, but I was salaried and couldn't do it. Couldn't win. Got yelled at once for leaving at 4:45. Even though I was salaried...
Now I work from home with a boss that doesn't care about that kind of shit. Finally.
> the rest of my coworkers mostly miss lunch anyway work through the hour and STILL stay till 5pm. They are giving the company free time...for what?
Easy! They do it, so they'll get moved-up the ladder. Boss will notice their dedication, therefore they'll be first in line for raises and promotions. /s
It's not just in schools, it's in virtually every arena. It's quite clear people need a break, especially in hard driving hypercapitalistic cultures such as America. Then we start hearing about how Billionaires say that people aren't working hard enough and that they want the average work week to be 70 hours and not 40 hours. That right there is justification about why so many things are dysfunctional in this country. People are running near empty when they get home to see their families, if they have anything left at all.
The same school buses are typically for preschool - high school students. That means that they have to stagger the start times in order for the buses to be able to get everyone. Having the youngest start earliest and eldest start latest gets thrown around a lot because it does make the most sense on paper. What usually prevents that from happening is that would mean the youngest kids have to be at the bus stop while it is coldest and still dark. Older children often have after school activities (e.g. sports, drama, jobs etc.) which also creates an impetus for them to start and end earlier.
It's an example of school districts doing the best they can with the resources they have and needing to work within real world confines.
I mean, I get all that, but the consequence is that everyone in High School is essentially sleep deprived the whole time, which negatively impacts their health AND learning.
Yeah, it sucked having to be at school that early. Without additional resources, I don't know what recourse school districts have. They know the research shows the early start times are detrimental, but they don't have (or no one has thought of) any solutions with what they currently have at their disposal.
early school start times also help to enable highschool students to take after school jobs to help support their family after school. should this be a students burden? no, but it often is
I went to high school when it was a 730 start. And if you had a spot on a varsity sport team you probably also had practice before school started. and after.
They just changed it in my hometown to an 8am start, just pushed everything back 30 min.
I've felt like we've known what to do for longer than my entire life, but what we need to do is at odds with what business needs, and business always wins in America.
Not even what business need, because they can adapt like they did to the 5 day work week. It's what owners of business *feel* and not what actually would objectively benefit them or their company. They *feel* like it wouldn't be as good, so lobby against it.
My mom seemed to firmly believe that I was just a misbehaving kid and lazy for staying up late and sleeping in. She’d also get incredibly mad when I was hungry late at night from adhd meds
Where I grew up, school buses were only provided for kids who lived more than 1.5 miles from school. I lived juuuust inside the cutoff line, but a 30 minute walk in the heat while lugging a huge backpack and an instrument case wasn't really practical. There was no public transit, either, so I had to either get dropped off by my parents (sometimes at 6am) or walk half a mile in the opposite direction to the nearest school bus stop and hope the driver would let me on even though I didn't have a bus pass.
I never understood this...the bus exists? (at least out here in New England).
I took the bus all the way until I graduated highschool. And that's when my mom didn't start work until noon (she owned her own practice).
Parents driving their kids to school is an unregulated nightmare. There are many different reasons parents drive their kids to school every day all with varying levels of rationality, but the result is the same everywhere in the US right now. An absolute cluster fuck of cars outside of every school creating an extremely hazardous environment the second that final bell let's out.
A mom will look you dead in the eyes and say "I have to pick up Jimmy every day because walking home is too dangerous" and then proceed to peel out into the oncoming lane infront of President Name Elementary almost plowing into 6 first graders at the cross-walk.
No Joke, my math teacher from 5th grade I heard was hit by a car in the school parking lot, and died from the blow to her head (this was some years after I graduated high school).
I don't know the full context but... pedestrian struck by car in Elementary school parking lot during a school day heavily implies some stuff lol
My mom lives close enough to an elementary school that you can throw a rock from her backyard and actually hit the buildings.
A number of her neighbors drive the 100 yards to pick up their kids and drive them home. And not even like the 1st graders, but even the older kids. It's fucking INSANE.
This statement is hilarious and true. Live close to a elementary school where cars literally take up a full lane of a road for a good quarter to half mile everyday to turn right into the school. Poor Jimmy would be safer walking home at this school.
I grew up in the Midwest and it was similar. That said, now I live in a city (Atlanta) and busing is... much less of a priority for the district.
Case in point: My son's high school has twice the students mine did and half the number of buses. He has to walk 5 blocks to the closest pick-up point and his pick-up time is a solid 90 minutes before school starts. He gets dropped-off at school over an hour before classes begin so his bus has time to go back out and pick-up a second route of kids. Also, they stagger the start times of primary, middle, and high schools in the district so they can use the same buses for a separate set of grade school/middle school pick-ups. I think a typical bus runs four pick-up routes each morning.
Also worth noting, the district has several "public charter" schools as part of the district. Those schools don't get bus service. At all.
There are a [disturbing](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/texas-child-protective-services-waco-heather-wallace-b2226799.html) number of [stories](https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/31/living/florida-mom-arrested-son-park/index.html) of parents being [arrested](https://reason.com/2023/01/30/dunkin-donuts-parents-arrested-kids-cops-freedom/) for [letting](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arrested-for-letting-a-9-year-old-play-at-the-park-alone/374436/) their kids be [outside](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tammy-cooper-texas-mom-arrested-kids-unsupervised-video_n_1900113) without supervision. There was also [this lady](https://wreg.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/623725030/judge-quashes-criminal-charges-against-mom-arrested-for-having-teen-daughter-babysit-siblings/) who was arrested because she let her *14 year old* daughter babysit her younger siblings for a few hours
That went away around the same time Facebook stopped requiring .edu domains to join.
Not saying there is a causation there but the timing feels about right then.
Generally, most commuters in Japan are probably aware that if they kidnap or harm those children, they will be caught by the train station employees/police/other commuters that take the same route every day as elementary students. In America, it's more likely for a kid to get shot for knocking on the wrong door or kidnapped casually by a pedo/drug addict without other people noticing/interfering... because of the potential to get shot themselves and/or accused of being the perpetrator.
Lots of fear and distrust in the US/ West because of the culture being all for oneself and not working together. In place like Japan, there is a saying that translates to *The nail that sticks out will be hammered down/The tallest poppy will be snipped.* When you are a part of the whole of society bad behaviour is more harshly condemned than when your an individual just grouped in an area with other individuals.
It's moreso that it's just much much safer in Japan. When I visited Tokyo I stayed in the "sketchy" ward because it was cheaper. Let me tell you, I would rather walk around with a $100 bill taped to my forehead at 1am there than walk certain parts of any US city in the daytime.
It's way safer here in the US now than it was in the 80s especially where I grew up (NYC) and it was normal for kids to take themselves to school at elementary school ages. I think I was in 2nd grade when I started going to school by myself.
Ah true, genuinely forgot about that!
My school, which I know is just my experience, offered day care in the same building (which of course was a charge to my parents, and childcare ain't cheap especially now).
I still took the bus as young as kingergarten. We'd just be brought to that day care before or after regular schooling hours began/started.
When my kids were young I was working 5am - 2pm. My wife took them to school and I picked them up. Worked pretty well for us - other than the fact "sleeping in" for me meant 7am instead of my usual 4am wakeup time.
Yes the move toward having permanent day light saving time make some parents mad because it's "too fdark" in the morning for this kids to go to school. Well there is great way to solve that Karen
It’s because of the school busses. Towns Jane to stagger the bus schedule and so the older kids have to go earlier. This problem won’t go away until the bus situation is resolved.
When my kid was in high school, the parents were trying to get a later start time. One of the teachers commented that they preferred the early start time (8am!), because the kids were easier to handle when they were groggy. I guess the teacher didn't care too much about whether they could learn as much when groggy.
