密苏里州哥伦比亚市—为了按时到校，吉莉·多斯桑托斯(Jilly Dos Santos)已经使尽了浑身解数。她在手机上连着设了三个闹钟，早餐也顾不上吃，在父亲气冲冲驾车的途中匆匆化妆。但即使这样，去年她几乎也从未成功在早上7:50预备铃响之前冲进石桥高中(Rock Bridge High School)大门口蜂拥的学生群中。

　　Then she heard that the school board was about to make the day start even earlier, at 7:20 a.m.

　　然后她听说，学校董事会正准备将上课时间提前到7:20。

　　“I thought, if that happens, I will die,” recalled Jilly, 17. “I will drop out of school!”

　　“我想要真这样我就死定了，”17岁的吉莉回忆道。“我会辍学的！”

　　That was when the sleep-deprived teenager turned into a sleep activist. She was determined to convince the board of a truth she knew in the core of her tired, lanky body: Teenagers are developmentally driven to be late to bed, late to rise. Could the board realign the first bell with that biological reality?

　　就是从这时候起，这名总是睡眠不足的少女变身为睡眠捍卫者。她决心要说服学校董事会，使他们也认识到她那疲惫、瘦高的身体一再告诉她的真相：青少年正处在生长发育阶段，这注定了他们就是要晚睡晚起。学校董事会能不能根据这个生物学上的事实重新调整预备铃的时间？

　　为保学生睡眠 美国中学推迟上课

　　The sputtering, nearly 20-year movement to start high schools later has recently gained momentum in communities like this one, as hundreds of schools in dozens of districts across the country have bowed to the accumulating research on the adolescent body clock.

　　近20年来，试图推迟高中上课时间的运动一直进展得不温不火。但近来，日积月累的青少年生物钟研究逐渐得到全美各地几十个学区中的数百所学校的普遍认同，就像吉莉所在的社区这样，该活动的发展势头也随之改善。

　　In just the last two years, high schools in Long Beach, Calif.; Stillwater, Okla.; Decatur, Ga.;, and Glens Falls, N.Y., have pushed back their first bells, joining early adopters in Connecticut, North Carolina, Kentucky and Minnesota. The Seattle school board will vote this month on whether to pursue the issue. The superintendent of Montgomery County, Md., supports the shift, and the school board for Fairfax County, Va., is working with consultants to develop options for starts after 8 a.m.

　　仅仅在刚刚过去的两年中，继康涅狄格州、北卡罗来纳州、肯塔基州和明尼苏达州这些先行者之后，加州长滩、俄克拉何马州斯蒂尔沃特市、佐治亚州迪凯特市以及纽约州格伦斯福尔斯市的高中也推迟了他们预备铃的时间。西雅图的学校董事会这个月将就是否跟进该议题进行投票。马里兰州蒙哥马利县的学监支持这一转变，弗吉尼亚州费尔法克斯县学校董事会也正在与顾问商议制定早晨8点以后再开始上课的作息方案。

　　New evidence suggests that later high school starts have widespread benefits. Researchers at the University of Minnesota, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, studied eight high schools in three states before and after they moved to later start times in recent years. In results released Wednesday they found that the later a school’s start time, the better off the students were on many measures, including mental health, car crash rates, attendance and, in some schools, grades and standardized test scores.

　　新的证据表明，推迟高中上课时间可以带来广泛的效益。在美国疾病控制和预防中心(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)的资助下，美国明尼苏达大学(University of Minnesota)的科学家们研究了三个州的八所高中在近几年推迟上课时间的前后，学生们出现了哪些变化。他们在周三公布的研究结果显示：高中上课时间越晚，学生们在诸多指标（心理健康、车祸率、出勤率等，在某些学校里甚至还包括成绩和标准化考试分数）方面的改善越大。

　　Dr. Elizabeth Miller, chief of adolescent medicine at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, who was not involved in the research, noted that the study was not a randomized controlled trial, which would have compared schools that had changed times with similar schools that had not. But she said its methods were pragmatic and its findings promising.

