If the yung-uns have no drive to turn back time and actually use and develop their brains, because my gen isn’t going to rescue them and the boomers have also fallen into the internet trap. It’s on them to save themselves, really.
If these trends keep going the way they are then idiocracy becomes reality.
We are already there
Teenagers not being able to tell the time from analogue clocks is CRAZY (saying this as a teenager myself)
Of course it’s crazy but in our current clown world they are not dumb but somehow victims
What kind of boomer would believe this nonsense?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
I don’t really get it. Snopes says “mostly false”, but then confirms that the UK made a recommendation to replace analog clock for digital ones because “some students had trouble estimating the remaining time”.
While OOP is a shortcut/overgeneralization, it doesn’t sound “mostly false” to me.
It could be to deal with learning disabilities not the average kid which makes it mostly false.
Also a recommendation doesn’t mean it happened.
Some ppl who just badly want to be angry.
Are we being serious right now bro?! 🤦
Every year I taught for the past 30 years I have heard this but I will say that every year I had to go over how to read a clock at the beginning of the year and every time a kid would ask me what time it is I would point at the clock and ask them what time they think it is? At least they left the class knowing how to read a clock even though they were shit at writing essays.
About thirty years ago I was a teen. I remember talking with a girl only a few years younger than me, and being astounded that she didn’t know how to read an analogue clock.
Exactly as you indicated, this is nothing new.
I feel like I’m going insane reading these comments about how difficult it is to read analog clocks, how it needs too much understanding of maths, how it takes too long,…
Can someone please confirm: you just look, for a fraction of a second, at the clock face and know the time, right?
Learning to read the clock was like… A couple of lessons and some homework in the 2nd grade, and everyone got it.
I am in the transition age range of people who have trouble reading analog clocks and I must admit I had trouble with it until I started wearing a watch as an accessory as a teenager. The issue isn’t that it’s hard, it’s just something that you need practice at to do quickly and a lot of young people just don’t look at analog clocks to tell time very often. It’s not a matter of being stupid or not being taught how to do it, it’s like mental “muscle memory” that just isn’t built up in a world where digital clocks are everywhere, including in your pocket 24/7
Watches were pretty ubiquitous before the smart phone was popularized. Though, digital watches were common since the '80s, so I’m not sure how much that really figures in. There is some truth, though, in needing to regularly do it to keep the skill.
Clock reading was covered in kindergarten and cursive writing taught in 1st grade. These were some of the first wrinkles pushed into our little growing brains in the early 80s by school. That these things are no longer being taught so early explains why so many people are willing to immediately accept the Google AI overview as gospel and are wearing Crocs everywhere they go.
and are wearing Crocs everywhere they go.
Oooh, that’s harsh.
FWIW, I went to school in mid-2000. My sibling even later. They still taught it back then, and at least here, I am pretty sure they still do. (And why would they not, after all…)
Throughout middle school and high school, my bedroom clock was one of these, just the mechanism, no face, no numbers, hanging off the edge of a shelf. I had no trouble reading it. I still can easily read an analog clock with no numbers or any face marks.
I can confirm. You are not insane.
Learning to read the clock was like… A couple of lessons and some homework in the 2nd grade, and everyone got it.
Yes, this meme is pretty obviously fake.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
Not exactly responding to you, but wanted to post somewhere where people would see it (hopefully)
We are not removing clocks or the standards, but it is not as important as many other standards in my grade level and 3rd grade. As a joke, I am going to bring a kid to our intervention team who can’t tell time as his only academic issue. We will all get a good laugh out of it.
Every 2nd/3rd grade teacher I’ve worked with believes their students can tell time by the end of the year. This being said, regression is a well known phenomenon in education over breaks, but this is regression is due to analog clocks disappearing in society I assume and devastating to a newly acquired skill. Here are the 2nd grade standards, I would say this and counting money have become completely unsupported at home in my Title 1 school. Most teachers I have ever met care about kids and want them to learn, but there is only so much to do. They spend a lot more time out of school in their childhood than other places. Do the math!
2.OA.A Adding/Subtracting within 100 word problem and representations
2.OA.B Memorizing add/sub facts to 20
2.OA.C Equal groups (building blocks for multiplication)
2.NBT.A Place value (broken into 4 substandards, its kind of really fucking important)
2.NBT.B Place value (broken into 4 more substandards, its kind of really fucking important)
2.MD.A Measure and estimate in metric and standard (broken into 4 substandards, it is kind of really fucking important)
2.MD.B Addition and Subtraction in relation to length
2.MD.C Time to nearest 5 minutes and money 2.MD.D Interpreting graphs
2.G Shapes and Attributes
I feel like I’m going insane reading these comments about how difficult it is to read analog clocks,
Some of these comments are made by lazy idiots arguing that there is nothing wrong with being lazy idiot.