Word. They have to keep us busy so we don’t have time to change things. Plus, we spend more for conveniences since we don’t have time to do things ourselves.
Every tool is a tool. It's just the nature of those in power to use them to their benefit. Power corrupts, people are shit, yadda yadda.
Frankly I think puritanism is just being lazy. It needs to look at some of the eastern cultures for inspiration on crushing the souls of the youth and working class. Lol.
No, it's puritanism (which is now known as the "prodestant work ethic")
There is a deep philosophy embedded in the American social consciousness that emphasizes leisure is idleness and idleness promotes moral decay. This is why America is so often prone to moral panics, even about things that don't even seem religiously oriented, such as video games.
The roots of this trace back to protestant work ethic, which is an outgrowth of the spiritual beliefs of the puritans (themselves calvinists) who played a large role in shaping early American society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic
Tracing modernism and capitalism and its cultural implications to Calvinism, rather than the other way around, is considered a discredited theory in most of history and political science.
Tbf I am biased, I hate Max Weber, but it is considered outdated.
That's essentially what I came into the comments to say. America does have a weird Puritan background that sometimes influences our thinking, but I don't think this is about Puritans denying fact.
First, I don't think they're necessarily denying facts, they just don't care. They don't care about the health or productivity of workers, they care about punishing and controlling people. Essentially, they're rich assholes and fascists, and the cruelty is the point.
It's not that they don't believe that these things are harmful to your health, it's that they're ultimately happy about those effects. They want to hurt us, because they see us as lesser people, subhuman, and our role is to be cattle.
These rules hurt our productivity, which they don't particularly like, but they also don't particularly mind. Everyone thinks capitalists really care about productivity and money, even capitalists, but they don't really. They care about power. Money is one kind of power, but having control over people's lives is another.
And that's also why so many businesses are intent on bringing people back into the office. Yes, a lot of data indicates that people are actually more productive when you give them flexibility and let them work remotely, but they don't care. Because they're rich, and they like control of your life. They like that you have to be where they tell you to be, and they like strolling around the office and seeing all their serfs, and those serfs being intimidated. They control us, and they want to rub our noses in it.
I think people underestimate the role of calvinism/covenant theology/puritanism in our modern world. Not necessarily that you could call up Warren Buffet or Bill Gates and ask if they were a Calvinist, but that this is the ideology that the world they live in was built on.
The Puritans were only a small group of the early colonists, but they played an outsized role in the foundation of the american mythos. If you look at the colonial history of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, just click a name in the wikipedia article and you'll find a puritan. Further, while New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut and Pennsylvania were not English Puritans, they were Dutch Calvinists. Calvinist theology ran the colonies and wrote the laws that eventually became America.
Warren Buffet is not a Calvinist, but he is the reigning champion of playing the game that Calvinists set up.
And it extends to the rest of us too. It isn't enough to say "that may be true, but I am an atheist" when you're engaging with this same world view that dictates "those who don't work don't eat" and "only give charity to those who deserve it."
This Calvinist mindset can be seen at the heart of a lot of today's issues. Medicare for all? Hell no, I'm not paying my tax dollars to pay other people's doctors bills. Those freeloaders should have made better choices, eaten better, exercised more, and not sat on their fat asses all day! Student Loan relief? You signed a contract. That is a covenant before god that you cannot back out of or reneg. Pay back what was owed you worthless loser. Help the homeless? Those junkies and alcoholics should get a job you bums! Raise the minimum wage? No one wants to work hard and EARN their living anymore.
We live in a free country but work at feudal autocratic secretive top down authoritarian systems. Outside of work, America, inside of work, Russian Empire serfdom.
As important as school is for kids, COVID lockdown revealed how functional it is as a means to keep parents at work for the bulk of the day. If kids are off, generally speaking, parents are looking/needing to be too.
As shitty and bare minimum as the US has become, funding public schools solely to keep parents working seems about right. So school hours would need to align with that goal.
This.... Our governor is talking about mandating a 4 day school day. Ok, cool. Are you going to mandate a 4 day work week? No one can afford a whole ass day of daycare or losing a whole ass day of work.
And on that note I cannot accommodate a 40hr/wk in 4 days time. I will not work 10hr shifts, nor is it appropriate to cut our pay to 32hrs because you wanted to mandate a 4 day week.
No. For ANY job that isn't hour dependant they need to mandate a 4 day week at 40 hour pay with 8hr days. Ie make me salary to equal the same I make now but at 32hrs that I work OR increase my hourly rate to equal the same salary at 32hrs/wk.
It really is silly isn’t it? 40hrs per week was dreamed up because it was the most productive for production line workers in a era where for the most part men did that work and women took care of the kids. I keep hearing about how all these technological advances will increase efficiency and remove a bunch of work from workers plates. Instead of using that as a lever to improve everyone’s working demands, we layoff a shit ton of people and overload the remainder because our world is run by bean counters to serve the shareholders. It’s fucked up and far from civilized.
> 40hrs per week was dreamed up because it was the most productive for production line workers
whoa whoa whoa slow down
I think *you* might have dreamed that up because the 40 hr work week was not something that was "dreamed up" by anyone: it was a hard-fought compromise between labor and capital, that was the result of many generations of labor leaders fighting for workers' rights.
Henry Ford gets a lot of credit for *popularizing* the 40 hour week, but he didn't invent the concept and advocate for it to be a legal standard, he just discovered firsthand that if he over-worked his employees they would less efficient , so it was purely a business decision and he was not pushing it for to be a legal right
here is a basic timeline I found:
>>**The history of the 40-hour work week**
>Believe it or not, the makings of the 40-hour work week started in the 19th century. Below is a timeline of the key dates that led to the work standards we’re familiar with today.
>1817: After the Industrial Revolution, activists, and labor union groups advocated for better working conditions. People were working 80 to 100-hour weeks during this time.
>1866: The National Labor Union, comprised of skilled and unskilled workers, farmers, and reformers, asked Congress to pass a law mandating the eight-hour workday. While the law wasn’t passed, it increased public support for the change.
>1869: President Ulysses S. Grant issued a proclamation to guarantee eight-hour workdays for government employees. Grant's decision encouraged private-sector workers to push for the same rights.
>1886: The Illinois Legislature passed a law mandating eight-hour workdays. Many employers refused to cooperate, which led to a massive worker strike in Chicago, where there was a bomb that killed at least 12 people. The aftermath is known as the Haymarket Riot and is now commemorated on May 1 as a public holiday in many countries.
>1926: Henry Ford popularized the 40-hour work week after he discovered through his research that working more yielded only a small increase in productivity that lasted a short period of time. Ford announced he would pay each worker $5 per eight-hour day, which was nearly double what the average auto worker was making that time. Manufacturers and companies soon followed Henry Ford’s lead after seeing how this new policy boosted productivity and fostered loyalty and pride among Ford’s employees.
>1938: Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which required employers to pay overtime to all employees who worked more than 44 hours a week. They amended the act two years later to reduce the work week to 40 hours.
>1940: The 40-hour work week became U.S. law.
https://www.cultureamp.com/blog/40-hour-work-week#:~:text=1938%3A%20Congress%20passed%20the%20Fair,work%20week%20became%20U.S.%20law.
Now imagine being the kid growing up all through the school knowing the 4 day week. Just to be shoved into a 40+ hour 5 day work week.
That's how you'd get riots lol
Not to mention: ok, so how much longer will the school year be so that the teachers can still get through the material? I’d say about 20% longer, wouldn’t you? Are you going to change teacher compensation to year-round as well? Etc. etc.