　　未参与这项研究的匹兹堡儿童医院青少年医学部负责人伊丽莎白·米勒(Elizabeth Miller)博士指出，该研究并非随机对照试验——按照随机对照试验的设计要求，应是将改变了作息时间的学校与未进行此类改变的同类学校进行比较。但她承认该方法较实用，其研究结果大有前途。

　　“Even schools with limited resources can make this one policy change with what appears to be benefits for their students,” Dr. Miller said.

　　“即使学校的资源有限，也不妨碍他们实施这一有益于学生的政策改革，”米勒博士说。

　　Researchers have found that during adolescence, as hormones surge and the brain develops, teenagers who regularly sleep eight to nine hours a night learn better and are less likely to be tardy, get in fights or sustain athletic injuries. Sleeping well can also help moderate their tendency toward impulsive or risky decision-making.

　　研究人员发现，在青春期，青少年体内激素激增，大脑发育，他们在每夜日常睡眠达八到九个小时时学习效果较好，也较不容易迟到、打架或经常发生运动伤害。良好的睡眠也可以帮助减少他们冒失冲动或做出冒险决定。

　　During puberty, teenagers have a later release of the “sleep” hormone melatonin, which means they tend not to feel drowsy until around 11 p.m. That inclination can be further delayed by the stimulating blue light from electronic devices, which tricks the brain into sensing wakeful daylight, slowing the release of melatonin and the onset of sleep. The Minnesota study noted that 88 percent of the students kept a cellphone in their bedroom.

　　青春期期间，“睡眠”激素——褪黑激素的释放有所延迟，这意味着青少年们往往直到晚上11点左右才会觉得昏昏欲睡。电子设备发出的蓝光会误导人的大脑，使其以为感觉到了干扰入睡的日光，在此刺激下，褪黑激素的释放进一步受到延缓，睡意就愈发姗姗来迟。明尼苏达大学的研究指出，88%的学生都在卧室里放有手机。

　　But many parents, and some students, object to shifting the start of the day later. They say doing so makes sports practices end late, jeopardizes student jobs, bites into time for homework and extracurricular activities, and upsets the morning routine for working parents and younger children.

　　不过许多家长以及一些学生都反对推迟上课时间。他们认为，这样体育锻炼就得拖到很晚才能结束，影响学生打工，侵占做家庭作业和从事课外活动的时间，还会扰乱需要工作的父母和年龄较小的孩子们早晨的时间安排。

　　At heart, though, experts say, the resistance is driven by skepticism about the primacy of sleep.

　　不过，专家表示，从本质上来说，会产生这种抗拒思维是因为他们对睡眠的重要意义持怀疑态度。

　　“It’s still a badge of honor to get five hours of sleep,” said Dr. Judith Owens, a sleep expert at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington. “It supposedly means you’re working harder, and that’s a good thing. So there has to be a cultural shift around sleep.”

　　“人们仍然觉得应该给每晚睡五个小时的人颁发劳模奖章，”全美儿童医疗中心（Children’s National Medical Center，位于华盛顿）的睡眠专家朱迪丝·欧文斯(Judith Owens)博士说。“大家都想当然地以为这表示工作比较拼命，值得赞扬。因此，要为推迟上学时间争取更多的支持，就必须从文化层面入手，转变人们的睡眠观。”

　　Last January, Jilly decided she would try to make that change happen in the Columbia school district, which sprawls across 300 square miles of flatland, with 18,000 students and 458 bus routes. But before she could make the case for a later bell, she had to show why an earlier one just would not do.

　　去年1月，吉莉下定决心，她要想办法让哥伦比亚学区作出这样的改变，而该校区绵延300多公里，涉及1.8万名学生和458条公交路线。但在说明推迟上课时间的充分理由之前，她还得向大家解释清楚为何上课太早不够合理。

　　She got the idea in her team-taught Advanced Placement world history class, which explores the role of leadership. Students were urged to find a contemporary topic that ignited their passion. One morning, the teachers mentioned that a school board committee had recommended an earlier start time to solve logistical problems in scheduling bus routes. The issue would be discussed at a school board hearing in five days. If you do not like it, the teachers said, do something.

