NYC Phone Ban Reveals Some Students Can't Read Clocks (gothamist.com) 251
New York City's statewide smartphone ban that went into effect this fall has been largely successful at getting students to focus in class and socialize at lunch, but teachers across the city have discovered an unexpected side effect: many teenagers cannot read analog clocks. "The constant refrain is 'Miss, what time is it?'" said Madi Mornhinweg, a high school English teacher in Manhattan, who eventually started responding by asking students to identify the big hand and little hand themselves.
Tiana Millen, an assistant principal at Cardozo High School in Queens, said the ban has helped move foot traffic more swiftly through hallways and gotten more students to class on time -- they just don't know it because they can't read the wall clocks. The city's education department says students learn clock-reading in first and second grade. A 2017 Oklahoma study found only one in five children ages 6-12 could read analog clocks, and England began replacing classroom analog clocks with digital ones in 2018.
Tiana Millen, an assistant principal at Cardozo High School in Queens, said the ban has helped move foot traffic more swiftly through hallways and gotten more students to class on time -- they just don't know it because they can't read the wall clocks. The city's education department says students learn clock-reading in first and second grade. A 2017 Oklahoma study found only one in five children ages 6-12 could read analog clocks, and England began replacing classroom analog clocks with digital ones in 2018.
Thiink about that for a minute... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only do many of the students not pass basic math and literacy tests, but they can't even manage basic life skills like reading a clock. The NYC school district is the largest in the country with nearly a million students and a huge budget. This is a national disgrace.
Re: Thiink about that for a minute... (Score:2, Insightful)
The NYC school district is the largest in the country with nearly a million students and a huge budget. This is a national disgrace.
It being largest and having a million students kind of cancels out with it having a huge budget, doesnâ(TM)t it? Because math? Perhaps its budget per student is average or even below average?
Re: Thiink about that for a minute... (Score:5, Informative)
Ummm....no.
Per-student spending for elementary and secondary education in New York is 91
percent above the national average and between 9 percent and 170 percent higher
than neighboring and competitor states
Source:
https://cbcny.org/sites/defaul... [cbcny.org]
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Ummm....no.
Per-student corruption for elementary and secondary education in New York is 91 percent above the national average and between 9 percent and 170 percent higher than neighboring and competitor states
FTFY. Because New York City insisted I do.
It was the kinda offer you don’t refuse. Right from the NYC historian.
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They can't think about it for a minute though, they don't know how to read the time.
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I believe you are mistaken. Reading an analog clock is not a life skill anymore, since they are all but extinct, or are superfluous to some nearer digital clock. It's the same as understanding 24-hour times--quick, is 18:00 clocking off time or time for a relaxing evening movie? It's critical, yet some people can't do it. (So it's not actually critical, is it?)
Re: Thiink about that for a minute... (Score:2)
What you say makes sense if your goal in life is to know as little as possible. Otherwise, not so much.
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Once in a while I read a textbook, motivated only by curiosity, and I'm often taking a protracted dive into a new area for some complex hobby. I don't think reading a clock is the same type of knowledge as that which we nerds prize. It's not the kind of knowledge that impresses me, or whose lack I judge. (On the other hand, if you haven't done some deep thinking about philosophy, what even are you?)
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I toot my own horn to make the point that I'm not someone whose goal is to amass as little knowledge as possible.
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Re: Thiink about that for a minute... (Score:3, Insightful)
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What makes you think NYC is special here? Do you really think that students in other parts of the country would do any better? Already doctors have had to stop using the clock reading test as a measure of mental acuity because so many people can't read clocks anymore.
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Wait, how am I supposed to think for a "minute" if I can't read the clock to tell when a minute is up?
Re:Thiink about that for a minute... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thiink about that for a minute... (Score:5, Funny)
Let's just replace it with Charlie Kirk Story Hour. That should be more educational!
Re:Thiink about that for a minute... (Score:4, Insightful)
We should apparently also increase funding for civics lessons and explain what the US Department of Education actually does.
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At this point I’d love to have a Harvard educated Civics professor explain exactly what the US Department of Education actually does. To the US Department of Education.
Gives out money for special ed, sets standards, and makes sure schools aren't discriminating against black kids (you don't think they would actually do that, do you?)
Re:Thiink about that for a minute... (Score:4, Insightful)
At this point I’d love to have a Harvard educated Civics professor explain exactly what the US Department of Education actually does. To the US Department of Education.