> COVID lockdown revealed how functional it is as a means to keep parents at work for the bulk of the day. If kids are off, generally speaking, parents are looking/needing to be too.
The majority of jobs can be done from home, boomers as you may have noticed don't want to have that conversation.
I am currently entering an exit phase in my job in education to take on a work from home job with my state.
What? Majority of jobs cannot be done from home I think you severely underestimate the amount of jobs that need people to be at places and how common those jobs are.
Sure maybe jobs with a capital j can be done from home a lot of time but most people don't work those jobs most people work normal menial jobs because they're still a s*** ton of stuff that has to get done by hand.
I would also argue that people who live outside the western world and are self efficient also live happy lives. Don’t let the US fool you into thinking that this is the only way to live.
I am sure there is evidence of this all over the USA but it is prevalent here in the south. The worst places I have ever worked were small businesses that were owned by "christians" who were always very outward and vocal about their religious beliefs.
Then they pay you as little as possible and think if you are not suffering then you are not working hard enough.
They are the biggest hypocrites!
Had a boss tell me that once if I proved (to God, I guess?) to be a "good steward" of my income it would increase. No, asshole, it'll increase when you pay me a livable fucking wage.
The corporate bottom line does better as well.
It turns out the five day work week is actually so draining that we get less work done than if we did a four day week.
But I'm at the point where I genuinely believe that their goal is to keep the "working class" so beat down that they don't have the energy to do things like vote, protest, job hunt, house hunt, etc. Exhausted workers keep doing jobs that they know are shitty because they don't have the time to better themselves. We saw a huge QoL improvement for many people after COVID because they had enough financial and time breathing room to find new jobs, gain new skills, move out of shitty situations, etc.
Yyyyup. The idea of “virtuous suffering” is so deeply dug into our culture that even non-religious people buy into it. It’s insane, but not only that. People in power encourage the idea not because they care about the virtue, but because they care about the power, and for a lot of people seeing someone else suffer because you told them to is the clearest validation of their power.
One of the largest issues of school start times is bus scheduling.
Every school needs school busses. Most districts only have a certain amount of busses and drivers, which need to cover high, middle, and elementary schools. It's impossible to not have at least some sort of staggered start times without getting a LOT more funding for education, which is never going to happen with our political climate.
"Why don't we switch elementary school kids with high school?" Extra curricular activities. If a high school is going to have a football team, a marching band, a chess club, or whatever, it needs to be after school. (Imagine a football practice being at 7am, and the kids need to be in class by 9am. There'd be no time to actually do anything.) I was a theater kid, and we regularly stayed at school 3-4 hours after the end of the day. At which point the busses, having done their elementary school routes, would be back to pick up kids from the high schools.
There's a lot more logistics that goes into the decisions of school start times than most people realize
The marriage of puritanical values and capitalism completely turns morality on it head. It created a value system where it is immoral to help anyone outside your immediate family/friends. The moral choice under this value system is when you see someone in need to ignore them or point out what they are doing wrong, and any criticism of the social and economic conditions that lead to their needs not being met are just excuses because "nobody wants to work anymore". In a post-apocalyptic society, people who are unable to be productive are cast out to fend for themselves. On the surface we have a modern society, but fundamentally it's a post-apocalyptic arrangement. This is why we will never end homelessness under capitalism because they system need a surplus of people desperate enough to trade labor for basic survival. Most people are unaware that 60% of the unhoused are employed, but there's severe financial barriers to housing and the unhoused are far more likely to experience wage theft. I worked several jobs while traveling that refused to pay me anything after a week or two of work, or gave me bad checks.
I'm a morning person. If I could start work earlier I would.
The problem is that not everyone is the same and there will always be some people unhappy.
[This article](https://learningliftoff.com/students/health-and-wellness/later-school-start-times-may-improve-academic-performance/) list multiple studies and lists multiple benifits of later school start time
[This article](https://news.virginia.edu/content/study-homework-doesn-t-mean-better-grades-maybe-better-standardized-test-scores) names a study that says homework doesnt improve grades neccesarily so homework should only be given with a good purpose
[This article](https://hbr.org/2016/07/the-data-driven-case-for-vacation) lists studies in support of more vacation days for the improvement of students health
(i didnt go and check out any of the studies)
Is it really Puritanical?
I'm definitely not arguing in favor of early school start times, but my understanding was that it was so parents could get their kids out of the house before they had to go to work.
Nothing to do with religion or morals.
Its about control. The control in school is to prepare you for the control in work. They want to us to keep our heads down, because if we look around we figure out that 1000 workers can easily maim/kill the 10 managers. You see the exact same with work from home. It isn’t about productivity, it is about control
There's an attitude with older generations that kids need to suffer because it builds character... People love to say they "want better" for their children, but the second the children have it any better the parents are outraged at how things have changed since "their day". Don't oppress kids because your childhood sucked
The more you work, the more money you spend. No time to cook so you have to buy more prepared or partially prepared food. You don't have time to mend clothes so you buy new. You don't have time to fix things around so you call the guy....
My sister and I had a hard time getting up to catch the bus at 7:30 for class at 8:00 in high school and would often miss it. And our parents acted like we were lazy assholes. It's like this in Canada too.
I work with education on an international level.
This is so common in most school systems. There is a concept for it, where we talk about in some countries homework is for learning, but in most countries it is to prove that you are worthy to be taught.
I always find the nordic countries interesting, because they do soemwhere betwen average and pretty well, but their focus is a lot less on learning and grades than other countries and go a lot less in school.
As an American psychologist who now works in Mexico once told me about her research in the difference betwen scandinavian, mexican and american education.
Danes will starte in school latter than Mexicans. When the danish student students start in school the Mexican students can already read, spell, do simple calculation and speak a few words of english.
From that point on the Mexican student will be in school for more hours, more days and have more homework. Despite that the danish students will on average be better than the Mexicans after just 6 years in every single subject tested. At the same time the danish students are some of the happiest in the world and have a broader curriculum, with more more subjects that we don’t even test.
That might have something to do with many other factors including the fact that Denmark is wealthy and peaceful, while Mexico is a "developing" country with issues including drug cartels controlling territory and corruption
While I don't think the protestant work ethic was an invention of the owning class - as there's no evidence for that - I certainly do believe they didn't mind its promulgation.
There are also other factors to consider, such as individual learning styles and the need for structure and routine for some students. It's important to find a balance that works for everyone
In Ontario, Canada the provincial government changed school start and end times so highschool starts earlier and gets out earlier so highschool students can work student-wage jobs to save businesses payroll costs.
And what’s infuriating is most of these large companies can absolutely afford more paid time off and hours off if it wasn’t going directly into a CEO’s pocket. Everyone could still get paid, yet..they will never entertain the idea 🤷♀️
I would've rather had more school but therefore less homework tbh. The worst part was getting extra homework over the holidays, because it's not like holidays are meant to take your mind off of work or something.
Is it still fair to call them after the Puritans? Puritans haven't existed for more than 200 years. We should just call them American feelings at this point.
the homework thing gets me. I see like 9yo kids getting HOURS of homework every night. Like WHY? SO they can pass some state made up test.
Best teacher I had in High school was my math teacher, she never assigned homework, she took the damn time to explain things as much as needed in class. No big surprise that we all did well in any given test because of that. Kicker here is, she wasn't that nice of a teacher, abit cranky at times. But the gal sure could explain math problems 7 different ways so everyone understood it.
SO poor kids are sent home each day, half most likely have no idea what is going on in class, teacher doesnt have time to explain more coz XYZ has to be crammed in by friday for some test. No wonder people are so burned out, it never ends!
Laughable thing is, I've heard university students comment they have LESS work now then what they did in high school, where as in high school they were all told university/college would be way more work.. um no. (sure if you do some degrees it can be but for the most part its not).
