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NYC phone ban reveals some students can't read clocks

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Re: NYC phone ban reveals some students can't read clocks

#21

Post by SilasX »

wan23 wrote: post #7

One thing that's tricky about analog clocks if you're not used to them - the hour hand sweeps unnecessarily over the course of an hour so you have to find the hour hand then go backwards. We have the technology to make clocks where the hour hand actually points to the hour that it is. I don't understand why the jump hour feature isn't more common.

That's a good point. The hour hand moves continuously as an artifact of technical constraints on the original clocks -- which I think is a great example of achieving a balance between UI and technical feasibility -- but we don't technically need them to work that way anymore, and digital clocks work exactly like that.

With that said, it's not obvious that we should use the jump hour UI[1]. It's desirable to have the hour hand be close to 4 when it's close to 4 o'clock. Like the neighbor comment says, that prevents you from confusing 4:58 with ~4.

[1] See my "continuity heuristic": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11687391

Re: NYC phone ban reveals some students can't read clocks

#22

Post by HnUser12 »

TheChaplain wrote: post #14

The fact that US children doesn't know how to read clocks doesn't surprise me, but what about other countries? Is reading a clock taught to students in India, Japan, China, Chile?

I don’t know about other countries, but it is taught in India in a few schools I am exposed to.

Analog wall clocks are fairly common in most Indian households.

Re: NYC phone ban reveals some students can't read clocks

#23

Post by dusted »

wan23 wrote: post #7

One thing that's tricky about analog clocks if you're not used to them - the hour hand sweeps unnecessarily over the course of an hour so you have to find the hour hand then go backwards. We have the technology to make clocks where the hour hand actually points to the hour that it is. I don't understand why the jump hour feature isn't more common.

Some (the worst) clocks do that.. It's convenient that the hour hand is moving continuously because it means that unless you need to be able to say "it's five seconds past two minutes past four _in the morning_", you simply look at the hour hand, if it's in the middle of two hours, well it's half past the smaller.. if it's one forth past the smaller, it's.. yes, quarter past.. if it's one forth from the larger then it's quarter to.. and well, honestly, if you need to read the time more precisely than that and chose to use an analogue clock for it, you've chosen the wrong type of clock, a digital clock with seconds and 24 hour display is a superior tool for telling the time anyway.

Re: NYC phone ban reveals some students can't read clocks

#24

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

themafia wrote: post #13

This framing aggravates me. Of course they /can/ read clocks. You just haven't _taught_ them how to do it yet, and up until now, they've had no reason to do it. It's divisive and weird.

Bullshit. Information is everywhere, if they WANTED to learn how to read them they could go on wikipedia or youtube.

That excuse could've worked when I was a teenager, where to learn something you have to either learn it from a person or from a book, but not nowadays.

Re: NYC phone ban reveals some students can't read clocks

#26

Post by [deleted] »

functionmouse wrote: post #9
wan23 wrote: post #7

One thing that's tricky about analog clocks if you're not used to them - the hour hand sweeps unnecessarily over the course of an hour so you have to find the hour hand then go backwards. We have the technology to make clocks where the hour hand actually points to the hour that it is. I don't understand why the jump hour feature isn't more common.

Wouldn't 4:58 with jump hour look too much like 4:00?

[deleted]

Re: NYC phone ban reveals some students can't read clocks

#27

Post by jackvalentine »

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #24
themafia wrote: post #13

This framing aggravates me. Of course they /can/ read clocks. You just haven't _taught_ them how to do it yet, and up until now, they've had no reason to do it. It's divisive and weird.

Bullshit. Information is everywhere, if they WANTED to learn how to read them they could go on wikipedia or youtube. That excuse could've worked when I was a teenager, where to learn something you have to either learn it from a person or from a book, but not nowadays.

Children need instruction, they’re not born with an inbuilt list of things they should probably learn and the desire to go and learn them without guidance.

Re: NYC phone ban reveals some students can't read clocks

#28

Post by modeless »

pedalpete wrote: post #10

This makes me wonder what methods of transferring information we may have lost historically that we don't even recognize? Will there be analog clocks in 30 years? It seems somewhat doubtful, particularly if this generation can't read them. What benefit is there to keep this antiquated method around, aside from just as an historical reference? I'm in my 50s, so I can read an analog clock, and I have analog watches. Bu…

My kids are spending hours of class time in school learning Roman numerals. The correct amount of education about Roman numerals is a short form video of math trivia when you're 23. Zero classroom time should be wasted on an inferior system of numerals.

Re: NYC phone ban reveals some students can't read clocks

#29

Post by lini »

TheChaplain wrote: post #14

The fact that US children doesn't know how to read clocks doesn't surprise me, but what about other countries? Is reading a clock taught to students in India, Japan, China, Chile?

I have experience with an IB school in Europe - the kids have a special unit about clocks (analog and digital) in their math class in fourth grade. The student books have a lot of problems involving reading both types of clocks and calculating diffenreces between two clocks in hours/minutes/seconds.
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