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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,
by TheChaplain 9mo ago
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?
- HnUser12 9mo agoI 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.
- lini 9mo agoI 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.
- amitav1 9mo agoNot a student in any of those countries, but speaking as a Canadian: I was taught how to read a clock in early grade school (grade 1, I believe?), and retain this ability now. I can see myself losing this ability in the next few years given that I tend to keep my phone on me much more often than before. I believe that most Canadian kids were probably taught to read a clock, but by high school when everybody has phones there's not much reason to.
- jemmyw 9mo ago> I can see myself losing this ability in the next few years Do you really see that? If a numberless analogue clock turned up in a society that had the same time system but had only ever used digital clocks, how long would it take to figure out how to read it? I'm fairly confident a logical person would figure it out in far less than an hour, and for you to relearn it: about 2 minutes. Once you perceive the movement of one hand you're there. For kids, learning the clock is also learning about time, numbers and fractions, so I'm assuming you won't also forget those things.
- amitav1 9mo agoWhat I mean by "forget" is more about losing fluency. Right now when I look at a clock, I can have the hour in around half of a second and the minute in another half a second. But I know that a) I was faster a few years ago and that b) this trend for me will likely not reverse.
- izacus 9mo agoAren't most children taught how to read them by parents, not in schools?
- techjamie 9mo agoI was taught in school, though my parents did show me prior to that.
- flobosg 9mo agoEarlier this week I met a friend who teaches undergraduate courses at a Chilean university. They told me that some of their students don’t know the meaning of “counterclockwise”.