I don’t understand how you could possibly classify looking at a clock as lazy.
Read again.
I just don’t see what any of this has to do with laziness.
It isn’t lazy to have a mastered skill and use it. It’s lazy not taking the time to master it.
That being said, the biggest lazies of them all are the curriculum writers which don’t make teaching future working adults how to use a clock a priority in grade school.
You don’t see how people too lazy to understand the clock are too lazy?
I do not. I don’t conceive of looking at something as having anything to do with the concept of laziness. I feel like I’m missing something huge.
I do not
In this case I am afraid I doubt in my ability to explain anything to someone of your ability.
Yes.
I used to have some complex thinking I was slow at reading time in an analog watch, these days I feel much more confident.
I don’t know, I’ve never particularly liked analogue clocks. I don’t think I ever thought of them as difficult to read, but it’s far superior to look at an exact number like digital usually features.
Disagree - it rarely matters to me if it’s 13:24:56 or 13:25:05, but I do find the instant and intuitive gauging of time deltas super useful (as in, how long it’s going to be to the full hour / to quarter past / … ). Not saying you can’t get that info from a digital clock as well, of course you can; but the physicality of analog clocks lends a good bit of intuition to this, I feel.
I get that, but I personally find that I often do care about the exact time, down to the minutes, and that’s harder to track with an analogue clock. I don’t have particular problems in reading them, I just often prefer digital clocks.
But I will agree that I feel analogue clocks give a better vibe of the time, since its basically a pie chart of how far you are in the day.
Yeah, vibe of the time is a good description
That does make sense.
To be fair if you are never exposed to it (and judging by the comments that seems to have happened in the US) you can’t tell the time by “just looking at it”. But analog clocks are objectively simpler to teach to children (let’s say three to eight years old).
Lemmites will never miss an opportunity to make things difficult to draw attention to themselves.
Yeah but the “hard” work of reading an analog clock apparently offends some people. Just more of “feelings” nonsense vs. facts
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Man I always felt analog clocks are just old age. I felt like that for about 30 years since I was a little kid. Its easier to read digital
How tf are we in 2025 and people are still spouting off as if all humans have the same brain capacity and capability?
Literally noone I know in real life has any problem whatsoever reading analog clocks, no matter the “brain capacity”, neuro-typicality, state of drunkenness,… It is an extremely simple “skill”.
I’m 35. Math major. Work in STEM. Well educated.
I hate analogue clocks. Why use subpar way of reading time if digital is so much better?
Because it’s not! Glad to help you clear that up.
They are too loud, I had to insist to put the clock down and take the batteries out, since the ticking was too loud.
Being older (mid fifties) I was taught the analogue clock. My eyes no longer work so well for reading, and an analogue clock face allows you to see the hands and know the time without having to work out where I’ve left my glasses. On my phone’s sleep screen I’m using large high contrast digits so I guess I’m using both styles. Also much easier to visualise time deltas on a clock face.
But the point wasn’t about vision but the simple intelligence needed to read an analog clock
I loved when a class would get quiet enough to hear the seconds hand click on the mechanical motor. I lived to see how close it was to the end of minute. One time in class I counted how black dots were on the ceiling. Wow I was bored
I counted the dots along the x axis, multiplied by the y axis count and took that as an estimate for the tile. Then did the same with the number of tiles across the ceiling. Then multiplied that by the number of classrooms… Same with the floor tiles. There was no end to it.
To the title, that’s always been the case.
“no child left behind” turned into “make it easier until everyone passes” Shit isn’t new. it’s been going on for a long, long ass time.
Shit isn’t new and it hasn’t always been the case.
It’s fake.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
Your fact check doesn’t say it’s fake. Even the “mostly false” mentioned in the fact check is a bit of a stretch if you read the “what’s true” section.
The less educated a populous is, the less likely they are to think critically, think for themselves, and ultimately the easier they are to control.
It’s getting really bad. Some people even use “populous” when they mean “populace.”
It’s getting so bad that some people even put the period INSIDE the quotation mark at the end of a sentence!
Do the blackboards in the US also say “breathe in, breathe out, repeat” so that half the class doesn’t just die?
No that’s silly, there’s no guarantee that they could read that.