　　吉莉最早产生这个念头，是在以小组协同教学方式进行的大学先修课程(Advanced Placement)世界史的课堂上。这堂课探讨的是领导力的作用。老师们鼓励学生从当代寻找一个足以点燃他们激情的课题。一天早晨，老师们提到学校董事会的委员会建议提前上课时间，以解决调度公交线路的后勤问题。学校董事会将于五天内召开听证会对这一提议进行讨论。老师们提醒学生：如果你不喜欢这样，那就用行动来表达你的意愿。

　　Jilly did the ugly math: A first bell at 7:20 a.m. meant she would have to wake up at 6 a.m.

　　吉莉发现了一个可怕的问题：早晨7:20打预备铃就意味着她将不得不在早晨6点起床。

　　She had found her passion.

　　她觉得自己已经找到动力和激情了。

　　She seemed an unlikely choice to halt what was almost a done deal. She was just a sophomore, and did not particularly relish conflict. But Jilly, the youngest of seven children, had learned to be independent early on: Her mother died when she was 9.

　　吉莉看起来并不像是要撼动一项基本上已经板上钉钉的决议的适当人选。她只是个高二学生，也不喜欢跟人争论。不过，作为家中七个孩子中年龄最小的一个，九岁丧母的她很早就学会了自立。

　　And she is energetic and forthright. That year, she had interned on a voter turnout drive for Missouri Democrats, volunteered in a French-immersion prekindergarten class, written for the student newspaper, worked at a fast-food pizza restaurant and maintained an A average in French, Spanish and Latin.

　　她性格直率，总是一副精力充沛的模样。尽管她那年参与了很多课外活动：在拉高密苏里民主党投票率的活动中实习，在幼儿园学前班的沉浸式法语教育课程中担任志愿者，为学生报纸撰稿，在快餐比萨店打工等等，但她的法语、西班牙语和拉丁语成绩都一直保持在A的水平。

　　“It’s about time management,” she explained one recent afternoon, curled up in an armchair at home.

　　“时间管理是关键，”最近的一个下午，她蜷缩在家中的扶手椅上，这样解释道。

　　That Wednesday, she pulled an all-nighter. She created a Facebook page and set up a Twitter account, alerting hundreds of students about the school board meeting: “Be there to have a say in your school district’s decisions on school start times!”

　　那一周的周三，她熬了个通宵，创建了一个Facebook页面和一个Twitter帐户，提醒数百名学生关注学校董事会的会议：“如果你对所在学区的上课时间决策有自己的看法，请出席会议并发言！”

　　She then got in touch with Start School Later, a noNPRofit group that provided her with scientific ammunition. She recruited friends and divided up sleep-research topics. With a blast of emails, she tried to enlist the help of every high school teacher in the district. She started an online petition.

　　然后，她与非营利性组织“推迟上课时间”(Start School Later)取得了联系，并从该组织获得了所需的科学依据。她招募友人与她分担睡眠研究课题，并发出大量电子邮件，尽力争取该学区内每一位高中老师的帮助。她还在网上发起了请愿活动。

　　The students she organized made hundreds of posters and fliers, and posted advice on Twitter: “If you are going to be attending the board meeting tomorrow we recommend that you dress up!”

　　在她的组织下，同学们制作了上百张的海报和宣传单，并在Twitter上张贴建议：“如果你要出席明天的董事会会议，建议你穿上正装！”

　　The testy school board meeting that Monday was packed. Jilly, wearing a demure, ruffled white blouse and skirt, addressed the board, blinking owl-like. The dignitaries’ faces were a blur to her because while nervously rubbing her eyes, she had removed her contact lenses. But she spoke coolly about the adolescent sleep cycle: “You know, kids don’t want to get up,” she said. “I know I don’t. Biologically, we’ve looked into that.”

　　那个周一，学校董事会会议座无虚席。吉莉身着端庄的褶边白衬衫和裙子在董事会面前侃侃而谈。她像猫头鹰似的不停地眨眼睛，因为她看不清那些“大人物”的脸——她的隐形眼镜在她因紧张而揉眼睛时被她揉掉了。但在谈到青少年的睡眠周期时，她显得十分冷静：“大家都知道，孩子们喜欢赖床，”她说。“我知道我就不想起床。于是我们从生物学角度上探讨了一下这个问题。”

　　The board heatedly debated the issue and decided against the earlier start time.