Gives out money for special ed, sets standards, and makes sure schools aren't discriminating against black kids (you don't think they would actually do that, do you?)
Gives out money for best grades achieved through the wasteful for-profit practice of testing for the same State-funded exam over and over and over again for 80% of the school year because best grades on THAT test are all that matter. Because follow the money.
The racist problem was “solved” when we reduced every classroom down to the lowest common denominator with No Child Left Behind. Now those grown-ass children who birthed the Victim Generation are an employers worst nightmare. Since they “passed” all the same for-profit tests in college too, where we turned an education into a political indoctrination.
Discrimination? Please. We don’t even discriminate against blatant incompetence anymore. That was obvious given what liberals put in the White House for the last four years. Reap what you sow.
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Yeah that's because millions of liberals aren't stupid people who can only think in terms of black and white. Good and bad. With nothing in between. The department of education might not be great, but scrapping it completely is almost certainly worse. Especially for red states where it'll be all Jesus and creationism. Liberals it seems still persistently don't want red state citizens to get completely fucked over.
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To be fair, the Republicans that can think in yes/no terms to an actual question are already the smarter ones. The typical ones can only think in "keyword" -> bad/good and that includes the joke of a president they voted in. And sometimes they even get the spelling on that keyword wrong and rage on something completely unrelated.
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Conservatives believing in morals and ethics, I needed a good laugh this morning. Go back to defending the pedophile you worship.
The very definition of conservative implies you won’t find a plethora of what you’re so desperate to find in order to dismiss obvious hypocrisy. Feel free to prove me wrong on the liberal side rife with teenage OnlyFans and Diddy after-after parties. Feminists finding themselves mostly single and alone by 2030, isn’t a statistic easily dismissed with childish SIGN language. Neither is the massive decline in replenishing that ideology by abusing abortion as contraception.
Go figure the li
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Liberals are the specific group of individuals who refuse to actually have valid discourse.
The main tenet of the right wing is to point and yell about how others are doing something they are doing. It's basically universal. So when a right winger points angrily at the other side you know for sure they are talking about themselves.
The end result is 40% of abortions come from repeat customers.
Right, so after refusing to teach basic sex ed, and making contraception harder to find because apparently Jeebus does
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Funny how not other republican president wanted to do that, just the one that very nearly did not get a college degree because he was (and still is) too dumb for that.
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Funny how not other republican president wanted to do that, just the one that very nearly did not get a college degree because he was (and still is) too dumb for that.
Todays definition of too dumb, is turning away even a single college applicant.
Those aren’t students. They’re gullible high-valued customers still falling for it. Damn right they’ll take their money. All of it.
Lack of use... (Score:5, Insightful)
Skills atrophy with lack of use. They were taught how to read an analog clock when they were ~7 years old, and then never used the skill again.
It's hard to expect a child to retain skills they haven't used. I learned how to use a sewing machine in Home Economics back in 1994 or so. Damned if I could get one started today.
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I learned how to use a sewing machine in Home Economics back in 1994 or so. Damned if I could get one started today.
Isn't that hard, not for a basic model at any rate! I had cause to buy one a few years ago, and it was just a case of following the instructions on how to pass the thread through the tensioner, and what order it goes through the guide holes. Somehow the needles and holes have got a lot fuzzier than they used to be. Don't make 'em like they used to.
Re: Lack of use... (Score:2)
Re:Lack of use... (Score:5, Insightful)
Skills atrophy with lack of use.
Errr no. The ability to point to a number is something that we continuously use every day our entire lives. A clock is nothing more than a gauge. Reading a clock is not some abstract skill that needs practicing continuously, it's not a question of dexterity or complex arithmatic. It's a fundamental question of "what does thing pointing to number mean?"
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It's a fundamental question of "what does thing pointing to number mean?
Yes, but you also have to multiply by 5 to find out how many minutes it is, and math is hard.
I'm only some percentage kidding which these kids could not calculate even given the factors.
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How many people use analog clocks "every day" their entire lives? And how many people read gauges? Not many! Even most gauges these days have been replaced by digital displays. I think this is the point.
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Skills atrophy with lack of use. They were taught how to read an analog clock when they were ~7 years old, and then never used the skill again.
What makes you assume they were ever taught the skill? At any age? The statement we often make regarding those who learn how to ride a bicycle tends to apply here, given the simplicity. It’s not like clocks go into hiding at age eight.
It's hard to expect a child to retain skills they haven't used. I learned how to use a sewing machine in Home Economics back in 1994 or so. Damned if I could get one started today.
