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C- may 4, 2018
R- agrees w/ my claim
A- Brett Molina
A-USA Today
P- asks if not learning to tell time is an end of an era

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Despite smartphones and other technological advances, one object has withstood the test of time: the analog clock.

Many of us remember learning about them in schools, between the "big hand, little hand" and converting those numbers to multiples of 5.

But is the analog clock's life in schools slowly ticking away?

According to London's Telegraph, some schools in the U.K. are ditching analog clocks for digital ones because students are struggling to read them.

"The current generation aren't as good at reading the traditional clock face as older generations," said Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary at the Association of School and College Leaders.

Telling time is a key part of elementary school curriculum in the U.S., as many kids read the hands on a clock and write out the correct time.

In 2014, a teacher in Arizona discussed whether it was time to retire the analog clock in an age of smartphones and smartwatches where everything is digital, citing a colleague who wanted to teach his seventh grade class because they couldn't read the analog clock on the wall.

Carol Burris, executive director of the advocacy Network for Public Education and former educator with more than 25 years experience, said teaching analog time still holds value.

"The skills that you need to read an analog clock are skills that kids when they're young begin to learn," she said, citing concepts such as counting by fives and fractions.

Meanwhile, schools using Common Core standards for math require educators to teach kids in earlier grades such as first or second.

While schools in the U.K. have chosen to pull analog clocks, it appears the devices' time in U.S. schools won't expire any time soon.

"There's a lot of very complex mathematical manipulations that are involved in being able to tell time with an analog clock," Burris said. "It takes some of the math skills students are learning and gives them an important real world context."
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.

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Some students don't know how to read analog clocks. Is it the end of an era?

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Despite smartphones and other technological advances, one object has withstood the test of time: the analog clock. Many of us remember learning about them in schools, between the "big hand, little hand" and converting those numbers to multiples of 5. But is the analog clock's life in schools slowly ticking away?

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C- 2019
R-agrees w/ claim
A-NA
A-Building math minds
P-NA

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Now, let's talk about acknowledging the misconceptions. Again, I referenced one of them which is the whole idea of the whole not being 100. So many times kids think of the whole being 100. When they're telling time, they want to think about it as flipping over to the next hour after one hundred minutes, but it's really at 60. Which then adjusts at what our quarter and our half is.

The other misconception is the whole idea of knowing what hour it is when we get past the halfway point because our clocks try to lie to us.

Here's a little picture that I took of my watch with Mickey lying to me.

So, on Mickey here, a lot of kids might know that it's 48 minutes. They'll get to where they can say, "Okay, I bet that that's about 48 minutes," even though the minute ticks aren't really in there. So, they're having to estimate a little bit. They might say, "It's 48 minutes." But the problem is, they'll get the hour wrong. They will say, "11:48" because the hour hand is closer to the 11 than it is to the 10. So, this is really a stumbling block for a lot of our students.

Really acknowledge that. Be sure that you are giving them analog times that reference that. If you don't have a great analog clock, that the hour hand moves in proportion to your minutes, you have to pay really close attention. If you've got worksheets or stuff, a lot of times, they won't move the hour hand to where it should be. So, it'll have the hour hand right at the 10 but the minute hand is where Mickey's minute hand is and that's not what it looks like in real life.

You've got to make sure any manipulatives, any visuals that you are using really does acknowledge the fact that on real clocks, as you're getting closer to that next hour, the hour hand is moving proportionately closer to that next hour. And the clock will try to lie to us.

That's kind of the way I talk about it with the kids. Like, "It's lying to us right now. Can we figure out the lie that the clock is telling us?"

I really hope that this has given you some ideas of ways to make telling time on an analog clock more concrete, more visual, more conceptual for your students so that we can help build their math minds when it comes to telling time.

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Teaching Kids to Tell Time Using An Analog Clock

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Now, let's talk about acknowledging the misconceptions. Again, I referenced one of them which is the whole idea of the whole not being 100. So many times kids think of the whole being 100. When they're telling time, they want to think about it as flipping over to the next hour after one hundred minutes, but it's really at 60.

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C-2019
R-agrees w/ claim
A-NA
A-the fine print blog
P-stressing the importance of teaching this skill

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Knowing how to tell time is a very important skill. It can help you determine whether you're running late or whether you have plenty of time to spare. It can help you catch a train, bus, or plane on time, and allows you to know if you're going to make it to an important get-together early or late. Being able to tell time by looking at a traditional clock is essential to understanding other things like time zones and international times as well. Learning how to tell time can also help kids with their motor and cognitive skills as well as mathematical skills.

