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I'm 26. When I was in high school my geometry teacher was confounded that \"figure out the angle of the hands of the clock at such and such time\" word problems were basically ruined by the fact that most of us didn't know how to read an analog clock. I suppose the next variant is that the next generation won't quite get it when word problems involve loose change...
@Downfall: That's pretty bad. Especially considering shows like Blues Clues still teach kids how to tell time.
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@Downfall: Schools are still teaching how to count money and make change in the earlier grades. However, it might not be enough if all the kids see at home and in the world are people swiping credit cards.
Actually, I think the whole idea of how credit cards works needs to be explained to a few adults, too:
@Downfall: Odd. I'm 24 and we definitely covered reading analog clocks many times over multiple years in elementary school, with the teacher's big cardboard clock and smaller ones for all the students
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@[DFX] Deimos: Okay, now, no need to be rude. In fifty years, probably nobody will be able to read an analog clock. Can you read a sun dial? It was once a common skill, but technology marches on. Another example would be writing a check from scratch (I don't mean a preprinted bank check-- starting from a blank piece of paper. Used to be common, all but dead now).
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@Downfall: Yes, it's not difficult to read a sundial. It's much like reading an analog clock... oh wait...
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@chiieddy: With my armillary-style sundial, you just have to read what two numbers the shadow falls between. Very easy. :)
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@Downfall: i get your point but sundials are still around for purchase and some people do actually read them.
unlike checks written from scratch, using a sundial isn't too likely to get you investigated for suspicion of fraud
@catastrophegirl:@Downfall: I have an armillary-style sundial in my back yard. You adjust it to point to north and then you adjust the time dial as the sun moves during the year.
It's pretty sweet. And it is my opinion you don't need to know more than the nearest hour when you're relaxing in the garden. :D
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I wonder what how you use a sundial inside the arctic circle. Can it be used to tell 24 hour time then or is it just completely useless?
@Downfall: to be fair, those word problems ruined themselves.
more like \"figure out the angle of the hands of the clock based on the 10 minutes of my life i just wasted solving this pointless problem.\"
@Downfall: How about those analog wristwatches that have Roman Numerals? What planet are those from?
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@Downfall: Honestly? I'm 25 and while digital clocks are all around, I still have no problem finding an analog clock. Maybe it's because our high school was super poor but all we had in the classrooms were analog clocks to tell us when class started/was over. Are there really people our age who don't know how to read an analog clock? That strikes me as really really sad.
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@korybing: I have a hard time finding clocks of any kind in public nowadays. I find it baffling that movie theaters don't have clocks in their lobby. I don't know if the assumption is that everyone either has a watch or a cell phone or if clocks are somehow 'out of style' but it still bugs me when I'm out somewhere and I can't find a clock.
@Rectilinear Propagation: That's weird. I wonder if I just live in a place where digital clocks are less common? I've never thought that analog clocks were in danger of becoming obsolete around here. The giant clocks on banks and stuff are digital, but I'd be hardpressed to find other public clocks, especially indoors, that weren't analog clocks.
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@korybing: In my experience, most clocks in airports are analog because they can run on battery. If you have to adjust a clock for Daylight Saving Time, you want a digital clock that can do it automatically. But if there's a power outage, you have to go around and set up the digital clocks again anyway. It's a trade off, but most airports I've seen use analog clocks more than digital ones.
@korybing: I can read one if I stare at it, but it takes a while to deconstruct. And my school district wasn't rich by any means, we just had bells. Most of us had watches-- cheap timex digital ones!-- to see how much longer was left in class. I don't recall an actual clock on the wall, but that was obviously a while ago.
@korybing: We bought an analog clock for our apartment because they always look nicer. Analog clocks are still very common everywhere.
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@pecan 3.14159265: agreed. digital clocks are nowhere nearly as cool looking as analog ones. unless they are really artsy - and by extension expensive.
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@MostlyHarmless: My favorite analog clock in the house has - what else - frogs on it. And if the battery is in, on the hour it plays the call of each frog. Oh yeah.
@MostlyHarmless: I've never seen an artsy digital clock. But I also like the look of clocks with 'faces'.
@korybing: Rather reminds me of a story I read about a guy who gave is 12-year old kid his old Walkman to listen to for a week. It took the kid like 3 days to figure out you could listen to the other side of the cassette tape.
@korybing: My husband's 32 and has trouble with analog clocks. He can read them, but he has to stop and think about it. I'm a year younger and read them at a glance.
Different emphases, I suppose.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): My mother wouldn't let me get a digital watch until I could read an analog clock and this was over 30 years ago, so the problem existed then too.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): The clock I grew up with had Roman numerals. I read analog clocks from hand position alone. The first time I ran into an adult who couldn't read a numberless clock (because they couldn't see what the hands were pointing to) it blew my mind.
I've been on a lifelong quest to find a wristwatch with a 100% blank face. No luck so far.