　　学校董事会展开了激烈的辩论，最后决定反对提前上课时间。

　　The next day Jilly turned to campaigning for a later start time, joining a movement that has been gaining support. A 2011 report by the Brookings Institution recommended later start times for high schools, and last summer Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, posted his endorsement of the idea on Twitter.

　　第二天，吉莉转战下一个目标：投身于“争取推迟上课时间”这一日益获得人们支持的运动中去。2011年，布鲁金斯学会(Brookings Institution)发布报告建议高中推迟上课时间。去年夏天，美国教育部长阿恩·邓肯(Arne Duncan)在Twitter上发言表达了赞同意见。

　　The University of Minnesota study tracked 9,000 high school students in five districts in Colorado, Wyoming and Minnesota before and after schools shifted start times. In those that originally started at 7:30 a.m., only a third of students said they were able to get eight or more hours of sleep. Students who got less than that reported significantly more symptoms of depression, and greater use of caffeine, alcohol and illegal drugs than better-rested peers.

　　明尼苏达大学的研究跟踪了科罗拉多州、怀俄明州和明尼苏达州五个学区的9000名高中生，并对学校改变上课时间前后他们的各种情况进行了比较。在原本早晨7:30开始上课的学校中，只有三分之一的学生表示可以保证至少八小时的睡眠。与可以得到较好休息的同学们相比，睡眠时间低于上述时间的学生报告的抑郁症症状显著较多，含咖啡因食品、酒类及非法药物的摄入量也显著较大。

　　“It’s biological — the mental health outcomes were identical from inner-city kids and affluent kids,” said Kyla Wahlstrom, a professor of educational research at the University of Minnesota and the lead author of the study.

　　“这是生物学机理决定的——无论是来自贫民区的孩子还是富庶家庭的孩子，这些心理健康结果都一致，”明尼苏达大学的教育研究教授、该研究的主要作者凯拉·瓦尔斯特龙(Kyla Wahlstrom)指出。

　　In schools that now start at 8:35 a.m., nearly 60 percent of students reported getting eight hours of sleep nightly.

　　在现在改为早晨8:35上课的学校里，近60%的学生都报告每晚能睡足八小时。

　　In 2012, the high school in Jackson, Wyo., moved the first bell to 8:55 a.m. from 7:35 a.m. During that academic year, car crashes by drivers 16 to 18 years old dropped to seven from 23 the year before. Academic results improved, though not across the board.

　　2012年，怀俄明州杰克逊市的高中将预备铃时间从早晨7:35改到了8:55。在该学年中，因16至18岁司机造成的车祸数量从前一年的23起降至7起。学生们的学习成绩也有所提高，不过并非所有学生都是如此。

　　After high schools in the South Washington County district, outside Minneapolis, switched to an 8:35 a.m. start, grades in some first- and third-period classes rose between half a point and a full grade point. And the study found that composite scores on national tests such as the ACT rose significantly in two of the five districts.

　　在整个南华盛顿郡学区（明尼阿波利斯市除外）的高中将上课时间改至8:35后，学生们在上午第一节到第三节课学习的某些课程成绩进步了半个到一个绩点。研究还发现，在五个学区中，有两个学区的学生在美国大学入学考试(ACT)等全国性考试中综合得分显著提高。

　　Many researchers say that quality sleep directly affects learning because people store new facts during deep-sleep cycles. During the rapid-eye-movement phases, the brain is wildly active, sorting and categorizing the day’s data. The more sleep a teenager gets, the better the information is absorbed.

　　许多研究人员认为，睡眠质量可以直接影响到学习好坏，是因为人体需要在深睡阶段储存新的知识。在快速眼动睡眠期，大脑高度活跃，对白天的数据资料进行整理和分类。青少年的睡眠时间越充足，他们吸收信息的效果就越好。

　　“Without enough sleep,” said Jessica Payne, a sleep researcher and assistant professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame, “teenagers are losing the ability not only to solidify information but to transform and restructure it, extracting inferences and insights into problems.”

　　圣母大学(University of Notre Dame)的心理学助理教授，睡眠研究员杰茜卡·佩恩(Jessica Payne)表示：“睡眠不足令青少年丧失的不仅仅是巩固信息的能力，还有将信息转化和重组，引申出推论并深入洞察问题本质的能力。”

　　Last February, the school board in Columbia met to consider later start times. “It is really reassuring to know that students can have a say in the matter,” Jilly told them. “So thank you, guys, for that.”