Many educators feel that the earlier the age of the child, the better. In most cases, children should learn to tell time on an analog clock around the age of five or six. Younger children will have difficulty since they have not yet learned basic math skills just yet.

1. How to Read a Clock with Hands - A simple guide that shows how to read clocks with hand, also known as analog clocks.

2. Time Monsters - This interactive website teaches kids how to learn about time and clocks.

3. Clock Quiz - Use this quiz to help kids learn how to read a clock and tell time.

4. Teaching Kids to Read a Clock - Some helpful information and tips on teaching kids to read a clock.

5. Video - This entertaining video teaches children how to read clocks to the nearest 5-minute mark and understand time intervals.

6. Analog Clock - An interactive clock that shows the time as well as where the hands are coordinating.

7. Clock Challenge - Click on these clocks to see if you're able to tell what time it is.

8. Lesson Plan - Some challenges and lesson plans for teaching kids how to tell time.

9. What Time is It? - Another fun interactive game where you can match up your analog time telling skills with the digital clocks under it.

10. Telling Time with Kat - This fun game with Kat the cat helps kids learn to tell time on an analog clock.

11. Learn to Tell Time Game - An online, interactive game that helps kids learn to tell time.

12. Teaching Clock - A helpful clock that will show children how to tell time on an analog clock.

13. Play to Learn - Enter the desired time, and it will show on the clock's hands.

14. Identifying Time - A great interactive tool that helps kids understand the time on a clock.

15. Mastering Time Concepts - This article addresses children with ADHD and how parents can help them understand time and time management.

16. Printable Clock - Use this printable clock as a tool to help children learn to tell time.

17. Learning to Tell Time - Information about software designed to teach kids how to tell time.

18. Analog & Digital Clocks - Online software that shows kids how to tell time on both analog and digital clocks.

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Knowing how to tell time is a very important skill. It can help you determine whether you're running late or whether you have plenty of time to spare. It can help you catch a train, bus, or plane on time, and allows you to know if you're going to make it to an important get-together early or late.

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C- dec. 15 2014
R- It boths agrees and disagrees w/ my claim
A- Sandy Merz
A- Stories From School AZ
P- to show why or why not teaching clocks in school is necessary

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On Friday, my colleague Steve Andre wrote in a staff wide email that he was considering teaching how to tell time on an analog clock to his seventh grade computer students because they can't read the one on his wall when they sign out with a pass. On one hand, Steve was for it because analog clocks are still prevalent so it's still a relevant life skill. But he adds that people don't wear analog watches so much, and analog clocks' days are numbered. He wanted our opinions on the matter.

Our opinions, and those of outside friends who have joined the discussion, crossed emotional, pedagogic, and philosophical lines. Emotionally, many were dismayed at the loss of this skill, one was even "appalled." Many teachers were frustrated because the clocks on our classroom walls are analog, so kids need to know analog time. (I wonder why they're not frustrated that our facilities are stuck in the 20th Century or that half of the clocks don't work anyway.) One bridged the emotional - pedagogic divide by expressing the frustration of teaching a skill that first or second graders are not developmentally ready for.

Other pedagogic arguments included the value of using an analog clock as a concrete example of math skills. Miriam added that learning analog clocks helps visual learners:

...I believe that the analog clock can provide a vivid representation of time that digital clocks cannot. Analog clocks are great for teaching time management, concepts including the passage of time, how much time we have left to complete something, etc. Even our little kids who don't yet have the concept of numerals can understand that "when the big hand is on this red line it's time to line up.

Philosophically, several people compared learning analog time to learning cursive writing, another skill that's about as common these days as an 8-track stereo. They pointed out that all anybody seems to write in cursive anymore is their signature. But isn't that a reason to stop teaching it, rather than continue?

Barb, my favorite non-conformist, wrote a response that combines emotion, pedagogy, and philosophy:

I don't know if it's necessary to learn to read an analog clock; but I definitely think it is good for the brain and even better for the mind. Even though the analog clock "moves time" through a single plane or two dimensions, at least time is moving through space at some level. And time needs space although not as much as space needs time. Digital clocks offer only a linear time, and even the linearity is broken up-a kind of dotted line of time. I think our conditioned and cultural tendencies in the west-forever- and increasingly all over the planet, are already towards a mental and psychic linearity( and very much broken up at that ) which lacks depth and scope and a connection to the non-physical world. So, I love the analog clock and the sense of something moving through time and time moving through something....The only thing is that analog watches ALL lose time on my wrist pretty dramatically. But I have a great analog art clock made out of those little firecracker things that you stomp on- hanging in my kitchen. It ticks and tocks, too. I still love sensations and the tactile, visual world-so yes, analog clocks.

