Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.
How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Flashback Friday post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.
If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (5th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.
This was originally posted on May 5, 2018.
It’s About Time
What time does the clock in the above image say? Can you read it? Of course you can.
I was watching “Jimmy Kimmel Live” the other day. Well, I wasn’t actually watching it live. I was watching it from my DVR recording. But either way, I was struck by a segment where one of his staff went out on the street and asked a number of kids, some as old as teenagers, to look at an image of an analog clock and say what time was on the clock. Remarkably, only one of the those asked could do it.
Along those lines, I read about a recent study that showed that only one in ten Oklahoma City kids ages 6 to 12 owned an analog watch. And only one in five knew how to read one.
I also just read that British schools are replacing analog clocks with digital clocks because of students’ inability to read the analog ones. The deputy general secretary at Britain’s Association of School and College Leaders said, “The current generation isn’t as good at reading the traditional clock face as older generations are.”
What is going on? I remember a few years back when a number of school systems were dropping the teaching of cursive from their curricula. The rationale was that people today don’t bother to write and mail handwritten letters. Instead, they sit behind their computers, at their laptops, or on their smartphones and type emails, send text messages, or post all kinds of, um, fascinating tidbits on Facebook or Twitter.
And yes, I admitted in my post earlier today, that my cursive is so illegible that I don’t handwrite letters anymore either. But does that mean we should abandon teaching cursive handwriting to our kids?
And now they’re talking about removing analog clocks from schools and ceasing to teach kids how to read them? Hey, I have an Apple Watch, but the watch face I use is an analog face. Because when I’m looking at my watch, it’s more often to tell what time it’s not than what time it is.
If teaching cursive and how to read analog clocks in school are wastes of time because people no longer write in longhand and because they use digital clocks, perhaps schools should stop teaching math, as well. Doesn’t just about everyone use calculators to add, subtract, divide, and multiply? Even smartphones have built-in calculators. And since everyone is so adept at using keyboards and computers, can’t we just teach students how to use Excel to perform a wide variety of sophisticated mathematical functions? Who needs to learn math?
In fact, perhaps schools and teachers are obsolete. All anyone needs to know is how to Google. From there they can get answers to virtually any question, information about any topic, and even self-help, do-it-yourself instructions for just about any project.
And if they can’t find what they’re looking for on Google, they can always text someone.
This, That, and the Other 
Learning about analogue clocks and telling the time was a staple in my schools. I even had to earn my pen qualification! UK 90s schools fill me with nostalgia and that took me back.
That was actually quite useful. I don’t have one on May 5th but the closest “proper” post was about life plans. How little things change as I woke up this morning laughing in my sleep thinking I was elsewhere. The escapism is strong, still. Thanks for the mind jog!
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A sad state of affairs. Next they will do away with schools too.
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When my younger brother was about 7 years old, I taught him hoe to read the analog clock. He still prefers it to this day than digital and is surprised that most of his generation doesn’t know how to read analog.
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It is remarkable that anyone would have trouble with analog clock/watch face. It’s not hard, but I’ve been at it for 70 years, so….
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It is pretty sad isn’t it. Well, maybe not to the younger generation. Maybe it really doesn’t matter. Until the internet is down, the power is out or the batteries die in their calculators.
Here is mine.
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It is disconcerting; Grammar is another subject going doing the drain, from autocorrect, slang, and politically correct use of pronouns, gendered words, etc.
Here is my post from May 5, 2020 (CInco de Mayo! LOL)
Thank you for hosting, Fandango!
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On the test for dementia, they’d fail. There are some questions you can get partial credit for and add up the points. Not being able to navigate an analog clock face is a total loser. I know this because of my mom, who tested as in dementia but still got the clock question right. Older people truly are better at it.
It’s not difficult to teach how an analog clock works. There’s no reason not to teach it. None at all. It’s good to learn a second language you may never use for the extended functioning of your brain, and that takes much more time and effort. There’s music similarly. Ate they bringing back art and music to all schools?
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My handwriting has really gotten back over the years – I blame typing on the keyboard for hours at a time!
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Here’s mine Fandango: a bit of time linkage
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When I discovered my granddaughter couldn’t read an analog clock, I bought — on eBay — one of those wooden clocks they used in elementary school to teach us to read time. It took a TOTAL of 15 minutes to teach her to read analog time.
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Who has 15 minutes to spare these days? 🤔
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Right.
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The unfolding path of modern technology… sad really.
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