　　去年2月，哥伦比亚学区的学校董事会召开会议，考虑推迟上课时间。“获知学生在这个问题上拥有发言权，实在令人欣慰，”吉莉告诉他们。“因此，我感谢你们。”

　　The moment of decision arrived at the board’s next meeting in March. Jilly sat in the front row, posting on Twitter, and addressed the board one last time. “I know it’s not the most conventional thing and it’s going to get some pushback,” she said, referring to the later time. “But it is the right decision.”

　　决定性的时刻在3月份董事会的下一次会议时到来。吉莉坐在前排，在Twitter上张贴消息，并最后一次向董事会陈辞。“我知道，（推迟上课时间）不怎么符合传统，而且必将会受到一定程度的抵触。但这是一个正确的决定。”

　　The board voted, 6 to 1, to push back the high school start time to 9 a.m. “Jilly kicked it over the edge for us,” said Chris Belcher, the superintendent.

　　经过董事会表决，以6比1的绝对优势决定将高中上课时间推迟至早晨9点。“吉莉在其中发挥了关键的推动作用，”学监克里斯·贝尔彻(Chris Belcher)说。

　　It is now seven months into the new normal. At Rock Bridge High School, the later end to the day, at 4:05 p.m., is problematic for some, including athletes who often miss the last period to make their away games.

　　现在已经是执行新作息时间的第七个月。石桥高中的放学时间延迟到了下午4:05，这给一部分同学造成了麻烦，比如运动员要参加客场比赛往往就没法上最后一节课。

　　“After doing homework, it gets to be 11:30 p.m. pretty quickly,” said Brayden Parker, a senior varsity football player. “I would prefer to get home by dark and have more time to chill out.”

　　“等做完家庭作业，很快就到晚上11:30了，”橄榄球队的毕业班球员布雷·登帕克(Brayden Parker)说。“我宁愿在天黑前回家，想要有更多的时间放松一下。”

　　The high schools in the district have tried to adjust, for example by adding Wi-Fi access to buses so athletes can do homework on the road. Some classes meet only one or two days a week, and are supplemented with online instruction. More sports practices and clubs convene before school.

　　该学区的高中也在尝试进行一些调整，以适应新作息时间表，例如，在大巴上增加Wi-Fi服务，以便运动员们在途中做作业。有些课程每周只授课一两天，再辅以在线辅导。同时，也有更多体育活动和俱乐部选择在早晨上课前集会。

　　Some parents and first-period teachers are seeing a payoff in students who are more rested and alert.

　　一部分家长和头一堂课的老师已经看到了回报：学生休息得更好，精神也更足。

　　At 7:45 a.m. on a recent school day, Rock Bridge High, a long, one-story building with skylights and wide hallways, was sun-drenched and almost silent.

　　最近的一个教学日，早晨7:45，石桥高中有着天窗和宽阔走廊的长条形单层建筑中阳光普照，寂静无声。

　　Then, like an orchestra tuning up, students gradually started arriving, some for debate club and choir, others to meet in the cafeteria for breakfast and gossip. Laughter crackled across the lobby, as buses dropped off more students, and others drifted in from the parking lots. The growing crowds could almost be described as civilized.

　　然后，就像管弦乐队开始调音一样，学生们陆续到达，有人讨论着俱乐部或者合唱团的事宜，其他人则在餐厅碰面，一边吃早餐一边聊八卦。随着公交车到站，更多的学生走了下来，笑声响彻大厅，还有学生从停车场中过来加入其中。人群越聚越多，几乎可以说世某种特殊的文化。

　　At 8:53 a.m., Jilly burst through the north entrance door, long hair uncombed and flyaway, wearing no makeup, lugging her backpack.

　　早晨8:53，吉莉拽着她的背包从北门入口处冲进来，长长的头发乱蓬蓬的，也没有化妆。

　　“Even when I am late to school now,” she said, dashing down a corridor to make that 8:55 bell, “it’s only by three or four minutes.”

　　“现在即使我上学迟到了，”她沿着走廊飞奔，想要赶上8:55的预备铃，“最多也只是三四分钟的事儿。”