# 4-in-5 Oklahoma City students can’t read clocks
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [March 15, 2017, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216 "2017-03-15T03:30:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/1 "2017-03-15T03:30:49Z")
Another vital life skill lost. 🙂
My daughters learned to read a clock by age six. It’s a good way to teach them numbers and how they divide into units.
Clocks are still sold at Walmart. Right beside the digital ones. Parents (that don’t have one) need to hang one on the wall. Explain how it works. Ask their kids “what time is it?” several times a day, for a week. They’ll carry that knowledge the rest of their life. Otherwise, I guess they’ll have to incorporate it into 2nd grade classes.
It does take awhile to learn to round up or down. It’s 10 till 6 not 5:50. People look at you strangely for saying 5:55. Digital clocks are annoying because they display it that way.
> **[Study: 4-in-5 Oklahoma City students can’t read clocks](https://kfor.com/news/study-4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-cant-read-clocks/amp/)**
>
> OKLAHOMA CITY – They may miss that hour of sleep, but as we turn our clocks ahead, chances are kids won’t be changing their watches. That’s because the vast majority don’t h…
> [@](#):
>
> More than 150 students took the time-telling survey, which featured 15 questions. Only 31 students passed. Only 15 earned perfect scores.
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/2 "2017-03-15T03:54:55Z")
Doesn’t Sesame Street or the other pre School shows teach stuff like this?
I can remember Captain Kangaroo reaching into into his vest and opening his pocket watch. They also had the Grandfather clock character.
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### Author:  [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/3 "2017-03-15T04:08:00Z")
They all know 9:02.
☹
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/4 "2017-03-15T04:14:40Z")
I agree, any Oklahoma kid should know April 19 1995.
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### Author:  [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/5 "2017-03-15T04:27:02Z")
I don’t know why, but I found it very difficult to learn to tell time as a kid, even though I did very well in arithmetic and reasoning skills. Something about remembering which hand did what was very confusing and frustrating to me. Now I wear an analogue watch every day, but it still sometimes takes me a second or two to look at it and figure out what it says; it’s not automatic.
Anyway, this story reminded me that even when I was a kid in the 1980s, clock-reading seemed to be rapidly de-emphasized at school. I guess everyone thought we would all be looking at digital clocks all the time in the future.
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/6 "2017-03-15T05:59:08Z")
Kids know when it’s 4:20. 😃
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/7 "2017-03-15T06:12:35Z")
> [@friedo](#):
>
> I don’t know why, but I found it very difficult to learn to tell time as a kid, even though I did very well in arithmetic and reasoning skills. Something about remembering which hand did what was very confusing and frustrating to me. Now I wear an analogue watch every day, but it still sometimes takes me a second or two to look at it and figure out what it says; it’s not automatic.
Is there such a thing as radial dyslexia?
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/8 "2017-03-15T08:22:25Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Parents (that don’t have one) need to hang one on the wall. Explain how it works. Ask their kids “what time is it?” several times a day, for a week. They’ll carry that knowledge the rest of their life.
This is really not necessary at all. Analog clocks are mostly decorative now (either as home decor or as jewelry). It’s not bad to know how to read one, but it’s not something vital either.
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> It’s 10 till 6 not 5:50. People look at you strangely for saying 5:55. Digital clocks are annoying because they display it that way.
As someone who grew up in the digital clock era, I feel exactly the opposite. I can read an analog clock, but it’s not my native “language” for time.
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/9 "2017-03-15T08:36:13Z")
As a semi-retired person, I have a radial clock that shows both the time and the day!
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/10 "2017-03-15T09:53:56Z")
> [@Quartz](#):
>
> As a semi-retired person, I have a radial clock that shows both the time and the day!
Is it a quartz clock? 😃
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### Author:  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/11 "2017-03-15T10:07:55Z")
Kids these days can’t even tell both time and direction with the sun and a stick. It is not good enough that they can tell time with typical clocks, i.e. digital clocks. Harrumph!
(Seriously, the title of the news article and the title of the thread are misleading by equating clocks with dial clocks rather than digital clocks. If you handed the kids digital clocks, would they be able to tell the time? The news article and thread titles imply “no”, which I expect would be far from correct.)
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/12 "2017-03-15T10:12:42Z")
If nothing else, the clocks in most classrooms are analog. So it’s good for a student who wants to know how many minutes are left in the period.
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/13 "2017-03-15T10:34:44Z")
Analog clocks are easier to read than digital clocks. At 5:57, someone reading from the former will say “6 o’clock” while many reading from the latter will say “5 o’clock.” :smack:
… Or maybe my old-fogeyness is showing. Language evolves and maybe “5 o’clock” no longer means “about 5:00” but “5:59 or earlier.” :eek:
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### Author:  [@Fleetwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fleetwood)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/14 "2017-03-15T10:44:02Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> If nothing else, the clocks in most classrooms are analog. So it’s good for a student who wants to know how many minutes are left in the period.
Helps with multiplication, too. Knowing how many seconds are left could also be important. Good time-waster during boring classes when I was in school. An invaluable skill when attending boring meetings at work as an adult.
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### Author:  [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/15 "2017-03-15T10:44:11Z")
Anecdote time.
I was on a whale-watching boat a few years ago. Throughout the tour, people would shout out “whale at 2 o’clock!” or “dolphins at 8 o’clock!”
I was near the bow of the boat within a crowd of people, standing near two teenage girls. One said to her friend, “there’s one!”
“Where?!?”
“1 o’clock!”
(screaming): “I don’t know my o’clocks!!!”
mmm
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/16 "2017-03-15T10:52:26Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> Analog clocks are easier to read than digital clocks. At 5:57, someone reading from the former will say “6 o’clock” while many reading from the latter will say “5 o’clock.” :smack:
No, they’ll say “5:57” or “almost 6 o’clock”.
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/17 "2017-03-15T11:04:46Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> Analog clocks are easier to read than digital clocks. At 5:57, someone reading from the former will say “6 o’clock” while many reading from the latter will say “5 o’clock.” :smack:
>
> … Or maybe my old-fogeyness is showing. Language evolves and maybe “5 o’clock” no longer means “about 5:00” but “5:59 or earlier.” :eek:
No, you’re just dealing with dumbasses.
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### Author:  [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/18 "2017-03-15T12:13:46Z")
> [@friedo](#):
>
> I found it very difficult to learn to tell time as a kid.
By age 5 or so, I knew how to tell time to the minute, reading both hands…(.ie. when the big hand points to one number and the little hand to another.)
But then somebody told me about the second hand. And I clearly remember saying that they were wrong–it’s not the second hand, it’s the _third_ .
🙂
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/19 "2017-03-15T12:33:03Z")
> [@cochrane](#):
>
> Is it a quartz clock? 😃
Boom boom!
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### Author:  [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2017, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4-in-5-oklahoma-city-students-can-t-read-clocks/782216/20 "2017-03-15T13:42:21Z")
> [@friedo](#):
>
> I don’t know why, but I found it very difficult to learn to tell time as a kid, even though I did very well in arithmetic and reasoning skills.
I could have written that.
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