In a disconcerting trend revealed by Helsingin Sanomat, a surprising number of students at Albert Edelfelt School in Porvoo are struggling to read analogue clocks—skills typically expected of much younger children.
Reports indicate that many of these lower secondary students, spanning grades 7 to 9, faced challenges completing time-telling exercises aimed at second graders. Ripsa Heiskanen, a dedicated teacher of math, physics, and chemistry at the school, first grew suspicious when her students repeatedly inquired about how much longer until their next break, despite the presence of analogue wall clocks in every classroom.
Determined to gauge her students’ time-reading abilities, Heiskanen conducted a pop quiz for her eighth graders. The assignment required them to not only read time from the hands of an analogue clock but also to illustrate the positions of those hands corresponding to various times. The results were telling: in every group, approximately five students could only identify the time when the clock hands pointed to whole hours.
The reasons behind this difficulty are complex and multifaceted. Interestingly, Heiskanen noted that even students who did not face learning difficulties struggled with analogue clocks. In her conversations with Helsingin Sanomat, she speculated that the rising prominence of English among younger generations might be muddling their understanding of time-telling conventions in Finnish and Swedish.
This situation raises important questions about the broader implications of digital technology in education and everyday life. As we move further into a digital era dominated by screens, the ability to read traditional timepieces, it seems, may be slipping away from the next generation.