NYC phone ban reveals some students can't read clocks

Prevalence and role of analog clocks

• Several comments note digital clocks have been common since before smartphones, yet analog wall clocks and watches remain widespread in homes, schools, public places, and as luxury/status items.
• Some see analog clocks as “objectively inferior” and expect them to disappear; others argue they’re still common enough that reading them is a practical skill.

Education system, testing, and missing basics

• Teachers reportedly focus heavily on test content because of truancy and accountability pressures; one commenter cites RAND estimates of very high unexplained absences.
• There’s debate over whether schools should teach every basic life skill versus parents handling some (e.g., clock reading, tying shoes).
• Some see this as another symptom of “teaching to the test” and warped incentives tied to funding and metrics.

Skill decay vs never learning

• Multiple commenters stress that many NYC students were taught analog clocks in early grades but didn’t use the skill for years, so it atrophied.
• Others doubt that such a simple concept can be truly forgotten and blame poor instruction or lack of reinforcement.

Is analog clock reading worth teaching?

• One side: analog reading is near-obsolete, learnable in under an hour if ever needed, and time is better spent on more relevant topics.
• Other side: analog faces are still common; reading them exercises spatial reasoning, fractions, approximation, and has broader educational value.

Analog vs digital interfaces

• Analog is praised for at‑a‑glance comprehension and conveying trends/rate of change (similar to aircraft instruments and “tape” displays).
• Critics counter that digital is clearer, needs no special skill, and analog’s supposed speed is overstated.

Obsolete and niche skills

• Analog clocks are compared to rotary dials, abaci, cursive, Morse code, shorthand, and other fading notations.
• Some argue we can’t (and shouldn’t) preserve every old system; others lament the quiet loss of information-transfer methods and symbolic systems.

Curiosity and culture

• There’s disagreement over whether failing to self‑learn clock reading reflects a lack of curiosity or just rational prioritization amid information overload.
• International comments (India, Europe, Canada, Chile) suggest analog clocks and clock-reading instruction are still common elsewhere, though practical use is declining.