That makes me want to teach analog time just so I can then teach them how to find south with an analog watch.

Her comments also led to a mental digression. Our English unit of length began as the average size of sixteen residents' feet in a given village. Daylight was divided into six equal parts so how long an hour lasted depended on the season and your latitude. So, time and distance were proportional the cycles of nature and her human inhabitants. A meter, by the way, is 1/299,792,458 of the distance light travels in a vacuum in one second. (Why not 1/300,000,000?) A second is equal to the duration of 9,192,631,770 cycles of radiation in an energy level change of the Cesium atom. (Why not 10,000,000,000?)

My own response to Steve's original question was that I think reading analog time is about as virtuous as using a rotary phone or zip-a-grade. (I was going to use put in a picture of a zip-a-grade for younger readers, but couldn't find a single one. There are, though, lots of zip-a-grade apps.)

Instead of comparing analog time to cursive, I compared it to reading dice, which a lot of kids can't do anymore, either. But the digital games they play instead:

...are more cognitively demanding and require more planning, collaboration, and communications skills than board games. Plus, like any good teacher - the games they play don't let them move on until they've mastered their current level while providing the motivation to continue. I'd love to be able to teach grit the way World of Warcraft does. My kids never asked me a geography or history question after playing Yahtzee or Monopoly, but they do after playing Assassin's Creed.

To that, my colleague Cheryl fairly pointed out the advantages of dice games in developing number sense.

And to Steve's earlier point about the prevalence of analog clocks in public places, I'd add that yesterday I visited the supermarket, the mall, two libraries, and a party. In those peregrinations, I saw exactly four analog clocks hanging on walls. The last was at my friend's party in her home. Her clock was quite lovely and made me think that in terms of decorative value, analog clocks win hands down.

At the end of the day, Steve wrote to us all that he had decided to teach analog time-telling.

I'm going to pass some time watching Cesium atoms radiate.

I grew up in Silver City, New Mexico and went the University of New Mexico, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology. After working for the U.S. Geological Survey in remote regions of western New Mexico, I moved to Tucson to attend graduate school at the University of Arizona, earning a Master of Science degree in Hydrogeology. While working as an intern hydrologist for a local county agency, I started doing volunteer work that involved making presentations in schools. At that moment I knew teaching was the path to follow. It must have been a good decision because I'm still on the path after thirty-two years. My teaching certificates are in math and science and I am a National Board Certified Teacher in Career and Technical Education. After teaching engineering and math and elective classes at the same school in downtown Tucson my whole career, I've moved to a different middle school and district on the edge of town to teach math. In addition to full time teaching, I am actively involved in the teacher leadership movement by facilitating National Board candidates, blogging for Stories from School Arizona, and serving on the Arizona K12 Center's TeacherSolutions team. In January 2017, Raytheon Missile System named me a Leader in Education and I'm a former Arizona Hope Street Fellow.

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Should We Still Teach Analog Clocks? - STORIES FROM SCHOOL AZ

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SHARE THIS STORY: On Friday, my colleague Steve Andre wrote in a staff wide email that he was considering teaching how to tell time on an analog clock to his seventh grade computer students because they can't read the one

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C- sep. 16, 2016
R-Agrees w/ claim
A- Rick Wagner
A-Kingsport Time News
P-questioning why we wouldnt teach time

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I immediately thought of four folks: my younger son, junior son, senior daughter and grown step-daughter. The youngest is in third grade in Hawkins County, the middle two in Kingsport City Schools and the oldest graduated from Hawkins. That's four folks, and the result of surveying them, actually just interaction over time, has shown 75 percent more or less can't tell analog time, on a round-face clock, which was the point of the email. I remember once time telling my older son in late elementary school it was a quarter till or quarter after a certain hour. He asked if that was 3:25 or 25 minutes till 3.

These digital natives read time as 3:15 p.m. or 3:45 p.m., not a quarter till or quarter after anything. But analog clocks and before that sundials have been around almost as long as civilization. The youngest is learning and nearly complete in understanding analog time; the other three, not so much at all. They use their cell phones for time except for the youngest. He borrows his mom's phone or asks somebody. I asked him recently, and he said he prefers digital clocks because they are easier for him to understand.

