Analogue clocks are a great example of kids having to understand a concept and apply it. And it’s simple enough that anyone can learn it.
I often see examples where children are required to memorize a set solution, instead of showing understanding and reaching the solutions themselves.
These clocks are somewhat dated, but removing them just feels like another symptom of a failing educational system.
Analog clocks are dated? Let’s get rid of books because we have kindles. Just something was invented a very long time ago doesn’t make it obsolete by any means. Or should we get rid of spoons or hammers? Those things are really somewhat dated.
Yeah I keep an analog clock on the wall because it’s a more intuitive way to keep track of how long I’ve got to get ready to go out. I know where the angle of the minute hand will be when I have to be out the door, so it’s quicker to glance it it and know if I gotta pick up the pace or I got plenty of time or whatever.
Dated does not mean obsolete. But it’s hard to deny a digital clock is superior in almost every way.
Unlike the other examples you’re giving, I fail to see in what aspect an analog clock beats a digital one. Sure they have a certain charm, but functionally they’re just behind their digital counterpart.
People are gonna downvote you but I definitely agree. I see why the trend is concerning but I dont think we need to keep everything around just because that’s how it used to be. Some things are allowed to change. When the quartz watch was invented, mechanical watches had to find a new niche and luckily they did. Both are still valid but their roles changed and that’s okay.
For my son, that has downsydrome, analogs clocks made sense for him because he could see the time passing or time remaining to the hour, but digital requires abstract number concepts he struggled with. 15 or 45 didn’t really mean anything to him sizewise, they are both 2 digit numbers. So he would struggle to grasp the time passing or time left… And making things worse we count 1-99 before the next unit but clocks are 1-59. How much time before 6 when it’s 5:47? Becomes a math equation, but a glance on the clock is readily apparent.
Exactly. And that’s also true for young children. Reading digital clocks is exactly that… reading. It doesn’t mean you understand what it means or how to interpret it. Analog clocks however are a great tool at actually get a feeling for time.
I think the biggest issue judging by the comment section is that most Americans (at least it seems that way) are almost never exposed to analog clocks.
Anecdotally, I have seen many Americans aren’t exposed to a lot. Like pointing out countries outside of North America is tricky for a lot of them. There is systematic degradation of their education system, but also this culture of “we are the best, we don’t need nothing”
Do you know how to read a sundial?
I hope you are not serious. If the shadow (hand) is on two, it’s two o’clock. If it’s on three, it’s three o’clock. If it’s exactly between those two ticks it’s half past two. There isn’t even anything to learn (at least when they were invented). That’s exactly how the hour hand on a clock works.
(Note: Today it would be a bit more complicated if you want wall-clock-time because the sun dial always tells local solar time and if you want the time in your time zone you would have to adjust for DST and use the equation of time for some smaller corrections)
You don’t know how to read one - you’ve forgotten to calibrate it.
If you don’t do that before use, it’s measurements are meaningless. Correcting for DST and dates and other minor aspects of how time is handled in the modern era is important (blech screw DST), but this issue was present even in the roman era and is why sundials have movable faces. Premodern observatories (eg. stonehenge or the observatories at pisac) have references to correct the measurements for things like change in solar position and the progression towards the equinox for the same reason.
I don’t think we should get rid of analog clocks, I just wanted to point out that your example here isn’t a very good one to use.
What is progression towards the equinoxes? You mean precession of the equinoxes? That takes millennia and is very much negligible when reading sun dials on a day to day basis, or even year to year basis.
The orbital motions of the objects in our solar system is pretty messy and you are right that there goes more into designing accurate sun dials than just a stick in the ground, but I’d still argue that that’s not part of “reading a sun dial” - which was the question I answered.
No, I mean the progression towards the equinoxes - historically the equinoxes were a common way to demark calendar dates, and as a result they’re a useful reference point. Not universal, of course, but still frequently used enough to be useful when discussing this topic.
I get you’re arguing because, well, this is the internet and I contradicted you. That’s how it works, our egos are too tied up in our comments alone and it’s too easy to read any tone into a comment that we’d like. We get defensive, our wounded egos make things heated. So in that spirit, let me be explicit that I’m not trying to be rude to you when I say this: You’re oversimplifying the metaphor to make your point.
For example: I’ve been sitting around for a full day, but the damn clock says only twelve minutes have gone by.
You adjust a sundial in the morning every day, and then can read it from there (assuming it hasn’t been jostled) - but you still have to be aware of the rules and conventions of the system, and work within it’s boundaries. If we arbitrarily dismiss critical parts of it’s operation, there will be no meaning in anything we have to say. The territory of things like “clocks don’t measure time, they measure circles and everything we derive from them is thence wild and baseless speculation”; literally true and I can defend that position until we both die of carefully-measured old age, but reduced to the point that it’s completely meaningless.