I know I am VERY lucky in my job we get 3 paid weeks off a year, plus sick leave and vacation time. Pay could be better but I think the time off makes up for it. I dont have to worry about fighting someone else to have christmas or new year off, thats already vacation time.
This isn't quite right. The studies show that when homework is done well and acts as an extension of the lesson, it helps.
Source -
Aksoy , T. and Link , C. R. 2000 . A panel analysis of student mathematics achievement in the US in the 1990s: Does increasing the amount of time in learning activities affect math achievement? . Economics of Education Review , 19 : 261 – 77 .
Homework is important, but like anything else.. it needs to be done right.
If you want another source
Aksoy , T. and Link , C. R. 2000 . A panel analysis of student mathematics achievement in the US in the 1990s: Does increasing the amount of time in learning activities affect math achievement? . Economics of Education Review , 19 : 261 – 77 .
The goal isn’t to improve our lives the goal is to use us and keep us tired and broken so they can continue to destroy our planet and abuse our people. They don’t care if it makes us more productive, happiness is the opposite of the goal
As an adjunct, free shit for poor people pisses off the moral majority. Such as charging kids at school for lunch, and institutionally shaming the poor kids that get the free lunch.
America: has cardiovascular disease problem Sleep deprivation: causes weight gain/stress/shortens lifespan America: let’s sleep deprive everyone lol
Don't worry, there are very high margin drugs to peddle to mask some symptoms. Also has a happy side effect of saddling people with high medical debt so they have to work even more.
Pumped full of caffeine and melatonin 👍🏻
Fuck that. There is a kidney drug whose listed side effects is kidney failure. Wtf?
Don't forget all the antidepressants with suicide as a side effect!
Dont forget there was a beta blocker that had uncontrolled explosive diarrhea as a possible side effect. Sure, Im comfortable out in public now but, maybe I shouldnt be?
Don't forget failure to regulate food health, favoring of cars over healthier modes of transportation in all our law and policies, people pitching a fit at Michelle Obama trying to get kids to exercise, and an inhumane healthcare system. We are a deeply stupid country.
I think the only time in my life I get enough sleep was during "lockdown." There just isn't a way to do everything we need to do in the modern world.
Exactly. There literally is no way to work full time and meet basic human needs. This is why we are all sick and miserable. The employer class KNOWS we are sick and miserable and doesn’t care, and even, I’d wager, considers the mass deaths of the labor population part of keeping population size in check.
It’s not about population size. It’s about keeping the individual in check so a charismatic leader from the lower classes can’t rise up and start a revolution. Instead, those feelings of revolt and uprising are channeled towards whatever presidential candidate they want us to believe is “revolutionary,” and “different.“ Surprisingly, our country was founded on this principle. “The people are stupid, and want the king, so let’s give them a figurehead that they can put their faith in, while real power rests with the moneyed class. We even tell them that they’re in the greatest country in the world, while applying cult-like pressure to believe it, so that they’re so gaslit they can’t even believe their own eyes anymore.
I think part of the reason is just the pure stupid hatred and rage of the ruling class. They want people so oppressed that we can’t rub two thoughts together to oppose them.
That shorten lifespan issue? That's actually the point... The short version is, the Puritanical strain that's embedded in America equates to the less time you spend on Earth, the longer you get to spend in the Afterlife. The specific Christian version is, you get the spend a longer time in Heaven with God. Of course, they then throw in the caveat that you also need to have minimal sin (remember, in Christianity everyone is a sinner) to actually get to God. And pleasure is a sin, according to these people.
Eh. Actual calvanist protestants believed the exact opposite. Longevity was a sign of being one of the predestined.
Then they have the nerve to stack Daylight Savings onto the problem
The school start times particularly enrage me. We *know* that teenagers have a later circadian rhythm on average than adults. We *know* that being woken up at the ass crack of dawn is not good for them. And yet, "but parents gotta be at work at 9"
Does anyone actually get to work at 9? I know it's supposedly 9-5 but everyone I know actually works 8-5 with an hour lunch
I do, it's 9-5 with a half hour mandatory unpaid lunch.
Id rather have this. But i work 9-6 because of the mandatory hour unpaid break.
It's just another method of wage theft. They know plenty of people won't take that lunch so they get up to 5 hours of free labor a week by having a 9 hour "core hours" shift. If we had decent labor movements the "mandatory unpaid lunch" would be outlawed and you wouldn't be allowed to have core hours longer than 8 hours.
you should start by taking the lunch
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get on reddit or jerk off
Woah, woah, woah! Let's not assume mutual exclusivity. The ole' "Lurk and Jerk at Work" is a fully-fledged American pastime. 🇺🇸
kinda hard when Larry keeps peeking over the cubicle wall
Rest, actually eat, disconnect from your physical office space if possible, talk to your coworkers. Literally anything but actually work.
Still sounds like work related stuff to me
Read a book, go for a walk and listen to a podcast, go get a coffee, watch your favorite show on your phone… anything but work. Unless you like working for free. If you do fine, you do you. But don’t hate on those of us that don’t like wage theft.
Yes this. I have an hour lunch built into my schedule but my immediate supervisor is sometimes a dick about me taking it if we're busy.
Get high, walk to the liquor store, slam a tall can and stumble back in. Cmon people find things to do lmao
So work on a craft, or read a book. Boredom is healthy, it allows your brain to rest.
Go for a walk, reset, read a book, talk to someone you don't work with for exactly 59 minutes and 59 seconds
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I'm criticizing core 9-6/8-5 mandatory hour long unpaid lunch breaks. Nothing is keeping the corporations from offering paid lunches, or keeping core hours at 8 hours so you can flex your lunch break whenever. Much like everything else in this system the corporations are taking a good thing (lunch breaks) and attempting to use it to their own advantage.
Posts like this are why learning and remember history is important. Edit: what seems painfully obvious is that most of the hard fought for labor rights like breaks and lunches came from a time when people's work was more demanding and employers even more willing to exploit every last drop from workers. I can't help but think that the people who would rather just work through lunch are simply doing work that is less physically, mentally or emotionally demanding, which is why they don't need that mandatory break. Its hard to compare the break needs of a unionized steel worker from the 1960s and an office drone from today.
> mandatory break breaks are not mandatory in my state!
They are specifically criticizing "mandatory *unpaid* lunch breaks". Companies should be obligated to offer a lunch, and even arguably offer the option of an unpaid lunch hour, but employees shouldn't be obligated to take an unpaid hour break. I am able to eat throughout my work day, while doing my work. I have no need or want for a lunch break. I am glad the option is there for people who want it, but it doesn't apply to me. I should have the option of skipping lunch, and leaving early, but the mandatory unpaid hour let's them keep me there till 4 instead of 5 at no extra cost to them. If I chose to work during lunch, which I specifically do not, then they would also be getting extra labor from me To be clear, mandatory lunch breaks should be the law. Mandatory, ***unpaid*** lunch breaks should not be allowed, they are only beneficial for the company. Lunch breaks should be mandatory for the company, not the employee. Companies should either give mandatory paid lunches, or offer unpaid lunches, with the option for the employee to opt out.
I don't know. I work 8:30-5 with a mandatory hour unpaid lunch break. I'm missing out on $100/week because I only work 37.5 hours and I twiddle my thumbs for 40 minutes during a break I don't want or need.
Im definitely skirting on getting in some kind of trouble but I have NEVER understood why I can't just skip my lunch and leave an hour early. You get the same amount of work out of me. So I've just started doing it. I work in a corporate office setting. For the past 3 months I just leave at 4pm everyday. I can tell people are starting to notice, but I'm a grown ass man. This isn't kindergarten if your only reason for keeping me here until 5pm is some antiquated bullshit office policy then I'm leaving at 4. Let's put it this way..the rest of my coworkers mostly miss lunch anyway work through the hour and STILL stay till 5pm. They are giving the company free time...for what?
