27 replies to this topic

[ccabal86]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2018/04/24/schools-removing-analogue-clocks-exam-halls-teenagers-unable/

Absolute gem from the article:
“...teachers want their students to feel as relaxed as possible during exams. Having a traditional clock in the room could be a cause of unnecessary stress”

Hooooooo boy..... >_>

[Cydonian Knight]

Generation Z smh 

[onbekende]

To be fair, it is a skill with diminshing need. You don't expect every teen to be able to milk a cow now do you?

 

And while I would pity the people who can't ready analog (not just teens mind you), it aint to difficult to change something like this.

[ccabal86]

I guess the problem here is that reading an analog clock is EASY. If one can’t even manage such an easy intellectual exercise, I wouldn’t put much faith in that one can cope with more complex problems.

[brewersalliance]

Jesus fricken Snowflakes.  We are babying kids.  My mom is a teacher and she isnt allowed to give students failing grades, no matter how bad they do for fear it might hurt the students feelings and self esteem.  Okay sure, instead lets just have a society of snowflakes that lack any sense of responsibility or intelligence.  that will turn out just fine

[Cydonian Knight]

^^ you know, he's right. The article also says children are having problems using pencils and pens... Are schools supposed to give every student a tablet for taking notes, doing homework, taking their tests? 

But I think it's those parenting Gen Z children fault, it's easier to give your kid a tablet/smartphone than paying attention to him/her or telling her/him to play with something that might actually give him/her some motor/cognitive skills

[onbekende]

I guess the problem here is that reading an analog clock is EASY. If one can’t even manage such an easy intellectual exercise, I wouldn’t put much faith in that one can cope with more complex problems.

 

Digital is easier and an added bonus is that it just takes pattern recognition, for analog you need spatial awareness aswell.

 

Either side is blowing the situation out of proportion. Fine to switching to digital, in the mean time add it to the growing list of "this is something school should teach"...

 

 

But I think it's those parenting Gen Z children fault, it's easier to give your kid a tablet/smartphone than paying attention to him/her or telling her/him to play with something that might actually give him/her some motor/cognitive skills

 

Alot of the people shouting indeed overlook this issue, you basically have the chlidren from baby boomers trying out parenting while they had parents in one of the first 2-working parent family's. It is a cascading effect that I ope never reaches its doomsday ending .

 

Is it all doom-and-gloom? Hardly, the amount of "look at this one-off situation" being broadcasted around the globe should be taken with a heavy lifting of NaCl >_>

[SeaBeeGipson]

HOW DARE KIDS NOT KNOW HOW TO READ THE TIME USING THEIR HAND AND THE SUN??
 

[Lysistrata]

To be fair, it is a skill with diminshing need. You don't expect every teen to be able to milk a cow now do you?

Yes I do, if the teen is expected to eventually work on a dairy farm... even if all milking has been done by machine for decades. There is such a thing as basic necessities in life, and being able to understand what time it is, is right up there with learning how, and why, you must wipe your butt after taking a dump. Where are the parents? Hell... I knew how to read pretty well, write pretty well, spell pretty well, tell time, and the difference between right and wrong before I started school. One thing I had a problem with was kissing girls... I didn't understand the wrong time to do that. Abolish Snowflakes!

[Rand0m her0]

Not surprising. Analog clocks are not exactly common any more and when they do exist they're usually skeuomorphs.

 

When buildings are built, they're done with digital clocks. If someone has a portable time piece, it's probably their phone. Time on any device in your home? probably digital. If you need to synchronize them, digital makes that easier. Unless a skill it used, it atrophies, and even if you teach kids how to read them, if they never see one 99% of the time, they'll retain that skill about as well as most people do their ability to prove trig identities or the exact correct usage of a semi colon. If you're in a building built any time after the late 90s, it probably doesn't have an analog clock in it unless you work in a clock tower or someone brought one in as a desk clock

 

Congrats folks. This is what old feels like. registration for GOM 203 Intermediate Cane Shaking and  CAB 102 Kids And Your Lawn opens in May.

[DarkFox]

To be fair, analog clocks are outdated. With a digital clock you can do 24 hour time also referred to as military time easily and in my opinion we should move to that. At a glance you can tell if its morning or afternoon where as with analog you need additional information which isn't provided by analog clocks. With all that said every wrist watch I owe or have owned is analog, I prefer the look of it.

[Lysistrata]

The problem, as presented in the article, is the kids don't know how to tell time on a clock with hands. If you wish to replace the analog with digital to make things easier, or keep up with the times, that's an entirely different argument... but the article suggests that they are too stupid to read a clock face. That is a problem with education.

 

I grew up writing... thousands of pages of writing, but I also lost the art of cursive, and only print in caps. It's very good looking print, but it pales in comparison to my wife's expert penmanship. Today, no one can even write anymore. I think it's pathetic, but the world will be theirs to carry on, so they will have to deal with what they create.

[Rand0m her0]

It's not a problem with education. We're not talking about replacing analog with digital because that's already happened. Like atm in the building I'm in, telling time vs a sun dial or a focults pendulum is more useful than on an analog clock, because those are actually in th building.

It doesn't matter what you teach, learning requires regular renforcement. Theach kids how to tell time on an alalog clock in first grade? That's not going to stick after 9-10 years of rarely even seeing one. You spent basically the first decade of your life in elementary school. How much of that do you remember? How much of first grade do you even remember period?