This article is old enough to buy cigarettes now.
It took me until age 15 to become comfortable reading analog clocks and confident knowing which way is left and right.
Hey cut me some slack, left/right gets confusing sometimes because of mirrors & facing people).
But I think learning how to tell time on an analog clock is an important skill because it broadens the mind regarding mechanics & mathematics, thereby developing more synapses in our brains & logic & mental computational skills.
I’m old af and I still have to think about it
Once I figured out what hand I write with, it was all easy street from there. I used to tell myself “I write with my right hand”
What was scribbled out of this screenshot with black lines, and why was it scribbled out?
Maybe it was the link to Snopes explaining how this is fake?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
The part in the middle is a screenshot of some social media site and the blacked out parts are navigation bread crums, comment counts. The answer below has a blacked out user name, profile picture, etc.
I have no idea why they would remove UI elements from a screenshot.
I think removing everything that kids have a bit of a hard time trying to grasp just teaches kids to give up if anything isn’t immediately apparent. Its not as much of a waste of time as cursive, and it’s to be taught to think in another way.
I think that kids “learning how to learn” is really important, especially with how these AI models are stunting like a whole generation of people.
This is minor, but I also think less things need electronic displays/components that are hard to recycle and increase dependency on exploiting X country for Y resource. Its also cool to just be able to build a physical mechanism which digital clocks have no real feasible option to do
It’s extremely minor because it’s extremely fake.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
I just found out my 10yo has been lagging behind in spelling because he’s been using speech-to-text on his school issued iPad for class work. He doesn’t have to think about it or try sounding it out, so of course an unpracticed in-development skill is waning. It’s going to be an interesting parent-teacher meeting coming up.
Is it a feature you can disable on the iPad? I never considered that kids would be doing that. My spelling was never great but I just always chalked it up to the way my brain worked. Even when I spent a couple years in college spending most of my free time reading books both to myself and our loud to my partner I still didn’t remember how certain words were spelt because I often didn’t write them. If I never wrote them as you are saying I imagine it would have been much worse.
Its also cool to just be able to build a physical mechanism which digital clocks have no real feasible option to do
i am delighted to be able to introduce you to flip clocks.
I would rather learn how to build an analog clock. In the olden days clock makers were highly respected & incredibly intelligent, it’s quite an intellectual & mechanical art & science & craft to build an analog clock.
Cursive is wayyyy more accessible for lots of people with chronic pain in their arm/hand/wrist. Also helps prevent those conditions for those who have do a lot of hand writing. I dread the day that people will no longer be able to read the least painful way to write or me.
If I’m honest with myself my handwriting was always shit. If I was writing you a letter you’d be able to read it, but taking notes in college was all but useless for me. The speed at which you would have to write left me unable to find any of it legible so I was able to take in more information by just sitting down and listening/watching instead of scrambling to figure out what they were talking about now after I wrote down whatever I thought was important prior to that. Professors write fast because they do it all the time, and the amount of time it would take me to read then write what they wrote would overlap the time they spent over the next 15 seconds telling you why it was important. If I wrote down why it’s important I’m behind on the next bit of information and scrambling. When a professor posted their notes online so I could review it that way it was so much easier for me. (Makes note taking way easier)
What’s interesting about this is that we are not taught how to take notes. People used to have classes that taught what is actually a complicated skill. I have gone through enough schooling that my note taking just happens without much thought, but it took me real effort to get there.
and I yet I had a class in note taking and then years latter got points taken off because I didn’t take like that teacher wanted
Why the fuck would your notes be any of the teacher’s business?
I don’t know bit it really pissed me off
I had a couple teachers try to spend a single class about note taking but I think note taking is different for everyone, much like learning styles. Telling someone to skip a,b, and ,c and just write d because they view it as the important information only works for people who think exactly how they think. So I would try something like that and would end up with.
1974 - congress - didn’t pass till 1980.
That means nothing to someone unless they know more context, which the context clues in my experience are tied to someone’s individual thought processes. In this case it would be mentions of maybe reconciliation process, simple majority, and budget. But for others it could be other things.
It is minor but part of a bigger problem. Show them a globe and ask them to point our where Austria is and then ask them where Australia is. Most couldn’t do it. And many wouldn’t even know the difference
We should make everyone mad. Don’t teach them to read analog clocks. Teach them to read digital clocks and sundials.
Learning how to write with a pen is a waste of time…?