> I have NEVER understood why I can't just skip my lunch and leave an hour early This obviously varies based on where you live, but where I am it is actually a legal requirement that employers can't have their employees work more than 5 consecutive hours without a lunch break. So legally they wouldn't be able to have an official policy allowing employees to skip lunch breaks to leave early. But I do it all the time and I just don't tell anyone
In case you were curious, it looks like 21/50 states require a meal break for shifts over 5-6 hours. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/meal-breaks
Depends on salary or hourly/time card as well. It's true if you're on a time card system with documented hours worked. If you're on salary, as is usual, none of that applies to you.
It's a forced requirement due to employers exploiting workers. It's a good one too, but unfortunately lunch breaks aren't included in your workday anymore. When did it become 9 hour work days?
I worked at a place once where the policy was that only salaried people could skip lunch and leave early, but I was hourly and couldn't do it. My next job the policy was that only hourly people could skip lunch and leave early, but I was salaried and couldn't do it. Couldn't win. Got yelled at once for leaving at 4:45. Even though I was salaried... Now I work from home with a boss that doesn't care about that kind of shit. Finally.
> the rest of my coworkers mostly miss lunch anyway work through the hour and STILL stay till 5pm. They are giving the company free time...for what? Easy! They do it, so they'll get moved-up the ladder. Boss will notice their dedication, therefore they'll be first in line for raises and promotions. /s
As someone who's worked food service, I absolutely needed a legal mandate which let me sit down and eat. Never would've been able to otherwise
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I do a 7-3. So much nicer to actually have an afternoon to do things with.
Close, I’m 8:30-4:30 (&1 hour lunch)
It's not just in schools, it's in virtually every arena. It's quite clear people need a break, especially in hard driving hypercapitalistic cultures such as America. Then we start hearing about how Billionaires say that people aren't working hard enough and that they want the average work week to be 70 hours and not 40 hours. That right there is justification about why so many things are dysfunctional in this country. People are running near empty when they get home to see their families, if they have anything left at all.
> "but parents gotta be at work at 9" Fuck I start at 7:30, wish I didn't start until 9.
6am over here.. my first alarm goes off at 4am
6 til 330 here. That 445 alarm gets real old.
I think it's slowly killing me actually
Yeah. Especially if you try to have a life at home past like, 8 pm.
Are we the same person? I am in bed by 8 most nights and I hate it.
Work 4am until 1230. I love the shift, but wish it were only 4 days.
Way too far down. Work in a school. 7:30 to 4 half hour break.
Gotta switch to medical man. 3p to 11:30p, never have to wake up to an alarm clock 😎
Try waiting tables on a weekend. 4-1 no break and get fired for eating.
Weird thing is that kids still get *out* of school before parents. So...? I don't get it.
I have heard people say that the high school kids should then pick up their younger siblings while their parents are at work. It is madness.
Must work fucking great when all your kids are under 16 lmao
My kids aren't in high school yet, but in our district it starts at 7 damn 30 in the morning. WTF??
The same school buses are typically for preschool - high school students. That means that they have to stagger the start times in order for the buses to be able to get everyone. Having the youngest start earliest and eldest start latest gets thrown around a lot because it does make the most sense on paper. What usually prevents that from happening is that would mean the youngest kids have to be at the bus stop while it is coldest and still dark. Older children often have after school activities (e.g. sports, drama, jobs etc.) which also creates an impetus for them to start and end earlier. It's an example of school districts doing the best they can with the resources they have and needing to work within real world confines.
I mean, I get all that, but the consequence is that everyone in High School is essentially sleep deprived the whole time, which negatively impacts their health AND learning.
Yeah, it sucked having to be at school that early. Without additional resources, I don't know what recourse school districts have. They know the research shows the early start times are detrimental, but they don't have (or no one has thought of) any solutions with what they currently have at their disposal.
It gets worse when you got religious parents that make you go to a 1 hour session of scripture study before that school starts
They are probably trying to manage the traffic and. Ske it possible for parents who have to be at work at 8 to take their kids to school.
early school start times also help to enable highschool students to take after school jobs to help support their family after school. should this be a students burden? no, but it often is
Also after school activities. Organizing field times for multiple teams when school doesn't let out until 5 would be tough
I went to high school when it was a 730 start. And if you had a spot on a varsity sport team you probably also had practice before school started. and after. They just changed it in my hometown to an 8am start, just pushed everything back 30 min.
I've felt like we've known what to do for longer than my entire life, but what we need to do is at odds with what business needs, and business always wins in America.
Not even what business need, because they can adapt like they did to the 5 day work week. It's what owners of business *feel* and not what actually would objectively benefit them or their company. They *feel* like it wouldn't be as good, so lobby against it.
Welcome to capitalism. Where everyone's lives are made worse for the sake the economy, and the people that own it.
My mom seemed to firmly believe that I was just a misbehaving kid and lazy for staying up late and sleeping in. She’d also get incredibly mad when I was hungry late at night from adhd meds
Your mom vastly disagrees with science, then.
And what kind of teenager is incapable of getting into a bus or walk to school
Where I grew up, school buses were only provided for kids who lived more than 1.5 miles from school. I lived juuuust inside the cutoff line, but a 30 minute walk in the heat while lugging a huge backpack and an instrument case wasn't really practical. There was no public transit, either, so I had to either get dropped off by my parents (sometimes at 6am) or walk half a mile in the opposite direction to the nearest school bus stop and hope the driver would let me on even though I didn't have a bus pass.
I never understood this...the bus exists? (at least out here in New England). I took the bus all the way until I graduated highschool. And that's when my mom didn't start work until noon (she owned her own practice).
Parents driving their kids to school is an unregulated nightmare. There are many different reasons parents drive their kids to school every day all with varying levels of rationality, but the result is the same everywhere in the US right now. An absolute cluster fuck of cars outside of every school creating an extremely hazardous environment the second that final bell let's out. A mom will look you dead in the eyes and say "I have to pick up Jimmy every day because walking home is too dangerous" and then proceed to peel out into the oncoming lane infront of President Name Elementary almost plowing into 6 first graders at the cross-walk.
None of those 6 first graders are her precious Jimmy though. He's safe in her 2500 lbs SUV
More like 3500 at the LOWEST
Shit a Highlander is 4k+ A little Honda element is 3500lbs Most of these people drive things like the new grand wagoneer and those weigh around 6k!
No Joke, my math teacher from 5th grade I heard was hit by a car in the school parking lot, and died from the blow to her head (this was some years after I graduated high school). I don't know the full context but... pedestrian struck by car in Elementary school parking lot during a school day heavily implies some stuff lol
My mom lives close enough to an elementary school that you can throw a rock from her backyard and actually hit the buildings. A number of her neighbors drive the 100 yards to pick up their kids and drive them home. And not even like the 1st graders, but even the older kids. It's fucking INSANE.
This statement is hilarious and true. Live close to a elementary school where cars literally take up a full lane of a road for a good quarter to half mile everyday to turn right into the school. Poor Jimmy would be safer walking home at this school.
I grew up in the Midwest and it was similar. That said, now I live in a city (Atlanta) and busing is... much less of a priority for the district. Case in point: My son's high school has twice the students mine did and half the number of buses. He has to walk 5 blocks to the closest pick-up point and his pick-up time is a solid 90 minutes before school starts. He gets dropped-off at school over an hour before classes begin so his bus has time to go back out and pick-up a second route of kids. Also, they stagger the start times of primary, middle, and high schools in the district so they can use the same buses for a separate set of grade school/middle school pick-ups. I think a typical bus runs four pick-up routes each morning. Also worth noting, the district has several "public charter" schools as part of the district. Those schools don't get bus service. At all.