It's no more pathetic than most people not knowing how to tend to a coal furnace, or cook on a hearth or make rope, or use a slide rule or make a bow and arrow, or basic cobbling and any number of skills your great great grandparents have that you don't.

[Lysistrata]

It's no more pathetic than most people not knowing how to tend to a coal furnace, or cook on a hearth or make rope, or use a slide rule or make a bow and arrow, or basic cobbling and any number of skills your great great grandparents have that you don't.

I can do all of that with no professional training, and our military boys on these pages can do it in their sleep.

[DeathMerchant]

I have always been a fan of digital, and as mentioned before, so you can display 24 hour time. I've had some funny moments growing up where people would look at my watch and be like "wait... what time is it?".

[ccabal86]

It doesn't matter what you teach, learning requires regular renforcement. Theach kids how to tell time on an alalog clock in first grade? That's not going to stick after 9-10 years of rarely even seeing one. You spent basically the first decade of your life in elementary school. How much of that do you remember? How much of first grade do you even remember period?

I will concede that there is some truth to this. For example, we have a fax machine in our office (to be phased out this summer for good I hope), which we seldom use. By seldom, we mean once a year, maybe. The manual is long lost, and every time we DO have to use it, it basically means having to figure out how the fucking machine works each time from scratch. We manage to do it every time in 5-10 minutes, but it is a PITA.

[Davian]

[joe44]

i go out and ask passerbys for time^^

 

btw: i observed: many pple doesnt wear watches anymore but checks time on their smartphones ...

I often works outside and therefore im able to say time +-5 mins only cuz of sun position. 

Edited by joe44, 26 April 2018 - 10:15 AM.

[SeaBeeGipson]

Spoke with my youngest brother (15) about this. Thankfully he knew how to read a clock, but a lot of his friends did not. Turns out it seems to be a pretty common issue with high school kids

[HackSlash]

Yeah, that's old news.

Before I joined the military, I was a High School Teacher. 

I'll never forget the day one of my Grade 8 students asked me what time it was, so I held out my watch.

He looked up at me and said "Sir, I can't read that."

"It's Quarter to Ten." I replied.

"What time is that?"

"9:45."

"Why didn't you say that Sir?"

"I did."

 

Brewer, I know exactly what your mom is going through.  You can't use a red pen, because it's too confrontational.  You can't fail them, because it might damage their sense of self worth.  You can't make them repeat a grade, because it is psychologically damaging to hold them back while their peer group advances.  You have to give them multiple chances to hand in assignments.  Letter Grades shouldn't be used because it might hurt their "feels", use a holistic system instead.  Even then you have to be "politically correct", it's not lazy, they are "out put challenged." 

Every excuse is made for their behaviour is made, and as a teacher your expected to accept it.  "It's your fault that little Johnny Scumbag told you to Fuck Off, he has Confrontational Personality Disorder.

There's more Disorders, Syndromes, and Spectrums it's a full time job keeping track of it and the Individual Student Service Plans, and what Pathway they are on.

The absolute worst is the "concerned parent".  The ones who are wondering why their "Special Little Genius", isn't performing in school.  It has nothing to do with the fact the kid eats nothing but fat, salt and sugar.  It has nothing to do with the fact that the kid is up all night playing games or tapping a fucking screen.  Oh no.  "It's your fault, your not teaching my child right.  He's a super genius."  Or even better, when the parent consults with good old Dr. Google, and self diagnoses their kid with some kind of learning disability, usually autism.

Happiest day of my life was when I gave teaching the middle finger and walked away.  Oh boy did I have fun that day.  Can you ever go back to teaching (not that I would)?  Not the way I quit.

 

Sorry, got off on a rant there.  The point is, we are not preparing students for reality.  They've been sheltered, protected and coddled their entire lives.  When they run into the real world, they can't handle it.  Look at the nonsense that's happening on university campuses.  "Safe Spaces", "Trigger Warnings", "Free Speech Zones".  They want the University administration to protect them, to make them feel safe. 

Never mind the fact that some of them are offended by everything.  If someone says anything they don't like, and offends them.  They shout and scream and "protest" (I call it a temper tantrum).  They'll do everything to shut that person down, and they'll demand that person be destroyed.  Like Professor Peterson.

They want everything policed, including Halloween Costumes.  You all remember the melt down that Yale Student had, "Who the fuck are you?  Who the fuck do you think you are?  This is not about creating an intellectual space, it's about creating a home!"

Or the Harvard student who wrote a piece in the Harvard Crimson, who thought that because they were Harvard students, their work should automatically get no less than a B+.  Being ranked and graded hurt her pwecious widdle feels. 

If you remember the student unrest there a few years back, you know their "Days of Rage", here: http://www.thedemands.org/

There are things listed that is beyond the ability of their Universities to control.

 

I know, I know....a simple article about students not being able to read an analog clock was causing them stress.  Its a symptom of a larger problem.  That problem being we are not preparing our young people for the realities of life.  We are too concerned about how they feel about themselves.  We too concerned with their self-esteem, we are protecting them too much.  They're being sold a bullshit message of "if you can dream it, you can do it." 

That's not reality.  That's not life, you either sink or swim.  There are parents out there who are teaching their kids what lies ahead.  "Life is tough, and you best be prepared to fight for what you want, and to grab hold with both hands and not let go."  They are teaching their kids to be resilient, that you are going to fall, and you need to pick yourself up and carry on. That's a message more and more kids are not getting.  I pity them.  It's not their fault for the way they are, it's ours.  More specifically, their parents and their school's administration.