At least 31 states and the District of Columbia restrict cell phones in schools
New York City teachers say the state’s recently implemented cell phone ban in schools has showed that numerous students no longer know how to tell time on an old-fashioned clock.
“That’s a major skill that they’re not used to at all,” Tiana Millen, an assistant principal at Cardozo High School in Queens, told Gothamist of what she’s noticed after the ban, which went into effect in September.
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.
Every classroom I was in from kindergarten through university had analog clocks on the wall, so I was absolutely able to just glance. For years.
But since I haven’t been in a classroom for so long, and I’m not surrounded by analog clocks anymore, I think I’ve mostly lost that ability and I’ve found that it takes me a couple of seconds nowadays to decode it.
It’s definitely a skill that needs to be practiced to keep it up