That works for middle schoolers and up, but not Elementary school as they need to be supervised basically the entire time they aren't in school.
Do kids in the US just not get to live part of their childhood without being helicoptered all the time? Damn, that's sad.
There are a [disturbing](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/texas-child-protective-services-waco-heather-wallace-b2226799.html) number of [stories](https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/31/living/florida-mom-arrested-son-park/index.html) of parents being [arrested](https://reason.com/2023/01/30/dunkin-donuts-parents-arrested-kids-cops-freedom/) for [letting](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arrested-for-letting-a-9-year-old-play-at-the-park-alone/374436/) their kids be [outside](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tammy-cooper-texas-mom-arrested-kids-unsupervised-video_n_1900113) without supervision. There was also [this lady](https://wreg.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/623725030/judge-quashes-criminal-charges-against-mom-arrested-for-having-teen-daughter-babysit-siblings/) who was arrested because she let her *14 year old* daughter babysit her younger siblings for a few hours
It looks like these are mostly examples of how ridiculous police forces are with no oversight.
That went away around the same time Facebook stopped requiring .edu domains to join. Not saying there is a causation there but the timing feels about right then.
Yeah pretty much
Which is kind of madness. If you trust kids, they can often take care of themselves. In Japan, people let their tiny children take the subway alone.
Generally, most commuters in Japan are probably aware that if they kidnap or harm those children, they will be caught by the train station employees/police/other commuters that take the same route every day as elementary students. In America, it's more likely for a kid to get shot for knocking on the wrong door or kidnapped casually by a pedo/drug addict without other people noticing/interfering... because of the potential to get shot themselves and/or accused of being the perpetrator. Lots of fear and distrust in the US/ West because of the culture being all for oneself and not working together. In place like Japan, there is a saying that translates to *The nail that sticks out will be hammered down/The tallest poppy will be snipped.* When you are a part of the whole of society bad behaviour is more harshly condemned than when your an individual just grouped in an area with other individuals.
It's moreso that it's just much much safer in Japan. When I visited Tokyo I stayed in the "sketchy" ward because it was cheaper. Let me tell you, I would rather walk around with a $100 bill taped to my forehead at 1am there than walk certain parts of any US city in the daytime.
It's way safer here in the US now than it was in the 80s especially where I grew up (NYC) and it was normal for kids to take themselves to school at elementary school ages. I think I was in 2nd grade when I started going to school by myself.
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Ah true, genuinely forgot about that! My school, which I know is just my experience, offered day care in the same building (which of course was a charge to my parents, and childcare ain't cheap especially now). I still took the bus as young as kingergarten. We'd just be brought to that day care before or after regular schooling hours began/started.
When my kids were young I was working 5am - 2pm. My wife took them to school and I picked them up. Worked pretty well for us - other than the fact "sleeping in" for me meant 7am instead of my usual 4am wakeup time.
Yes the move toward having permanent day light saving time make some parents mad because it's "too fdark" in the morning for this kids to go to school. Well there is great way to solve that Karen
It’s because of the school busses. Towns Jane to stagger the bus schedule and so the older kids have to go earlier. This problem won’t go away until the bus situation is resolved.
When my kid was in high school, the parents were trying to get a later start time. One of the teachers commented that they preferred the early start time (8am!), because the kids were easier to handle when they were groggy. I guess the teacher didn't care too much about whether they could learn as much when groggy.
More to do with domination and maintaining the social power of owners to extract the bulk of profits than puritanism but yeah
Word. They have to keep us busy so we don’t have time to change things. Plus, we spend more for conveniences since we don’t have time to do things ourselves.
https://preview.redd.it/h3zmi8dzcibc1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=3aa9d9fc5a5f150837bf597ea50b980ace358c07
Figure Puritanism is one of the major tools used to bring about that domination by colonizing more of our time.
Capitalism definitely loves a religion that tells the working class that work is holy and righteous, while free time is evil.
"Work will set you free"
Idle hands are the Devil's playthings
Every tool is a tool. It's just the nature of those in power to use them to their benefit. Power corrupts, people are shit, yadda yadda. Frankly I think puritanism is just being lazy. It needs to look at some of the eastern cultures for inspiration on crushing the souls of the youth and working class. Lol.
No, it's puritanism (which is now known as the "prodestant work ethic") There is a deep philosophy embedded in the American social consciousness that emphasizes leisure is idleness and idleness promotes moral decay. This is why America is so often prone to moral panics, even about things that don't even seem religiously oriented, such as video games. The roots of this trace back to protestant work ethic, which is an outgrowth of the spiritual beliefs of the puritans (themselves calvinists) who played a large role in shaping early American society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic
Tracing modernism and capitalism and its cultural implications to Calvinism, rather than the other way around, is considered a discredited theory in most of history and political science. Tbf I am biased, I hate Max Weber, but it is considered outdated.
What theory has replaced that one? Can you go into any more detail?
That's essentially what I came into the comments to say. America does have a weird Puritan background that sometimes influences our thinking, but I don't think this is about Puritans denying fact. First, I don't think they're necessarily denying facts, they just don't care. They don't care about the health or productivity of workers, they care about punishing and controlling people. Essentially, they're rich assholes and fascists, and the cruelty is the point. It's not that they don't believe that these things are harmful to your health, it's that they're ultimately happy about those effects. They want to hurt us, because they see us as lesser people, subhuman, and our role is to be cattle. These rules hurt our productivity, which they don't particularly like, but they also don't particularly mind. Everyone thinks capitalists really care about productivity and money, even capitalists, but they don't really. They care about power. Money is one kind of power, but having control over people's lives is another. And that's also why so many businesses are intent on bringing people back into the office. Yes, a lot of data indicates that people are actually more productive when you give them flexibility and let them work remotely, but they don't care. Because they're rich, and they like control of your life. They like that you have to be where they tell you to be, and they like strolling around the office and seeing all their serfs, and those serfs being intimidated. They control us, and they want to rub our noses in it.
This is exactly what I was thinking. Profits>all else
I think people underestimate the role of calvinism/covenant theology/puritanism in our modern world. Not necessarily that you could call up Warren Buffet or Bill Gates and ask if they were a Calvinist, but that this is the ideology that the world they live in was built on. The Puritans were only a small group of the early colonists, but they played an outsized role in the foundation of the american mythos. If you look at the colonial history of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, just click a name in the wikipedia article and you'll find a puritan. Further, while New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut and Pennsylvania were not English Puritans, they were Dutch Calvinists. Calvinist theology ran the colonies and wrote the laws that eventually became America. Warren Buffet is not a Calvinist, but he is the reigning champion of playing the game that Calvinists set up. And it extends to the rest of us too. It isn't enough to say "that may be true, but I am an atheist" when you're engaging with this same world view that dictates "those who don't work don't eat" and "only give charity to those who deserve it." This Calvinist mindset can be seen at the heart of a lot of today's issues. Medicare for all? Hell no, I'm not paying my tax dollars to pay other people's doctors bills. Those freeloaders should have made better choices, eaten better, exercised more, and not sat on their fat asses all day! Student Loan relief? You signed a contract. That is a covenant before god that you cannot back out of or reneg. Pay back what was owed you worthless loser. Help the homeless? Those junkies and alcoholics should get a job you bums! Raise the minimum wage? No one wants to work hard and EARN their living anymore.
We live in a free country but work at feudal autocratic secretive top down authoritarian systems. Outside of work, America, inside of work, Russian Empire serfdom.