It would be hard for you to recall all of the steps to set up a sewing machine after years of not laying eyes or hands on one. You forgetting how to thread a single needle is more akin to forgetting how to read a clock face. Which again are used everywhere in life,
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In cases where losing interest isn't an option, such as a test, they'll either leave it blank, or fill it in with random garbage. (If you don't know the answer use "b" or "c".) Again, the point for them isn't to get the correct answer, the point is to give an answer that they
look, a paper GPS! (Score:2)
Even worse, I once took 3 of my kids to a museum. The oldest was 9 and he got one of the museum info papers. When he turned it over he exclaimed "look, a paper GPS!". He was 9 and I'd never shown him a map.
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But while you still have to familiarize yourself with the specifics of given machine you still understand the basic operation and operating procedure.
That really isnt the same as not knowing how.
This is in addition to 24h digital time (Score:5, Interesting)
So this is in addition to them not being able to read 24h-based time that's common everywhere else and they think only the military uses?
Re:This is in addition to 24h digital time (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm fairly sure it's just trolling because someone took their phones away. Make that decision as annoying as possible in the hope it gets reversed.
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Maybe a bit, but analogue clocks aren't very common anymore.
Either way, the motivation of knowing how long it is until the end of the lesson will ensure they figure it out quickly enough. And/or the trolling will get old and boring soon enough.
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I'm fairly sure it's just trolling because someone took their phones away. Make that decision as annoying as possible in the hope it gets reversed.
You'd be fairly wrong. This is an actually studied phenomenon: https://www.researchgate.net/p... [researchgate.net]
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So this is in addition to them not being able to read 24h-based time that's common everywhere else and they think only the military uses?
I had a friend on vacation in Europe book a 6:30 train, and discovered it was 6:30 AM, not 6:30 PM, when she showed up at the train station and discovered she missed her train.
I've always struggled reading analogue clocks (Score:3, Interesting)
I was born in the early 70's and I've ALWAYS struggled with reading analogue clocks. My parents even bought me a donald duck watch to try and encourage me to read a clock face. When all the super cheap digital watches appeared in the late 70's early 80's it was a relief because I didn't need to try and interpret this thing that had meaningless arms that apparently told the time. Yet, I had no problem in reading from an early age. So, this is not a new thing. It's not an artifact of 'Digital addiction'
Some of us just can't do things that others can do.
I became a Software Engineer, and I still have to stop, work out which one is the big hand, which one is the little hand, remember what each does and THEN work out what the time is. Whereas a digital watch just has the right numbers on it.
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And when your workmate says, "The next meeting is at quarter to three," what do you do?
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That's not reading circular space as numbers that's a diophantine equation.
quarter - 15 minutes
to - before
three - 3 hours after midday or midnight
calculate: 15 minutes before this hour (three) = 45 minutes after the previous hour (two)
So 3 o'clock minus 15 minutes or 2 o'clock plus 45 minutes (02:45 AM/PM)
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Calculation are done with a different system, a slower system, than is normal time recognition on an analog clock.
FWIW, I have no trouble reading an analog clock, but I strongly dislike using polar coordinates, even while I recognize that in some situations they are valuable. They aren't the same skill.
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Some of us just can't do things that others can do.
I became a Software Engineer
You could do it if you cared, because you do harder things involving numbers and remembering things all the time and apparently succeed at them. The problem isn't your ability. It's your effort.
Clocks with Roman Numerals? (Score:2)
I was thinking kids had trouble with the Roman Numerals on analog clocks. But jees they have trouble with the big hand vs the little hand.
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A friend of mine has a clock on her wall where each number is a mathematical equation. E.g. the number 3 says squareroot(9), the number 4 is 2^2, the number 6 is 3x2, etc.
I think these should be in every school.
Dumber than dirt & can't write cursive too... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Partly education system.... Wife who is retired paraprofessional showed me how they are teaching solving math problems in 6-8 steps. Heck, when I was in school in the 1970's those math problems could be done in 3-4 steps..w/o a calculator......and they wonder why students are having learning issues !
Ever give a young cashier a 10 and 26 cents for a 5.26 purchase after they rang up 10 and watch as they try to figure out the change and wind up handing you back the 26 cents and then proceeding to give you 4 and 74 back? Then get further confused when toy give them the 4 bills and 1 in change and ask for a five?
