An old complaint

I’m tired. I’m really tired.

There are a couple of reasons. We moved my daughter Shannon’s stuff out of her boyfriend’s, make that ex-boyfriend’s, home on Friday. Yesterday my son Derek and his girlfriend JoAnn visited from Denver. I love Shannon and Derek dearly (and I think JoAnn is terrific but I’ve only met her twice. So far so good). Those two events made me tired, but a good tired.

The main reason I’m tired, however, is the #%&@ing time change. For me, I don’t go to bed at the normal time. I go an hour later. Last night I read until about one, and then slept like a baby until 8:30. That of course is midnight and a pretty normal 7:30 on “God’s Time.” We go through this madness twice a year, but we seldom consider its consequences:

Pedestrians are three times as likely to be hit on the Monday after Daylight Savings Time goes into effect.

Car accidents of all sorts spike seven percent the Monday after Daylight Savings Time goes into effect.

Heart attacks, which spike on Monday mornings in any event, see a dramatic five percent increase over “normal” Mondays the day after Daylight Savings Time goes into effect.

Those are sobering statistics (which I derived from official-looking websites and may or may not be true). Advocates say that we save energy by not having to turn on lights in the evening. That was possibly true forty years ago, but today, with video games, television, computers, and other electronics, in addition to widespread central air conditioning during the summer, energy savings seldom occurs.

Anecdotally, there are other reasons not to change the time. School children suffer. (When I was a child in Minnesota, the governor got on the horn every spring and every fall and ranted about why he didn’t want kids waiting on dark streets for school busses, that it was too dangerous. No doubt he had a point.) But when I taught, it took a good two weeks in the spring for kids to adjust to the time change. It took another two weeks for them to adjust in the fall. In the meantime their focus was fuzzy, their minds mushy, and their retention of information and skills I was trying to teach much lower than the rest of the school year.

Spring particularly is an important time in most schools because that’s when the mandatory state tests occur. Kids who are already fuzzy or mushy don’t test well. (The idea of the tests is pretty ridiculous, but I’ve covered that in other blog entries.)

And even if there weren’t tests, in the spring teachers already compete with the weather if it’s nice and cabin fever if it isn’t. Adding one more stressor is not wise policy.

Is there a solution? Of course. I’ve suggested it before: Spit the difference. In November, let’s “fall back” half an hour and then never change the time again.

The alternative solution is not to change the time at all. Ever. Schools and businesses can change their hours if they want their workers and students to have more daylight to play in.

In the meanwhile, I’m going to take a nap.

Please feel free to comment below.