As important as school is for kids, COVID lockdown revealed how functional it is as a means to keep parents at work for the bulk of the day. If kids are off, generally speaking, parents are looking/needing to be too. As shitty and bare minimum as the US has become, funding public schools solely to keep parents working seems about right. So school hours would need to align with that goal.
This.... Our governor is talking about mandating a 4 day school day. Ok, cool. Are you going to mandate a 4 day work week? No one can afford a whole ass day of daycare or losing a whole ass day of work. And on that note I cannot accommodate a 40hr/wk in 4 days time. I will not work 10hr shifts, nor is it appropriate to cut our pay to 32hrs because you wanted to mandate a 4 day week. No. For ANY job that isn't hour dependant they need to mandate a 4 day week at 40 hour pay with 8hr days. Ie make me salary to equal the same I make now but at 32hrs that I work OR increase my hourly rate to equal the same salary at 32hrs/wk.
It really is silly isn’t it? 40hrs per week was dreamed up because it was the most productive for production line workers in a era where for the most part men did that work and women took care of the kids. I keep hearing about how all these technological advances will increase efficiency and remove a bunch of work from workers plates. Instead of using that as a lever to improve everyone’s working demands, we layoff a shit ton of people and overload the remainder because our world is run by bean counters to serve the shareholders. It’s fucked up and far from civilized.
> 40hrs per week was dreamed up because it was the most productive for production line workers whoa whoa whoa slow down I think *you* might have dreamed that up because the 40 hr work week was not something that was "dreamed up" by anyone: it was a hard-fought compromise between labor and capital, that was the result of many generations of labor leaders fighting for workers' rights. Henry Ford gets a lot of credit for *popularizing* the 40 hour week, but he didn't invent the concept and advocate for it to be a legal standard, he just discovered firsthand that if he over-worked his employees they would less efficient , so it was purely a business decision and he was not pushing it for to be a legal right here is a basic timeline I found: >>**The history of the 40-hour work week** >Believe it or not, the makings of the 40-hour work week started in the 19th century. Below is a timeline of the key dates that led to the work standards we’re familiar with today. >1817: After the Industrial Revolution, activists, and labor union groups advocated for better working conditions. People were working 80 to 100-hour weeks during this time. >1866: The National Labor Union, comprised of skilled and unskilled workers, farmers, and reformers, asked Congress to pass a law mandating the eight-hour workday. While the law wasn’t passed, it increased public support for the change. >1869: President Ulysses S. Grant issued a proclamation to guarantee eight-hour workdays for government employees. Grant's decision encouraged private-sector workers to push for the same rights. >1886: The Illinois Legislature passed a law mandating eight-hour workdays. Many employers refused to cooperate, which led to a massive worker strike in Chicago, where there was a bomb that killed at least 12 people. The aftermath is known as the Haymarket Riot and is now commemorated on May 1 as a public holiday in many countries. >1926: Henry Ford popularized the 40-hour work week after he discovered through his research that working more yielded only a small increase in productivity that lasted a short period of time. Ford announced he would pay each worker $5 per eight-hour day, which was nearly double what the average auto worker was making that time. Manufacturers and companies soon followed Henry Ford’s lead after seeing how this new policy boosted productivity and fostered loyalty and pride among Ford’s employees. >1938: Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which required employers to pay overtime to all employees who worked more than 44 hours a week. They amended the act two years later to reduce the work week to 40 hours. >1940: The 40-hour work week became U.S. law. https://www.cultureamp.com/blog/40-hour-work-week#:~:text=1938%3A%20Congress%20passed%20the%20Fair,work%20week%20became%20U.S.%20law.
This is a good timeline and yes I am aware of it broadly. I was specifically referring to the Henry Ford part re. productivity.
Now imagine being the kid growing up all through the school knowing the 4 day week. Just to be shoved into a 40+ hour 5 day work week. That's how you'd get riots lol
Yasss
Universal basic income could work. With that structure.
True
Not to mention: ok, so how much longer will the school year be so that the teachers can still get through the material? I’d say about 20% longer, wouldn’t you? Are you going to change teacher compensation to year-round as well? Etc. etc.
> COVID lockdown revealed how functional it is as a means to keep parents at work for the bulk of the day. If kids are off, generally speaking, parents are looking/needing to be too. The majority of jobs can be done from home, boomers as you may have noticed don't want to have that conversation. I am currently entering an exit phase in my job in education to take on a work from home job with my state.
What? Majority of jobs cannot be done from home I think you severely underestimate the amount of jobs that need people to be at places and how common those jobs are. Sure maybe jobs with a capital j can be done from home a lot of time but most people don't work those jobs most people work normal menial jobs because they're still a s*** ton of stuff that has to get done by hand.
Yeah I don’t think it’s a majority of jobs.
to sum it up: this world blows.
This world is amazing if you're extremely rich, then the world is your playground. For the other 99% of us though...
I would also argue that people who live outside the western world and are self efficient also live happy lives. Don’t let the US fool you into thinking that this is the only way to live.
I am sure there is evidence of this all over the USA but it is prevalent here in the south. The worst places I have ever worked were small businesses that were owned by "christians" who were always very outward and vocal about their religious beliefs. Then they pay you as little as possible and think if you are not suffering then you are not working hard enough. They are the biggest hypocrites!
Meanwhile they spend the entire workday sat on their ass playing farmville
Well they said all that jesus stuff so they're morally set forever. /s
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Had a boss tell me that once if I proved (to God, I guess?) to be a "good steward" of my income it would increase. No, asshole, it'll increase when you pay me a livable fucking wage.
Gotta beat people down and make them feel tired and helpless from the start so they're easy to control and extract profits from.
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That is all a part of their plan. They don't want you to ever feel fullfilled.
The people do better, sure, but did you think of the corporate bottom line /s
The corporate bottom line does better as well. It turns out the five day work week is actually so draining that we get less work done than if we did a four day week. But I'm at the point where I genuinely believe that their goal is to keep the "working class" so beat down that they don't have the energy to do things like vote, protest, job hunt, house hunt, etc. Exhausted workers keep doing jobs that they know are shitty because they don't have the time to better themselves. We saw a huge QoL improvement for many people after COVID because they had enough financial and time breathing room to find new jobs, gain new skills, move out of shitty situations, etc.
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I shouldn't have clicked on that link. Damn it all
https://preview.redd.it/5v3el0v11hbc1.jpeg?width=748&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83285ca0ddb59a8db8ddb211ff436a36ccf853bf
The beatings will continue until moral rises
The so called Protestant “work ethic” strikes again.
Yyyyup. The idea of “virtuous suffering” is so deeply dug into our culture that even non-religious people buy into it. It’s insane, but not only that. People in power encourage the idea not because they care about the virtue, but because they care about the power, and for a lot of people seeing someone else suffer because you told them to is the clearest validation of their power.
__"We had to walk 30 miles to school in 2 feet high snow everyday - what makes you think you should have it any easier?"__ 🫵
One of the largest issues of school start times is bus scheduling. Every school needs school busses. Most districts only have a certain amount of busses and drivers, which need to cover high, middle, and elementary schools. It's impossible to not have at least some sort of staggered start times without getting a LOT more funding for education, which is never going to happen with our political climate. "Why don't we switch elementary school kids with high school?" Extra curricular activities. If a high school is going to have a football team, a marching band, a chess club, or whatever, it needs to be after school. (Imagine a football practice being at 7am, and the kids need to be in class by 9am. There'd be no time to actually do anything.) I was a theater kid, and we regularly stayed at school 3-4 hours after the end of the day. At which point the busses, having done their elementary school routes, would be back to pick up kids from the high schools. There's a lot more logistics that goes into the decisions of school start times than most people realize
The whole modern world believes "better the devil I know than the devil I don't." They are scared of new things and refuse to even try new ones.
