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I work in schools. We have them in every hallway and classroom. But the kids do not know how to read them, and they don't even seem interested to learn even though it would take all of two minutes to wrap their head around. Seen it in the middle and high schools.

We explicitly learned analog clocks in 1st grade, had worksheets and everything. What the hell are schools doing these days?

Our theory of time (more specifically spacetime) is incomplete. Some theory's suggest it is a continuum while others suggest it is quantised. But as this discrepancy applies only at the Planck scale it is somewhat moot to how we experience time: our experience of time is linear and continuous. However clock is necessarily quantised but that is simply because it measures the passage of time in discrete steps. A clock is not time itself.

Exactly my thought. Not only are you getting the opportunity to teach a skill that had not previously been taught, but you are also able to help kids better understand the concept of time and why we use certain words to define time. Win win.

Students in the city’s school system are meant to learn basic time-telling skills in the first and second grade, according to officials, though it appears children have fallen out of practice doing so in an increasingly digital world.

They're supposed to, but if they never use it because they don't have to, they'll just forget how.

Whoa

They actually gave us a number but gave it to us on a abacus and now we can't comprehend it.

6502 assembly language

Z80 would be good too. The kids should be able to implement the instruction set on a breadboard by intuition alone. There's something wrong with the teachers and Big School if the kids don't have it running CP/M by the end of the school year, preferably with a working port of Hack.

Tbh I think teaching 6502 assembly would be a great idea. You can learn the basics of how computers work without having to deal with all the complexity of a computer from 2026.

Exactly. I’m wondering how many of those teachers could use a slide rule or even an abacus. We’re far enough along now that I bet the majority of teachers would also be lost when confronted with a log table or a topo map and a compass.

Astrolabe and sextant? They’d be totally lost.

I bet most teachers don’t know how to saddle a horse, card and spin wool and flax by hand, or even use a clutch on a manual transmission vehicle, either.

[edit] Ooh… thought of another one! I bet none of the children know how to use a rotary phone either. (In fact, since POTS has been fully DTMF for over 20 years, I doubt a dial phone would actually function today without a converter).

These schools don't even teach kids base-8 math. Disgusting.

Elder millennial here, I also struggle reading analogue clocks to this day. I can, but it just takes me a long time to do so. And I've been like this since I was a little kid.

I used to think it was a meme too and I still think it is to a point. But several of my recent jobs were at universities and I have met several people younger than me now who cannot read an analog clock, use a mouse, copy a file to a flash drive, or make change. To say nothing of their ability to find information that can’t be googled (like the location of a classroom). I have really begun to feel that the general population has absolutely failed GenZ and I really hope we can break the pattern before GenAlpha gets much older.

"These newfangled analog clocks with hands are killing the ability of people to understand clock bells. Kids these days."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Striking_clock

A striking clock is a clock that sounds the hours audibly on a bell, gong, or other audible device. In 12-hour striking, used most commonly in striking clocks today, the clock strikes once at 1:00 am, twice at 2:00 am, continuing in this way up to twelve times at 12:00 mid-day, then starts again, striking once at 1:00 pm, twice at 2:00 pm, and the pattern continues up to twelve times at 12:00 midnight.

The striking feature of clocks was originally more important than their clock faces; the earliest clocks struck the hours, but had no dials to enable the time to be read.[1] The development of mechanical clocks in 12th century Europe was motivated by the need to ring bells upon the canonical hours to call the community to prayer. The earliest known mechanical clocks were large striking clocks installed in towers in monasteries or public squares, so that their bells could be heard far away.