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@Garbanzo: Look at a Swatch store, they have many with blank faces, like this one - [www.amazon.com]
@Garbanzo: Try Skagen:
Just from a quick search. My husband wears a Skagen; one of the ones with a blue face. He loves it and it draws a lot of compliments.
@Garbanzo: I remember the first time as a kid when I saw a numberless wrist watch, and I suddenly realized that as long as you know what 12:00 position is, you do not NEED any numbers AT ALL. I was totally blown away at whoever thought of it.
That was my first lesson/experience in minimalism. I follow that principle to this day when I design my slides/interfaces.
@MostlyHarmless: I saw a clock at Target this weekend. It was made to look like a giant wall clock that had it's sides sliced off, leaving only the 12 at the top and the 6 at the bottom. They called it the Half Hour Clock or something schmaltzy like that, but I thought it was really clever, since the arms still went around it, but the only \"clock\" part was that narrow vertical slice.
@pecan 3.14159265: The blankest ones I could find on their webpage all have a dot at 12:00. I've seen plenty of watches that are blank except for one pip at 12. Also common is a pip at 12 and a brand name at 6. Still haven't seen a 100% blank one.
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@Garbanzo: How would you know which direction was the top if it had nothing at all on it? I guess in the grand scheme of things it wouldnt matter, but I'd be pissed to find out I had been wearing my watch upside down for 3 years.
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@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I moved so much as a kid that a lot of really easy but important stuff got skipped between schools and their different curricula. I didn't really learn multiplication until 6th grade, or analog clocks until 3rd or 4th. Analog clocks just got easy for me a few years ago and I'm 25.
Never learned Roman numerals and had to teach myself when reading Dante (Canto numbers) in college. :^(
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): @Garbanzo: Same here. I can read them from the hand positions, but I also remember being taught extensively how to use analog clocks in elementary school. I had no idea so many people had a problem with them, that really floors me.
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@Downfall: Seriously? You guys didn't know how to read an analog clock? I'm a year younger and we've always had a ton of analog clocks in the house!
@pecan 3.14159265: I know now, but it's an obsolete skill I rarely use. It's a bit of mental work to unjumble the arms but I can do it if I need to.
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@pecan 3.14159265: I'm not that much older and my gut feeling after reading \"high school\" and \"geometry\" is that some jokers were pulling her leg to try to get out of answering those questions.
I remember making issue with the \"train leaves city at xx mph\" word problems by observing that trains have to obey switching and vary their speed with the terrain and that without a full map of those rules it's impossible to answer. He conceded that point and said it was ok for the class to assume it was constant speed.... except for me. The teacher amended my word problem to make me account for acceleration at the source and deceleration at the destination.
I both hated and loved that guy.
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Make sure your child knows the connection between the swipe and the cash behind it...I know they sell those toy cash registers with the swiping card & cash inside.
Maybe open a \"bank\" inside the house and allow your child to \"deposit\" their allowance into a lockbox (with interest). Then figure out a way to tie that to \"swiping\" the card (I don't have any ideas right now).
Sounds convoluted, but so is the idea of banking...this connection is sorely needed!
@coffeeculture: We do something very similar with my three-year-old son.
He has a piggy bank at home that holds his allowance and money from extra chores. We've taken him to our bank (credit union, actually) to show him where we keep our money. He knows the CU is our 'piggy bank.'
When he sees something he wants, we ask him if he has enough money to buy it. If he knows how much he has, and if it's sufficient to cover the purchase, we let him buy it - mom and dad cover it for him until we get home.
When we get home, we make him watch us take the money out of his piggy bank. Seeing the money leave creates a strong connection.
After doing this a couple of times he started asking if the store took money out of our bank when we buy things. He also thinks twice about purchases because he knows we'll come take the money out of his bank.
I'll introduce the idea of credit a little later. Compound interest is going to be fun, though I have a plan.
@coffeeculture: When I was a small child (about six), I asked my mother at the grocery store checkout why the people with credit cards didn't have to pay (to my six year old mind payment=cash)she explained that the card just deferred payment and that the cardholder had to pay the purchase plus interest at the end of the month.
@coffeeculture: This idea of the connection behind the \"swipe\" and the \"cash\" behind it got me to thinking: how many adults know the connection between \"cash\" and the \"value\" behind it?
Interesting that our acceptable level of abstraction only goes so far.
I don't think the idea of banking is too convoluted, though. The idea of \"gaining points/saving them\" and \"using points/spending them\" seems to be a commonly recurring theme in life. You can make biscuits, save them, or eat them, for example.
@coffeeculture: Maybe equate swiping with deducting money from the lockbox. Like when you swipe your card, the bank unlocks the box and takes out the same amount of money.
Credit is possibly a little more complicated than that example, but for debit it's pretty simple.
@coffeeculture: Once done, explain the concept of banking to the bank CEOs and Congress.
@coffeeculture There are mock cash registers for kids you could use to demonstrate.