Young Can 'only Read Digital Clocks'

[naomi24]

//That's the claim in a debate between teachers - with suggestions that digital clocks are being installed in exam halls for teenagers.
It follows a report in the Times Educational Supplement of a conference being told that pupils needed a digital clock to be able to tell the time.//

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-43882847

These are GCSE and A-level students so not so very young. Fine, they’ll be able to tell the time in exam halls – but what about in the rest of the world? Rather than simply install clocks they can read, I wonder if anyone has ever considered an option that would be far more useful to them - teaching them to tell the time?

[naomi24]

I really don’t understand the argument against teaching children to tell the time. They should be capable of reading any clock.

[Kromovaracun]

I think it's a little premature to predict the end of analog clocks. They're still a very common feature in public spaces and I don't think that will change any time soon. Analog watches are still highly desirable consumer items, and they appear in general media about as often as digital clocks do. More importantly, it does not - or should not - take long to teach someone how to read one (my experience was perhaps the exception here because I was a difficult child to teach).

[ummmm]

My kids can tell the time because I taught them and bought them watches. I wouldn't call it a life skill either.

[Jackdaw33]

And don't forget those great big analogue clocks in stations which are/were popular for rendezvous.

[ummmm]

Actually the only slip up with had with time is my daughter reading a 24hr clock time. We turned up for a 8am flight at 8pm.

[jim360]

I suspect that my viewpoint on matters such as this is more than a little shaped by interactions with my grandmother. I took her out for a walk once in the nearby meadows, and she felt it a point of immense sadness that I couldn't recognise a hornbeam, or tell it apart from a blackthorn, or recognise speedwell from a distance. The young people of today, she'd moan.

Presumably, the irony is lost on her that she doesn't seem to know how to click on my name on skype, then click on the green button that looks like a phone, if she wants to call me.

Which one of those is a more important life skill for the modern age, I wonder?

I hasten to add that she'd also rant about digital v. analogue clocks, etc etc., as well. I expect you and her would get along rather well, N.

[Sqad]

Ummmm....I thought a 24 hour clock and a digital clock were the same thing.

[mushroom25]

JIM //Right now I'm struggling to imagine a situation where someone who couldn't read analogue clocks, and had no access to a digital one, would find that the most urgent problem they faced.//

given the scenario you describe above, said someone arrives at Liverpool Lime Street station (or any one of many others) to catch a train leaving at 11h09. here's a picture of the clock on the concourse:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Lime_Street_railway_station#/media/File:10-55pm,_Liverpool_Lime_Street_station_(geograph_4525187).jpg
without access to a digital clock (as you describe) how would "someone" know how long until their train leaves?

[mazie]

Not only clocks have changed naomi, times have changed too. I can only speak from experience but my Daughter is a single parent, she has been for nine and a half years, her youngest is 10. She's always had to work to keep them. I don't think for one minute she thought about teaching them to tell the time on clocks that she didn't have. People are time poor these days. Sad but true.

[Jackdaw33]

Not quite, Sqad. I have a digital watch but it is set to display am/pm. I can have either 1300 or 1 pm.

[Zacs-Master]

I don’t think anyone is arguing against teaching children to tell the time on an analogue timepiece. What they are arguing against is your assertion that it is essential.

[jim360]

Sqad, //I thought a 24 hour clock and a digital clock were the same thing.//

Not necessarily, as 1.59pm is a digital time, as opposed to 13:59.

Mushroom -- since e-tickets are a thing these days, it wouldn't totally surprise me that most people carry their phone with them all over the place. And, in the worst-case scenario, you could always... ask someone?

[Spicerack]

ummmm/// Actually the only slip up with had with time is my daughter reading a 24hr clock time. We turned up for a 8am flight at 8pm.///

Don't believe that.

[THECORBYLOON]

SPICERACK, 8am is 08.00, why is not believable for someone to think it meant 8pm?