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time (Score:2)
Nothing strange (Score:2)
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Kind of strange that a teacher with a $100k salary is spending all day telling kids what time it is when she could hang up a $20 digital clock
It's NYC. If she did that, the union for whose agreement covers hanging clocks would file a grievance, she would get in trouble for unauthorized modification of the school, the clock taken down and eventually put up, years later, by a union worker.
Years ago, I worked at a government agency and a coworker's phone broke. Being rocket scientists and engineers, we went to the supply closet, got a new one, and replaces the broken one. Being rocket scientists and engineers, and not managers, we of course retur
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As
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Re: Nothing strange (Score:2)
I was thinking "kind of strange that analog clocks are still a thing, considering it's probably cheaper to make a digital one now". But we do love our anachronisms to the point of putting 400 dpi color screens on things and then using them to display an analog watch face.
Miss? (Score:2)
The bit about not being able to read clocks is nothing new. Back in the '80s they were saying digital watches did that to kids.
The part that made me go "Wait, what?" was when the teacher said students called her "Miss". Has that even happened since the '60s?
I can't get past the first four words: (Score:3)
"New York City's statewide.."
Seems like we have a basic English problem here on Slashdot also.
Yup (Score:2)
This was brought home to me like already 10 years ago when eating lunch with a 30 year old physics college educated friend, who had to leave by a certain time. "What time is it?" he asked. I looked at my watch. "A quarter to one." He looked confused and thought for two beats. "Oh, you mean 12:45."
Fault of the education system and the parents (Score:2)
They probably can't read a sundial either (Score:3)
No one seems worried about the loss of the skill of reading sundials. But once upon a time, it was an important skill.
How important is it for students to know how to read an analog clock, if they are never confronted with the need to read such clocks?
Clocks are hard to read (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not surprising to me people aren't bothering to learn to read analog clocks any more. They stink. They force you to count ticks or estimate the distance between digits, adding up clues until you get to the time. Digital clocks are much easier to read.
Analog clocks are a fossil from a bygone era. Better solutions have been able for decades.
Schools realize they suck (Score:3)
Look, if you work at a school and the kids can't read clocks, perhaps you should TEACH THEM TO READ THE CLOCKS.
Just make it part of home room, might as well use that time for something.
Re: This is a parody, right? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: This is a parody, right? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: This is a parody, right? (Score:3)
And the Decabet!
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Maybe it is a good excuse to introduce the metric system in timekeeping. 86.4 ks in a day... ;-)
I've often wondered why we haven't switched to metric time. 8^) To the subject here, and in great irony, the inability of students to read analog clocks is so very similar to the inability to use more than one measurement system. Metric system only people, are weirdly bragging that they can only read one system.
Meanwhile, people like me ( self admittedly stupid and widely agreed by the slashdot smart people as subnormal) can produce very accurate parts in barleycorn if needed. 1 barleycorn is 0.0084666
Re: This is a parody, right? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've often wondered why we haven't switched to metric time
It was tried by the French (around the same time the Metric system was introduced) and was very unpopular, eventually being abolished. [wikipedia.org]
Each day was divided into ten hours, each hour into 100 decimal minutes, and each decimal minute into 100 decimal seconds. Thus an hour was 144 conventional minutes (2.4 times as long as a conventional hour), a minute was 86.4 conventional seconds (44% longer than a conventional minute), and a second was 0.864 conventional seconds (13.6% shorter than a conventional second).
My bet is that it is because 3600 is evenly divisible by 2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10, ... This is far more practical than decimals which only have 2,5 as divisors. (I also think that units like the Foot/Inch remained popular because 12 is evenly divisible by 2,3,4,6).
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If we are going to do it properly, we will use enormous rocket boosters to slow the rotation of the Earth until one year is exactly 100 metric days!
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> I've often wondered why we haven't switched to metric time.
Because the numbers are highly divisible.
60 = 2*2*3*5
24 = 2*2*2*3
Half of an hour is a whole number. Quarter of an hour is a whole number. 6th of an hour is a whole number. 5th of an hour is a whole number. Many of the numbers you want to divide time by give a whole and number by construction.
Re: This is a parody, right? (Score:4, Insightful)
Did they remove the requirement in your place? For France the teaching programme in force for CE2 (8-9 y.o.) mentions: pendulum clock and sundial; using of sandglass, using clocks and watches, mechanical and digital displays, and stopwatch https://www.education.gouv.fr/... [education.gouv.fr]
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Re: This is a parody, right? (Score:2)
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They definitely still teach it here (Belgium) My son is studying it. He isn't a quick study, but he can read analog clocks. I understand they have trouble with reading it out loud. Half past 3 is "half four" in my language, and it gets more confusing.But just interpreting it should not be that hard. It is fascinating. I bet there is a silly psychological mechanism at play.
