I know someone said more or less the same thing when it was posted on Tumblr, but if the schools realize most of their students don't know a thing they should know... Shouldn't they teach it?
I know, it's just a meme, but... The article. It's about clocks during exams specifically, when students are under pressure and more likely to misread the time on an analogue clock.
My first thought was to be appalled at the lack of education on display.... But is there any real reason to keep analog clocks.. other than habit and nostalgia?
I've worked in 2 different schools in the IT department and 4 others as a volunteer lecturer (I got a name tag that said Technology Evangelist) I found that putting an analog clock on the screen saver of computers in the classroom was more likely to result in the clock actually being on time.
Too many clocks in classrooms are very old or even battery powered but neglected.
I don't think kids are dumb just they aren't getting a world that is properly maintained by competent people that care about their work and are adequately resourced to do the whole job.
I don't believe this for a second. You can literally just look at it and intuitively understand. Not to mention part of the standard elementary school curriculum is how to read a clock.
Kids these days do absolutely still know how to read analog clocks.
Besides, they probably shouldn't put effort into that. Those things are close to useless nowadays. It's mostly a case of schools being conservative... but then, it's not that much of an effort, so there are more important things to care about.
Analog clocks are kind of annoying tbh. Sometimes you need that little extra energy you have to spend on wondering whether it is 11:37 or 11:38 already by carefully visually bisecting the circle section between 7 and 8.
Millimetres of white space keep you wondering about the nature of analogue vs digital, discrete vs continuous and measurement uncertainty while you have better things to do but cannot just give up on OCDing whether it is exactly 11:37:30 already or maybe it is 11:37:35? And boom in these seconds you were wondering it is already pointless because it is the past and now it is time to wonder if it is 11:38:15 or 11:38:30
Whereas for digital it is just:
oh it is 11:11 on 11.11.11, how cool, life’s good
Thus it is my opinion that analogue clocks are virgins whereas digital are chads
So many edgelords in the comments shit talking younger generations for learning different things.
Y'all sound like old farts crying about how schools stopped using slide rules and how modern music just isn't as good.
Wife, for years, thought the "second hand" on a clock was called that because it was the "2nd" hand on the clock...which confused her. Took her over 30 years to realize it's the "seconds" hand because it counts seconds.
OK let's have a lesson for those who find this difficult. First, remember that little kids pick this up quickly and easily, so you can too!
We all know there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a day, right? and that the day is divided into the a.m. of 12 hours and the p.m. of 12 hours.
So analog clocks show those 12 hours as the numbers 1-12 evenly spaced around the clock face. Now look a little closer and you see it's also divided into 60 marks with a tick mark for each of the 60 seconds/minute or 60 minutes/hour. Hang on, we're almost there!
The little hand points to the HOUR number (1-12). If it's in between two numbers, that means the time is in between those two hours.
The big hand points to the MINUTE tick mark. Notice that the 1-12 numbers coincide with each 5th tick mark so it's easy to count them. Just count by 5's! So if the big hand is between the 3 and the 4, that means the minute of the hour is between 15 and 20, look at which tick mark for the exact minute.
Now, can you figure out how the second hand works? Good! Kindergarten dismissed!
Real talk, is there some benefit to an analog clock that would prevent them from all being replaced by digital ones? Being able to know exactly the time in a moment's glance seems better to me.
They're certainly not better looking than a digital one, considering most of the ones used in schools are just the cheapest and most basic version they can get.
When I worked data entry, there was a chart for cursive as people couldn't understand cursive writing, and these were adults. I think this may check out (not because they're lacking, but because they probably weren't taught).
Who cares. Analog audio, video, phones, all out the window. Next people will be complaining people don't even know anything about vacuum tubes. Digital clocks are easier to read and make more fuckin sense. Leave the kids alone. 🙄🙄🙄
It was the only way I could tell how much time is left, I didn't have a phone till highschool. In school counting down the second till school was over was so crucial.
It's true. I teach college kids, and a couple of years ago my class was taking a midterm. The room didn't have a clock so I put my watch on the document camera display so they'd know how much time was left. A girl in the front row asked me what time it was, because she couldn't tell time. After she turned in her test, thinking she must be kind of embarrassed about this, I told her I'd be happy to teach her how to tell time. She gave me a look like "ok, boomer" and said no thanks.
Analog clocks are like cursive, there isn't any real world benefit so it seems like we should spend that effort on one of the many other things that schools could teach.
Anyone who wants to understand how to read an analog clock can learn it in two minutes, it's not like you need to be taught in school.
edit to add: My brother recently told me that he was at the library and his friend's teenage daughter looked at the analog clock and said indignantly "I can't read that!" So apparently it is true that people aren't learning simple skills like this.
It floors me just how many people in this thread feel like analog clock reading is a useless/outdated skill.
But I'm of the opinion that there's no such thing as a truly outdated and useless skill, so I'm not sure I have the capability to empathize with those people...
Guys lets be honest why point at small Numbers which you have to read in a specific sequence while doing some math when you can easily and nowadays probably more efficiently (paper-ink) display them... Analog clocks are going to disappear and people will watch at them with the same eyes as we watch a sundial...(Btw I had to search for the translation of the world sundial that's how common it is ... 😉)
I can ready It but i get teens Who dont
I have a hard time with analog clocks because my brain scrambles shit up and I get really confused. Like, even the hands seem weird when your brain flips the numbers around
1 if u dont kids how to do a thing they dont learn
2 and more importantly; finally, analog clocks have no place in our wold and every last one should be in trash they serve literally no purpose, i have always hated them and i will delight in their death.