Do you have a link or something that explains “progression towards the equinoxes”. I never heard of that and can’t find anything about it.
Yes. The same as analogue clock, genius 🙄
Or should we get rid of spoons or hammers?
I have to say, I’m quite fond of my pneumatic hammer. When will my pneumatic silverware become a thing?
I just can’t be bothered to expend any energy while I’m eating! It’s supposed to give me energy, after all!
pneumatic silverware
🤣 awesome. I’d love to see that. Reminds me of a video where a guy tried to eat corncob by mounting it on a drill. IIRC he lot some teeth doing that “stunt”.
wait analog is outdated?? what do you mean?? What else do people wear on their wrist?? some dystopian world your living in
Dated, not outdated. Or do I totally have the meaning of the word wrong?
😭
Nah let’s ditch the analog clocks and instead teach them sundials. That will really stretch their brains.
Analog clocks are mechanical imitations of sun dials. Ever wondered why clockwise is the way it is? It’s because the sun moved that way (on the historically a bit more dominant northern hemisphere)
As our schools fail they simply change the parameters to cover up their failures
These clocks are somewhat dated, but removing them just feels like another symptom of a failing educational system.
Don’t worry because it’s a fake story.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
I remember getting a compliment more then once jn school. I was good t talong what i learned in once class and applying it to another
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Ive tried to teach my students (High School) how to read an analog clock. Keep in mind, I dont have time to teach a whole class on it, just a little lesson on how now and then when they ask what time it is. They can read it for the class, but the next day theyve forgotten how completely.
Its not because theyre stupid or lazy. Its because they rarely get practice with it. We know how to read an analog clock because, yes we were taught it in school, but they were everywhere so we essentially had practice with it all the time. These kids see digital clocks 99% of the time. So when do they ever apply their knowledge?
The only students who can read the clock are the handful who have analog watches for fashion reasons because they use it all the time.
Its a matter of practice but in truth these kids dont really have to read an analog clock in the modern world.
As a parent, we made sure to have an analog clock in every room while my kids were growing up, and we made them prove they could read it. Still don’t work. Digital clocks are everywhere else and in many ways more convenient.
Analog clocks are an obsolete decice whose time has passed. I also tried to keep it alive into the next generation but it’s not happening. It’s time to give it up.
Let that be one of our hallmarks as we age: the last generation with analog clocks. I use an analog face on my digital watch, have analog decorative clocks and I’ll accept that my kids believe that old fashioned (they do accept the analog clock face on my old car I gave them though, or maybe don’t know how to change it)
What kind of boomer would believe this nonsense?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
This has got to be AI written or cherry picked data. They’re pulling clocks to save a few $ if anything. Old schools used to have synchronized analog systems. I could easily see those things being removed.
Really? I never knew any of them were synchronized, that’s cool if so. I seem to remember us pulling them off the wall at our schools and changing them twice a year or replacing the batteries. Having them wired with synchronization may be overboard, but it is kind of cool
Yep. The schools I went to had synchronized analog clocks. They would all “adjust” together if they were off at all. Some kind of clockwork solenoid.
Yes I remember sometimes they would remotely adjust our clocks and you could see the hands moving quickly until they stopped in their intended position. Pretty genius for the old days.
All my schools had them. Sometimes you’d catch them doing a resync and all the hands would spin around. I think they probably couldn’t rotate CCW so had to go around the long way if they needed to roll back a few minutes.
My highschool was small (graduating class under 50; five small towns combined), and in the 90s, ours were synchronized, just realized I always wondered what they used.
Probably the clocks all used a synchronous motor. It spins baaed on ac current. After juat set the clocks to the right time when you plig them in
Thank you, I’ll need to look into it, it was obvious they were synced because they got adjusted for daylight savings from somewhere and they all slowly changed time over the course of an hour if I recall correctly, it always fascinated me.
Would that not mean if the power goes out after say a hurricane, the all the clocks have to be reset manually or can they somehow change them all remotely? A mechanism going threw the walls to change them from a single location sounds like a lot of work to get a synchronized clock
Im sire there is. A way to send a comand to clockw to fast-forward to a certain time.
At what point is it not just a digital clock with an analog interface if it has the ability to receive information digitally and perform tasks off of it. (I assume increase/decrease voltage to the motor).
Unless maybe that’s how they do it, put all the clocks on an individual power source, then manipulate the current to increase/decrease the speed of the motors so they all move synchronized… Idk, cool concept though. Not sure how you would overcome the loss in varying distance of the clocks though… it’s possible but a lot of planning
Its the Hertz of ac current that comteols timing. But that’s just how it counts the seconds not how it would tell if it is noon. But its uses analog electricity to keep time and maybe a digital comand to set time. Does make it digital or analog?