Before I go any further, I need to point out that a watch retailer put out the release to promote its program with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America "to educate children across the U.S. on how to tell time" and creation of "a self-learning watch." So the watch seller has some self-interest in mind: Create life-long time tellers, and you create a market for your product. I also need to point out the survey got nowhere near Tennessee or Virginia.

"A recent survey conducted by ... online watch retailer, DiscountWatchStore.com has revealed that 75% of children across the U.S. are unable to tell time on an analog clock. In a mission to raise awareness of this issue, the watch retailer teamed up with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to put on 'Time Telling Workshops' throughout the country, and has now designed the 'Easy Time Teller' - a custom self-learning watch to better facilitate the learning process." So it's a watch to teach children how to read a watch.

In Tennessee, Robin McLellan, supervisor of elementary education for Sullivan County schools, said time is taught in grades 1, 2 and 3 and involves both analog and digital time, in contrast to a period in which standards did not specify analog. In first grade, she said students are to learn how to tell and write time in the nearest half-hour intervals, in second grade, students go down to every five minutes and use a.m. and p.m;. and in third grade they go down to the minute and learn how to measure intervals in time by adding and subtracting and how to solve word problems.

"Your begin in first building foundations and then add more skills," McLellan said. For the time three of the four I referred to earlier were in school, analog time was not a big deal. For me, it was practically the only deal. My first "digital" alarm clock circa mid-1970s flipped over a new number or numbers every minute. It is (yes, I still have it) like a Rolodex, not to be confused with a Rolex watch. If you don't understand any of this, never mind. You probably don't know "Time is on My Side" by the Rolling Stones, "Time in a Bottle" by Jim Croce or "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)" sung by Frank Sinatra, either. (The latter starts out: "It's quarter to three. There's no one in the place, except you and me."

According to the news release, the analog time telling survey consisted of 15 questions and was split into three levels of varying difficulty. It was distributed to 2,100 children between the ages of 6-12 in New York, Florida, Connecticut, Washington, Nevada, Utah and Texas. Children unable to obtain an 80 percent mark in levels 1 and 2 or a 70 percent mark in level 3 were judged not to be able to tell time to an adequate level. Only 263 children out of the entire survey achieved full marks on the test, with 527 children achieving scores of a sufficient level. Based on the sample, findings and criteria stated it was revealed that 25 percent of children were able to tell time.

"Through educational workshops, the nationwide initiative has reached thousands of children across the U.S., seeking to highlight a significant problem with today's youth growing up in the digital age, and allowing the youngsters the opportunity to learn a fundamental component of early childhood and development. The survey assessed over 2,000 children between 6-12 years old in seven states across the U.S., with only 1 in 8 children scoring full marks on the test and only 1 in 10 children even owning a watch," the release said.

However, the premise is important, much more important than selling watches.

"It is alarming how many children only know what a digital clock reads, and despite an era of digital technology, there will undoubtedly come a time when today's youth will need to read the time on an analog clock. It is a basic skill every individual should posses," said DiscountWatchStore.com owner Zai Zhu. (Notice how he got "alarming" in there in a news release about time pieces.) "We've been going up and down the country holding workshops with children in partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to help educate our children. It is these workshops that inspired the idea for a specially-designed watch for children to learn how to tell time."

The educational watch has a color-coded design, with hour blocks and specifically catered hour and minute hands that correspond with the appropriate information, allowing children to learn to read time on a round dial on their own. The campaign recently had a Kickstarter campaign in an effort to raise funds and reach as many children throughout the U.S. as possible.

"The ability to tell time on a regular watch is not something being taught to our children. It is important that they learn this lost skill," said Steve Davidson, chief operating officer at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada. "At our clubs, we are using the ability to tell time also in our daily math tutoring program."

Today's lesson: I'm not trying to sell watches or with the Boys & Girls Clubs, but I couldn't agree more with the importance of learning about analog time.

Bonus question: What time is quarter till 3 in a song Frank Sinatra sang?

Rick Wagner is an education writer for the Kingsport Times-News and can be reached at [email protected] or (423) 392-1381.

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Behind the Blackboard: Telling time on an analog clock should not be lost to new generations

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Digital natives read time as 3:15 p.m. or 3:45 p.m., not a quarter 'til or quarter after anything. But analog clocks and before that sundials have been around almost as long as civilization. The youngest is learning but not yet complete in understanding analog time; the other three, not so much at all.

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C- may 24, 2018
R- agrees w/ claim
A- christina tonoval
A-building math minds
P- teaching time

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Teaching Kids to Tell Time Using An Analog Clock

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C-nov.23,2010
R-agrees w/ claim
A-NA
A-teacher tipster
P-teaching time

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