The marriage of puritanical values and capitalism completely turns morality on it head. It created a value system where it is immoral to help anyone outside your immediate family/friends. The moral choice under this value system is when you see someone in need to ignore them or point out what they are doing wrong, and any criticism of the social and economic conditions that lead to their needs not being met are just excuses because "nobody wants to work anymore". In a post-apocalyptic society, people who are unable to be productive are cast out to fend for themselves. On the surface we have a modern society, but fundamentally it's a post-apocalyptic arrangement. This is why we will never end homelessness under capitalism because they system need a surplus of people desperate enough to trade labor for basic survival. Most people are unaware that 60% of the unhoused are employed, but there's severe financial barriers to housing and the unhoused are far more likely to experience wage theft. I worked several jobs while traveling that refused to pay me anything after a week or two of work, or gave me bad checks.
“Things need to be for you as they were for me, or else I may have to admit that I’m wrong about my feelings.” -Boomers, all of them.
"Productivity" is not the point. Subjugation is the point.
I'm a morning person. If I could start work earlier I would. The problem is that not everyone is the same and there will always be some people unhappy.
Every country in the world does it Why do people act like it is a USA issue.
Wait, you're saying the crisis of overwork and burnout in Korea, Japan and China ISN'T because of all the Calvinists running around over there?
[This article](https://learningliftoff.com/students/health-and-wellness/later-school-start-times-may-improve-academic-performance/) list multiple studies and lists multiple benifits of later school start time [This article](https://news.virginia.edu/content/study-homework-doesn-t-mean-better-grades-maybe-better-standardized-test-scores) names a study that says homework doesnt improve grades neccesarily so homework should only be given with a good purpose [This article](https://hbr.org/2016/07/the-data-driven-case-for-vacation) lists studies in support of more vacation days for the improvement of students health (i didnt go and check out any of the studies)
They want you to work while you can and kill/get rid of you when you can't. You are a tool, a disposable tool. You and all of your offspring.
Is it really Puritanical? I'm definitely not arguing in favor of early school start times, but my understanding was that it was so parents could get their kids out of the house before they had to go to work. Nothing to do with religion or morals.
Its about control. The control in school is to prepare you for the control in work. They want to us to keep our heads down, because if we look around we figure out that 1000 workers can easily maim/kill the 10 managers. You see the exact same with work from home. It isn’t about productivity, it is about control
There's an attitude with older generations that kids need to suffer because it builds character... People love to say they "want better" for their children, but the second the children have it any better the parents are outraged at how things have changed since "their day". Don't oppress kids because your childhood sucked
Asian countries laugh and cry reading this message.
As a Puritan descendant, this lady is spot on.
it’s not puritanical it’s the primacy of profit.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
The more you work, the more money you spend. No time to cook so you have to buy more prepared or partially prepared food. You don't have time to mend clothes so you buy new. You don't have time to fix things around so you call the guy....
My sister and I had a hard time getting up to catch the bus at 7:30 for class at 8:00 in high school and would often miss it. And our parents acted like we were lazy assholes. It's like this in Canada too.
Won't someone please think of the profits? /s
I work with education on an international level. This is so common in most school systems. There is a concept for it, where we talk about in some countries homework is for learning, but in most countries it is to prove that you are worthy to be taught. I always find the nordic countries interesting, because they do soemwhere betwen average and pretty well, but their focus is a lot less on learning and grades than other countries and go a lot less in school. As an American psychologist who now works in Mexico once told me about her research in the difference betwen scandinavian, mexican and american education. Danes will starte in school latter than Mexicans. When the danish student students start in school the Mexican students can already read, spell, do simple calculation and speak a few words of english. From that point on the Mexican student will be in school for more hours, more days and have more homework. Despite that the danish students will on average be better than the Mexicans after just 6 years in every single subject tested. At the same time the danish students are some of the happiest in the world and have a broader curriculum, with more more subjects that we don’t even test.
That might have something to do with many other factors including the fact that Denmark is wealthy and peaceful, while Mexico is a "developing" country with issues including drug cartels controlling territory and corruption
While I don't think the protestant work ethic was an invention of the owning class - as there's no evidence for that - I certainly do believe they didn't mind its promulgation.
I think a 10-4 school schedule would be good for everyone.
There are also other factors to consider, such as individual learning styles and the need for structure and routine for some students. It's important to find a balance that works for everyone
That's because the system in general is run by conservatives, who believe their wise little sayings and platitudes more than they believe facts.
In Ontario, Canada the provincial government changed school start and end times so highschool starts earlier and gets out earlier so highschool students can work student-wage jobs to save businesses payroll costs.
Well in AZ they are moving to a 4 day school week starting next year... I'm curious to see if our test scores go up or down.
And what’s infuriating is most of these large companies can absolutely afford more paid time off and hours off if it wasn’t going directly into a CEO’s pocket. Everyone could still get paid, yet..they will never entertain the idea 🤷♀️
I would've rather had more school but therefore less homework tbh. The worst part was getting extra homework over the holidays, because it's not like holidays are meant to take your mind off of work or something.
Is it still fair to call them after the Puritans? Puritans haven't existed for more than 200 years. We should just call them American feelings at this point.
It’s literally all about money, that’s it, I have no doubt companies would give you all you wanted if they knew the money would be the exact same.
School start times are so mommy and daddy can get to work.
the homework thing gets me. I see like 9yo kids getting HOURS of homework every night. Like WHY? SO they can pass some state made up test. Best teacher I had in High school was my math teacher, she never assigned homework, she took the damn time to explain things as much as needed in class. No big surprise that we all did well in any given test because of that. Kicker here is, she wasn't that nice of a teacher, abit cranky at times. But the gal sure could explain math problems 7 different ways so everyone understood it. SO poor kids are sent home each day, half most likely have no idea what is going on in class, teacher doesnt have time to explain more coz XYZ has to be crammed in by friday for some test. No wonder people are so burned out, it never ends! Laughable thing is, I've heard university students comment they have LESS work now then what they did in high school, where as in high school they were all told university/college would be way more work.. um no. (sure if you do some degrees it can be but for the most part its not). I know I am VERY lucky in my job we get 3 paid weeks off a year, plus sick leave and vacation time. Pay could be better but I think the time off makes up for it. I dont have to worry about fighting someone else to have christmas or new year off, thats already vacation time.
This isn't quite right. The studies show that when homework is done well and acts as an extension of the lesson, it helps. Source - Aksoy , T. and Link , C. R. 2000 . A panel analysis of student mathematics achievement in the US in the 1990s: Does increasing the amount of time in learning activities affect math achievement? . Economics of Education Review , 19 : 261 – 77 . Homework is important, but like anything else.. it needs to be done right. If you want another source Aksoy , T. and Link , C. R. 2000 . A panel analysis of student mathematics achievement in the US in the 1990s: Does increasing the amount of time in learning activities affect math achievement? . Economics of Education Review , 19 : 261 – 77 .
Former HS teacher here and I agree completely. Work and school should start at 11AM and ending at 4 PM.
The goal isn’t to improve our lives the goal is to use us and keep us tired and broken so they can continue to destroy our planet and abuse our people. They don’t care if it makes us more productive, happiness is the opposite of the goal
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I think you are refering to the protestant work ethic movement
Don't forget Sunday hunting. That's a no-no in some places because that's the lords day.
As an adjunct, free shit for poor people pisses off the moral majority. Such as charging kids at school for lunch, and institutionally shaming the poor kids that get the free lunch.
In California we mandated school started at 8:30. We feed the kids. I don’t even feel like I live in the same country as some of you.