Yes, it’s very easy to debunk this nonsense. I’m kind of amazed that nobody but me has googled this.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
Thank you for posting that.
Snopes article about this from 2018 stating it’s mostly false.
Its becoming a reality though. I work in a school (primary and secondary) and the exams officer is putting digital clocks only in the exam rooms for that reason.
When my friend’s daughter was 9 years old and he was complaining how she didn’t know how to read an analogue clock.
I mean, I wound up teaching my nephews when they were 4 … not sure what’s stopping him from doing it though.
Well who would ever disagree with a Snopes article
Mostly misogynistic right wingers but I don’t know any on this site.
People who believe memes are real.
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”
It’s only happened twice, but I’ve run into kids who couldn’t read an analog clock. You know what I did?
I taught them. It took, like, 30 seconds. I know it took 30 seconds because I was wearing a goddamn watch.
Still can’t understand how any kid cannot do it. Isn’t that something you learn from your parents before you even go to school
I think I learned how to read a clock in preschool, not from my parents
“little hand”, “big hand” kind of stuff… yeah, I vaguely recall going over that when I was in JK/SK, possibly in the first few grade levels. IDK, I’m old now, so I don’t remember a lot of what happened when I was around 6.
… Unless the parents are idiots as well.
No doubt the parents are idiots just like their kids
Reversed Darwin. More and more of these.
I remember learning in second grade.
The older you are the more you actually learned in school.
Don’t undersell all of the life lessons you learned from being the age you are.
Part of the reason why kids seem so dumb is because they don’t have that life experience yet. They’re still figuring it out. I’m sure that when I was a kid people looked at me and thought I was pretty dumb, just like many adults do to the kids now. blave has the right attitude about it; teach them. Someone has to. If everyone shrugs it off that someone will do it, then nobody does it.
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.
One part of me wants to feel disappointed that kids aren’t learning to read analog clocks, but another part of me thinks there was a time when people grew disappointed that the younger generations stopped learning to use an abacus in favor of digital calculators. I certainly don’t want some old geezer giving me shit because I don’t want to learn to use an abacus. I also don’t want to be that old geezer.
Teacher here.
I’m pretty certain that the only place where my students ever encounter an analog clock is at school. But teaching how to read analog clocks is required in our math education standards, so I have one and I use it, even though I think there are other, more relevant places to put our academic focus.
I’m 45 years old. I’m pretty sure we only ever had one analog clock in our house when I was growing up in the '80s, and that was my grandpa’s alarm clock. The only places I’ve been where only analog clocks were available have been schools. Even our local bank in my small town changed to a digital clock on its sign outside.
Unfortunately, education systems are dictated by legislators, who are often old and out-of-touch. So I doubt we’ll see a change in the education requirements any time soon. But, just like how keyboarding has replaced cursive in classrooms, it will eventually come.
Are you from the US? I’m completely amazed that there are counties we you are almost never exposed to analog clocks. I’m from Europe and analog clocks are everywhere. Every train station, public buildings, churches, clock towers, homes, wrist watches. Heck we even have tons of (but more because of esthetics instead of serious time keeping) sun dials on walls (which the analog clock and the clock wise direction is based on - for the north hemisphere). Many appliances/devices have digital clocks but that’s not because the are more modern/better but because they are way cheaper to produce and have less moving parts.
Europe has a lot more cultural attachment to their buildings as they have histories that go back a lot longer.
Murica, doesn’t and its part of why they have such awful car centricity.
The car lobbyists were basically allowed to design American cities.
Mind you, they are the people who measure area in “stadiums” and the distance in “football field lengths” because they are too stupid to comprehend the metric system.
Dpes no one in Europe ever use object for a reference. Like it’s as tall the efifle tower, or that like running 3 laps around a football feild.
Of I were to say that America east to west would stretch from the straights of jerblarter to paar Istanbul. Does break their mind because they only understand km.
I’m from the US, but I’m currently a teacher in South America. Kids here are even worse at reading analog clocks than my students in the US were.
Yeah the for a long timw the cheapest watches were digital ones. And omce led even old red ones you cloid make digital clocks very very cheap.
Teacher here.
I’m pretty certain that the only place where my students ever encounter an analog clock is at school.
What the actual fuck? Are you not using wrist watches at all at whatever US hole you are a teacher at? Because most of these are analogue.
Unless it change in last few years the cheapest wrist watched arw digital
Not currently teaching in a “US hole.” I’ve been teaching in South America for 5 years and I have never noticed an analog clock in a public place here.
