Wake-up call

Teaching Pre K-8, Mar 2004 by Raymond, Allen A

Last fall I was given a small travel clock which, not surprisingly in this hightech world in which we now live, always displays the correct time. That's because, six times every hour, it receives a radio transmission from the U. S. Atomic Clock maintained by the Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, CO.

I find this simply amazing: My little clock is checking with those folks in Boulder six times every hour!

My clock also displays a small map of the United States, with the time zone for my location shaded a light gray. Thus, as my business takes me from one time zone to another, I press a button to select the new time zone and my clock instantly adjusts. Oh, yes, and when Daylight Saving Time rolls around, this miracle worker adjusts automatically.

I was thinking of these magical radio transmissions from Boulder last night as I awoke from a sound sleep at 4:00 a.m.

This has been happening to me a lot, so I began to wonder if, like my travel alarm, I, too, was receiving radio signals from the Atomic Clock in Boulder.

The strange thing about all this - which makes me suspect the folks in Boulder - is that it doesn't matter whether I go to bed at 9:30 or 12:30, I'm always awakened at 4:00 a.m.

You may think I'm going bonkers, that I'm a little daft to think the Atomic Clock is controlling my sleep. But, how else to explain this phenomenon?

Frankly, I think a computer chip from the folks who make my travel clock has been embedded in my brain. "We'll send him a wake-up call every day at 4:00 a.m.," they said to each other with mischievous glee.

Crazy, you say? I'm not so sure. In today's technological era anything seems possible. I've seen miracles that, as a child, I would have considered "science fiction." You've got to remember, I come from an era when cars had no heaters nor radios and air conditioning was not even on the radar screen (Radar? What's that?).

It was an era when my mother served dinner for four on a budget of 25¢, when newspapers were a penny and radio was the new kid on the block. Television didn't exist.

So, as I type this memo to you on what I consider to be a pretty classy computer, before e-mailing it to our production department, I think to myself, "This is a wonderful world."

But, yes, I know there is cruelty in the world, and there is war. And, for many of you, the burdens of accountability and testing are eating you alive.

It is rewarding, nevertheless, to know that the world, and especially our own country, is once again recognizing - as it did without question so many years ago - the importance of what you do.

Classrooms today are very exciting; we know, because we're in them all the time. And, when the doors are closed and the teachers and kids talk about landing people on the moon - or even on Mars - it is a magical experience.

Tomorrow morning at my usual 4:00 a.m., as I think about you, I'll have a smile on my face. When you awaken, I hope you're smiling, too.