Yea, and add in 3 quarters 4 for quarter till four, and of course 4 o'clock thirty for 4:30.
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EU teacher here, this isn't limited to the US. I teach kids from12 to 17 years old. There are quite a lot of kids that can't read analog clocks. Even the smart ones... Weird times we live in.
Well, there is a non-zero p0ossibility that a young person can be taught to read an analog clock, or a sundial, or a water clock.
I taught my son all three.
To answer the question from one Anonymous Coward, and your insightful responses. The USA despite protestations to the contrary, doers not hide behind the insecurity based bleating that all other countries are superior, smarter, and all around better than us.
This has been a dilemma and can be very difficult to impossible to many citizens of other c
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I know kids in America are allowed to use guns for this purpose, but in most of the rest of the world, they are not.
Re: This is a parody, right? (Score:2)
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How is it weird?
As someone else pointed out they can't start a fire work a flint, saddle a horse or use a side rule either.
Analogue clocks, and in fact analogue dials in general are somewhat niche items these days, and I could easily see how kids could go quite a long time without seeing one. For better or worse they just aren't a big part of modern life so unless it's really explicitly taught, then we would they know?
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Even if it's explicitly taught, if it isn't used it will be forgotten...unless the teaching is continued for a long time.
E,g,, at one point I could read German with fair fluency. (Not good, but fair. It never became enjoyable.) These days, I could barely say "That is the oldest car around here.". And I couldn't spell it.
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And in a typical village there are at least three churches.
When looking around furniture stores the vast majority of wall clocks are analogue.
Re: This is a parody, right? (Score:4, Insightful)
It should remain a part of elementary math class. After all, analog clocks or odometers are the easiest way to broach various topics like modular math.
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EU teacher here, this isn't limited to the US. I teach kids from12 to 17 years old. There are quite a lot of kids that can't read analog clocks. Even the smart ones... Weird times we live in.
Teacher I know saw the same thing 10 years ago. School banned cell phones and kids couldn't read an analog clock. Another lent her daughter her an expensive wristwatch and when she said she will get a new battery so it works, the daughter said not to bother she can't read an analog watch.
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I don't think it's weird - just times are changing as they always do. Digital clocks are everywhere and analogue clocks are rare nowadays. There's no more reason to learn how to read an analogue clock than there is to learn to how to use an old rotary telephone. Of course if you take away all the digital clocks and put kids into an environment where there is only analogue clocks they will struggle, it will generate a lot of click-baity headlines with outraged older people but I'm sure the kids will pick it up very quickly - or, of course, the schools can just update their clocks - as they are doing here, much to the dismay of the Daily Mail set.
Do you think? Is there some sort of stupidity in knowing how to get the time in multiple ways? That only being able to read numbers is superior to reading numbers, or dials, or sundials, or water clocks?
There is a weird sort of encouragement to restrict knowledge today, it's like reality show approach to life. And we act like a person of restricted knowledge is somehow superior to people who aren't restricted.
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Re:This is a parody, right? (Score:5, Funny)
But yours is a country that along with Myanmar and Liberia can't embrace the metric system because reasons.
In America, we use both systems because mental math is easy for us.
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In America, we use both systems because mental math is easy for us.
Thanks, I needed a good laugh today.
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Those are stoners, not children.
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Those are stoners, not children.
Got to let you know that there's a hell of a lot of overlap. I started puffing at 15 and many if not most of my classmates had been at it for a couple of years already.
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Yeah, that's how I learned unit conversions, fluid dynamics, combustion engineering, botany...
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It's odd to call something ubiquitous an anachronism. Sure, they're old, and other types have been invented since.
AM and PM are still the norm in the US; though most of us can easily parse "military time", it's unusual to see it.
Traditional round analog clocks are still simple, cheap, and everywhere. I can see four or five of them from my desk at work.
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Yes there are electrical clocks all over the place but there's nothing wrong exposing children at an early age to these fundamentally simpler systems.
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The way to know the time was to look at one of the many church clocks around, all of them only showing dots, not numbers.
A few years later we learned what the Roman numericals on our home wall clock and the large clocks of the water tower meant.
Yes life was hard in those days