I’m 32, I wear an analog clock on my arm every day
very few continue to use an abacus. analog clocks will still be around for decades
No doubt. I wasn’t trying to imply that either one is useless, but things change and new technology takes over. Another person replied to me comparing cursive and typing on a computer. I catch myself thinking that new generations are at a disadvantage because they don’t learn the same things I did. But it may not always be necessary that they do. I am of the computer typing generation. I didn’t learn to write beautiful cursive, but my life hasn’t been negatively impacted even though many people have expressed sympathy for my awful education. I was just trying to say I think it’s a rather normal thing for old systems to get phased out of a classroom from time to time. It’s not really a good reason to believe that younger generations are doomed. But like I said I fall into that line of thinking myself from time to time.
No need to feel disappointed about fake news.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
Idk in our university lecture halls we had HH:MM.sss digital clocks and it’s obviously superior for exams because you can just compare the numbers instead of translating and then comparing the numbers. And I’m pretty sure that’s why they were digital, because it’s easier to quickly compare.
If you were used to analog clocks, you’d read the remaining time just off the clock. As you would just read the time off it – no need for any translation or comparison, just one glimpse and you’d know it. For several decades this superiority of analog clocks was a main argument against the use of digital clocks. Digital clocks are more precise, though.
The point wasn’t about which is easier but that many really can’t read an analog clock. And that’s really sad.
Eh, we don’t teach them how to read a sundial or make a fire anymore either. I don’t see a problem with removing old technology from school instruction.
Especially when this is a skill easily teached by parents. But who whants to interact with the humans one put into this world, I need to get this [insert trend item]
“Old technology” like, hammers, spoons and books 🤣 Let’s get rid of the wheel. That crap was invented ages ago.
Update: and if you can’t read a sun dial - which by the way is just reading the number the freaking shadow points at - the US should seriously consider teaching stuff like that again.
…which by the way is just reading the number the freaking shadow points at…
And how do you read an analog clock? By looking at the number the arm points at. Learning how to read the clock is not just “what number is it on” but it’s getting familiar with the clock face so you can read it quickly. It’s like the difference between spelling and reading.
You are right, nothing to argue against here. What I’m arguing against is just that digital clocks are somehow the successor of analog clock, which they are not. There is a reason why digital clocks are now everywhere and that’s mainly cost. It’s far cheaper to add a digital clock (sometimes just software because the hardware had a (segmented) display anyway). Nobody would add an analog clock to a microwave, because why would you. But because you need the display anyway to show the remaining time, why not show the actual time when there is nothing in it.
The other thing I’m arguing against is the claim that digital clocks are easier to read. That’s just wrong. Assuming you have roughly the same amount of exposure to both types of clocks. Children about 3-5 have no problem understanding analog clocks (just focus their attention to the hour hand at first) but I have yet to see three/four year old kids reading and understanding digital clocks. Digital clocks are more like actual reading and you need a pretty solid understanding of time already to interpret what you read. An analog clock on the other side doesn’t assume you know how long an hour is, quite the contrary, it helps children develop a feeling for how long minutes and hours are.
Yeah, I think we are pretty closely aligned on whether or not the analog clock face is necessary to daily life, and we just differ on if we should bother to teach it in school.
Also, I got a kick out of this…
Nobody would add an analog clock to a microwave
For the longest time, my grandparents microwave had an analog clock in it, and you literally turned dials to set a mechanical timer which ran the microwave.
Are people really this stupid now?
How hard can it actually even be? Nobody taught me how to read an analog clock, I just figured it out myself at age 9 by staring at my parents’ analog clock for exactly 5 minutes, while carefully watching the hands move and counting.
When I realized that the second hand ticked 60 times per revolution, and after it had went around 5 times, and the longer of the two slow hands had advanced from the 12 to the 1, then I simply thought to myself “Well I get it now, that’s not so hard!”
And yes I correctly extrapolated the correlation between the minute hand and the hour hand too.
No, it’s a meme made for older generations to feel superior to the younger generations. I’ve never met anyone who couldn’t read analog (who wasn’t very early primary school age).
Yeah they are. Try asking a simple question about geography. OR Remember in the movie Animal House how the Belushi character said that the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor. Say that today and most people still in school will readily nod in agreement
Just read comments of some users in this very thread. “Idiocracy” was a documentary after all.
Just the people who believe this nonsense.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
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.
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.
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/
I didn’t say it was always the case.
This statement just seems like agreement to me… Idk.
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.
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
What was scribbled out of this screenshot with black lines, and why was it scribbled out?
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.
Maybe it was the link to Snopes explaining how this is fake?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-removing-analog-clocks/