First: Some UK teachers exchanged the analogue with digital clocks. This was only to reduce interruptions by some students (during a specific kind of UK exams), who had trouble determining the remaining time in the heat of the exam battle.
Secondly: The use of analogue clocks is taught at UK schools. What’s missing is the practice that former generations of pupils had. No more wristwatches, public clocks all but gone, and (what I am nostalgically missing from my youth) no more peeking onto parked car’s dashboards to read the analogue clock there. Times have changed, and this specific partially lost ability is not the schools’ fault. (Not to say that other things aren’t…)
Can we please bury that stupid old meme, as it has been based on some inaccurate buzz and largely giving a completely inaccurate impression of the topic from the start…
Support. First reasonable comment in here.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
Since smart watches are a thing some schools banned wristwatches during exams because they where not planning to look for the differences
no more peeking onto parked car’s dashboards to read the analogue clock there.
Eventually, Lexus might stop including the analog clock as a luxury feature.
Kids don’t know cursive either. Nobody needs it anymore.
I feel that learning cursive is important.
First you learn how to write ordinary letters. That trains your fine motor skills so you can write them reliably (try writing with your non-dominant yourself hand to see).
What cursive teaches you is how to write quickly. Of course, no one will write in pure, perfect cursive. Most people settle for a style somewhere in between. It teaches you the concept of “you can combine letters together to make you write faster” and “here are a bunch of ways to combine them”. It’s a good thing, Especially if they end up going to college.
Giving them a few more weeks of practice in reading and writing is a great way to avoid them being partially illiterate.
Counter point: I can write a hell of a lot faster on a keyboard if I need to take notes.
Being “taught” cursive in school was torture, anyway.
I was taught block lettering in technical drafting class, 8th grade. Cursive is a lettering specifically created to be easy to handwrite. It flows on paper, as opposed to the repetitive short strokes of block lettering.
The way they taught us cursive was the complete opposite of the intent of cursive. Rigidly proscribed characters with marks only for form, ignoring all function. It was agonizingly tedious and physically painful writing all of those nonsensical scrawls. I immediately switched back to my own chicken scratch after grade school because it was not only orders of magnitude faster, but at least didn’t make my hand painfully seize up into a claw.
Decades later, as my handwriting evolved, a number of my own script letters began to resemble those wretched cursive runes, because I had apparently blindly stumbled upon the actual correct method for writing to flow from nib to parchment, as opposed to whatever those torturous rituals scarred me with as a child.
The problem you describe is very real, and not just in the US or the UK, but in most of Europe as well. A big part of writing is how to actually write, not just the letters et al.
I mean the literal way you move you arm, the angle you write at, how you hold you pen, etc.
I didn’t learn any of that, and as an intensely dyslexic and left-handed individual, writing was extremely painful to me. That is, until 10th grade where I taught myself calligraphy.
It turns out that, when learning calligraphy, you do learn how to write properly.
After that, my handwriting in school (and for the rest of my life) became much better: I didn’t have hand-pain anymore, I didn’t smudge the ink, and, of course, my handwriting was very orderly and neat. Teachers even started commenting on it!
Most notably for me though: writing became fun. For me, as a dyslexic, this literally felt revolutionary.
Anyway, that is what I think they should teach in schools.
I used to troll my teachers with inane questions to help my friends prepare for exams or quizzes that we knew were coming. I can’t expect it’s changed much.
My wrist watches were always digital, public clocks in suburbia I’m just gonna say never existed, in cars wtf?
I can only see this as an education problem.
This was only to reduce interruptions by some students (during a specific kind of UK exams), who had trouble determining the remaining time in the heat of the exam battle
I am not being funny but if someone is unable to read the time perhaps they shouldn’t be in the exam room in the first place.
It is like saying that all questions will be read out loud all the time and verbal answers recorded instead of written ones - because some students are illiterate.
Honestly if you can’t calculate things on an abacus you shouldn’t be in the exam room tbh. Sure, calculators have been invented and have ultimately replaced the abacus in nearly every facet of day to day life, but surely you know how to add beads together?
We’re letting kids use GPS to get to school now? What the street signs and constellations aren’t good enough for you?
Let me rephrase it than - if someone is an idiot, they shouldn’t be in the exam room. If you are concerned about it, it may be because you fit the category.
What makes people who didn’t learn to read analog clocks idiots? If you have a thing about analog clocks, just keep it to yourself.
it may be because you fit the category
Or maybe because it’s just stupid af to judge people’s intelligence based on an unrelated life skill.
What makes people who didn’t learn to read analog clocks idiots?
