Schools are removing clocks from exam halls as teens 'cannot tell time'
151 replies, posted
Honestly my schooling did both but they never hammered in telling the time via half past ten, it was always using digital 4:20 formats even when explaining analog times. Through I can read analog I have trouble knowing precise time, just something that over time I've forgotten and don't try to ask me precise "Half past ten" as I've long disregarded it.
Even if you full-stop quit using analogue clocks, the rest of the world wouldn't.
Analogue clocks will be in use at least for the next 50 years so an understanding of them will be useful if you travel at all.
About all the things to worry about the next generation and what they have to face in these times:
The ability to read analogue clocks is not on the priority list.
I couldn't care less if they disappear or not.
I was taught time through my mum telling me I have to wait an hour before I can turn on PS2 and then explaining what an hour is. You learn very quickly when your fun is dependant on it
They got automatic and solar watches now with digital movement. Those will last a long time. Sure they'll fail eventually, but mechanical watches need to be serviced too and tend to lose accuracy if not cared for properly much more quickly than digital so after the collapse you're going to have issues telling the time with either system regardless.
I'm seriously baffled that in 2018 we have to explain to people on an internet forum how to read analog clocks (which are still absolutely common btw, and will be).
Unless you have dyscalculia or some other specific disorder, I cannot comprehend:
how one never came across this problem in their education (in elementary, grades 1-2, or later when they were learning a foreign language and they had to do the most basic "tell the time from the clock" excercise)
how one never managed to pick this skill up by themselves (which honestly takes very little effort and time)
This problem is not unique to youth.
A mate of mine was an engineer building a gas plant and they needed a huge clock in the mess hall so that shift workers would be able to tell when their break is up. Because of the risk of fires or explosion in such an environment, any electrical device needs to be designed to be intrinsically safe such that no malfunction could result in it becoming an ignition source.
Being a mechanical engineer, he decided that a simple and cheap solution would be to install a mechanical clock that required no electric power. After installing it, so many of the workers were unable to tell the time from the analogue face that they had to spend tens of thousands of dollars designing a digital clock that met the strict electrical safety standards.
Those kids that can't read clocks? They grow into adults that can't read clocks...
Not everything, but it's the case here. I had difficulties with it at first, too, as most kids that age do. But it took eventually.
FWIF analog clocks are EZPZ for me, and I don't have a problem with the number for the months of the years, but ask me for their names and orders... and I'm pretty helpless - I can get September, October, November, and December, but that's it.
How is not learning relatively useless skills laziness?
This is honestly just silly, they aren't lazy, they just don't have a need to learn these skills. I wouldn't even be surprised if these kids were taught at one point, but forgot, due to never using those skills.
It’s easier and less distracting to take notes by hands, there are going to be situations where yes, you are going to have to handwrite things as you’re not going to have access to a computer.
Man, imagine a kid going out on a nature journey and not being able to write in a diary chronicling his journey. Or worse, just typing it out on his phone. And then uploading it to Instagram for likes.
How depressing.
I remember being told by my mom how Spongebob episodes are 15 minutes, and there's 4 episodes in 1 hour.
If I did something bad she'd tell me to go to my room for 15 minutes, and I'd be like "WHAT? For as long as a whole episode of Spongebob?? That's way too long!"
Nobody writes diaries? Maybe in whatever creativity-devoid social circles you grew up in. Handwriting is an essential skill that you can perform with almost anything on almost everything, but you'd surrender to dependency on your phone at the flick of a hat because it takes effort to teach it to children who would rather enjoy the instant no effort gratification of their cell phone. And of course, you don't need it for work, so obviously you don't need it at all.
To add to that, handwriting is personal expression, just by the fact that you yourself wrote it with your own hand, in the handwriting that only you have. That is nonexistent on a phone or a keyboard. You won't be finding Word files 70 years from now hidden in your attic with your own authentic signature on them. It's a pathway to creativity, whether in writing poetry or drawing and painting.
Man, good luck getting work outside of the shittiest of jobs without basic handwriting skills. I don't care how you try to spin it or how prevalent technology is, there will be times in your life when you need to hand write something, be it tomorrow or 50 years from now. The calculator didn't kill needing to know simple math, the ubiquity of technology won't kill handwriting.
To be honest I barely write anything anymore. I can go days without using a pen or pencil except to jot down single word notes at work while working on the database. But the idea that someone could not know - or shouldn't need to know - how to write coherently is ludicrous.
I don't really see the point of keeping analogue clocks around.
I'm not being naive, you're just being cynical. I value a person's artistic development, and you don't. The duty of an educational system is to plant the seeds that will help the child grow and find himself as an adult, and developing their ability to express themselves in a creative manner is a huge part of that. Otherwise we'd have all gone to business school since first grade, and imagine a world that boring.
I think it's fine, for a practical purpose there's not much point to analog clocks anymore. I'm sure this is our "damn kids back in my days..." moment. Analog clocks are hard to read at longer distances anyway compared to bright contrasting digital displays.
He didn't have that song sung to him in pre-k that helped teach the order? I still hum it in my head when I'm having a brain fart.
I'm near sighted, and find it much easier to read an analog clock at a distance than a digital clock with glasses on, most of the time. The bright numbers on a digital clock can blur together easily at long distances and I can make out the hands on a clock and get a pretty good guess at what time it is.
I don't have an argument for keeping analog clocks around. I agree they are aesthetically pleasing, but digital is much faster to read. Although I can't imagine myself in a situation where my life depends on reading a clock in a fraction of a second.
Because analog gives you a very clear visual representation of how long it's been/till a certain time. A digital clock requires subconscious mathematics to abstract a distance between times, obviously it's simple but it's there. Analog is about positioning and relative space, it should be EASIER for kids to learn TBH but no one can be asked to learn cause it's 'outdated'
Also the classic clock face way of calling out directions ('hes at 8 o clock') is widely used and is a neigh universal form of communication
Damn at least they got a clock, when we did exams in my school they took all the clocks down so no one could read the time because it was "distracting".
Handwriting develops your fine motor skills like crazy.
I have to go through that stupid fucking month song in my head to remember all of them and the order that they go in
Jesus christ how can you not read an analog clock? It fucking points to the numbers you need to know, especially the really simple ones they put in classrooms.
Oh no! Little jimmy is counting time in radians! The superior way to tell time from the circumference of a circle, where did we go wrong!
I think we're missing the more interesting thing here. People now run into analog clocks so little that many of them don't even spend the time to learn how to read them.
I don't think it is that they run into them very little, it's probably more likely that they rely on them much less. They're still all over the place, it's just most people also have a phone that they can check instead.
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