At least 31 states and the District of Columbia restrict cell phones in schools
New York City teachers say the state’s recently implemented cell phone ban in schools has showed that numerous students no longer know how to tell time on an old-fashioned clock.
“That’s a major skill that they’re not used to at all,” Tiana Millen, an assistant principal at Cardozo High School in Queens, told Gothamist of what she’s noticed after the ban, which went into effect in September.
Students in the city’s school system are meant to learn basic time-telling skills in the first and second grade, according to officials, though it appears children have fallen out of practice doing so in an increasingly digital world.
“analog” <> “old-fashioned”. Analog clocks are very common out in the world. Analog watches even more so, they’re the norm not the exception among people with an interest in watches. My take-away from this story is that 1) these schools are not teaching kids to read analog clocks, and 2) these schools have installed digital clocks rather than analog.
Both of these things are easy to remedy.
I think every school I’ve ever been in had an analog clock in every room, but:
Another interesting thing, at least around me, is that audible “time-striking” on the hour seems like it might outlast all the large public clocks. I believe the vast majority of them are now digitally operated and emitted over a loudspeaker instead of being a mechanical system hooked up to an analogue clock with actual bells. It kind of makes sense, because that can be automated and requires far less maintenance and resources than a mechanical system or human bellringer.
Is it? I hadn’t noticed but I’m probably not looking for clocks in the wild much either. I can think of one big quasi-public space (my YMCA gym) that has nothing but analog clocks up high on the walls. I could speculate that analog is easier than digital to read from a distance, or that large digital clocks designed to be read from a distance are more expensive than analog or hard to find, but I wouldn’t think either of these would be true.
There are wall clocks all over my life too, and especially at the swimming pool and the ski hill it is way easier to have an analog clock than a huge bright wall clock. (The pool has those too, but for pace clocks not for the time of day.)
Watches stopped being interesting to anyone except watch nerds by the 1980s or so, when they all became electronic except for very niche mechanical ones.
Also camp counselors.
Analog clocks are not “common” out in the world. Not where these kids are.
people with an interest in watches are a small percentage of people with watches. And most are “boomers” who don’t actually have an interest in watches beyond as a status symbol.
AFAIK there is a wall clock in every classroom, for a start.
Not sure where else kids go these days. But I work part time as a ski chaperone and there’s a huge clock at the ski resort you can see from the ski hill, and other clocks at the pool where the swim team is, and at the gym, and by the library at the town center.
Also a lot of the clocks are broken but we still blame phones even after we banned them
Google “what is a scapegoat”