Wrong question. The correct would be: what make people who are too lazy or too stupid to learn the clock idiots - but that would be a rhetorical one.
it’s just stupid af to judge people’s intelligence based on an unrelated life skill.
Intelligence is an ability to obtain knowledge and skills. If someone lacks both, it is a strong indication of them not having enough intelligence to obtain them.
who are too lazy or too stupid
They do know how to read the clock (digital ones :) ) Again, it doesn’t make them idiots or lazy for not learning something they don’t really need to learn
Intelligence is an ability to obtain knowledge and skills. If someone lacks both, it is a strong indication of them not having enough intelligence to obtain them.
What makes you think they don’t have the ability to learn how to read analog clocks just because they don’t? You might not know how ride a horse, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn how to. Are you an idiot for not learning how to?
They do know how to read the clock
They also know how to use calculator, they just don’t knot 2 times 2 is four without it. Neither have place during an exam.
What makes you think they don’t have the ability to learn how to read analog clocks
Because if they did, they would have done during lessons to learn it, sweetie 🙄
You don’t know how to use an abacus? You must be an idiot.
No. Don’t know how to use the clock? You shouldn’t be in the exam room.
Except, they do know how to use a clock. Just not your favorite clock
Nope. They don’t know how to use the clock. The one widely used.
Yikes.
Also, since you ran out of arguments and started correcting people’s spelling, *then.
“yikes” what?
Passing exams is not an entitlement, it is an achievement. If someone is an idiot unable to understand the clock, they shouldn’t be in the exam room in the first place - and they certainly shouldn’t expect someone will start explaining clock to them when they are supposed to write an exam.
Why are you so adamant that reading an analog clock is required to pass an exam that doesn’t feature any material related to reading analog clocks?
Why are you so adamant that reading is required at all? You could just watch ticktock instead after all.
Students with dyslexia do get special treatment. There is no reason to discriminate against people lacking an unrelated skill and it’s not funny to demand it so we at least agree on something
I agree.
That being said, there’s a difference between having a disability and just not having had enough practice.
Just having an analogue clock in all rooms and halls of a school is a way to give people the opportunity to get the practice.
In higher grades you can have an analogue clock in front and a digital “cheat” one in the back. If they’re not sure, they can glance at that. And if that cheat clock is only in every other room. Most will learn because it’s easier that way.
When reading the clock comes as a topic of the curriculum in 1st or 2nd grade, having the teacher ask a student to read the time periodically from the classroom clock for a few months will make sure everyone has had at least some opportunities to practice.
Of course, if someone does have a problem bordering on disability, accomodate them. Regardless of whether their parents took the time and money to have it diagnosed or not. But a quarter of a class having it is either bad luck or just bad methodology.
Edit: all this applies to elementary school.
The post talks explicitly about teenagers in exam halls. Don’t know if “exam hall” is a term for regular class rooms but either way it talks about teenagers. True, younger kids should learn it. Even if without practice, you have a hard time as a teenager, you can revive the skill later. Source: I did.
I am not referring to students with diagnosed disabilities - I am referring to the vast majority without.
… in the context that many students can’t read analog clocks and shouldn’t get help. Pretty sure there is no official diagnosis for this so no problem and they don’t deserve to know how much time they have left in a biology exam. Again, there is no reason to discriminate against people lacking unrelated skills, if diagnosed or undiagnosed.
Let me put it this way: if someone is not disabled and still unable or too lazy to understand the clock, they shouldn’t be in the exam room in the first place.
This is not a “discrimination” - most exams are for the people with a some level of the IQ, certainly above the level of a radiator. Or a stool.
unable or too lazy to understand the clock,
They can understand the clock? Just not the analog clock. Why should they anyways? It’s not like that’s the only way to tell time and since reading analog clocks is an unrelated skill why do u think they’re not fit to write exams? It has nothing to do with IQ, it’s just that analog clocks aren’t as common as they used to be. Hence, they’re less used to them than previous generations. They probably can learn to read them if they wanted to, but they just don’t bother, since they don’t really need it these days
Just not the analog clock. Why should they anyways?
Because it is is widely used?
Why should they learn alphabet in the first place? Why should they learn numbers?
Ah, okay, I can’t take exams because my dyscalculia makes it difficult for me to read a clock (and it’s not worth my time).
👍
No, you shouldn’t pass exams if you are an idiot - and if you do take them, don’t expect a special treatment because of your stupidity.
And no, as I said people with diagnosed disability are a different matter.
Hopefully that clarifies it for you.
