MAYOR FAIL: Schools discover teens can’t read clocks after cellphone ban

December 26, 2025

From the New York Post: New York City teachers have found that scores of teenagers can’t read traditional clocks after a cellphone ban in schools statewide — because students figured the skill would be useless in the digital era, according to a report.

“The constant refrain is ‘Miss, what time is it?’” said Madi Mornhinweg, who teaches high school English in Manhattan.

“It’s a source of frustration because everyone wants to know how many minutes are left in class,” she told Gothamist. “It finally got to the point where I started saying, ‘Where’s the big hand and where’s the little hand?’”

Many tech-minded teens have no clue what time it is during the course of the school day because classrooms generally only have analog clocks on the walls, teachers told the outlet.

Some students have explained they learned how to read clocks while in the first grade, but had forgotten.

One 14-year-old student said she knows how to read a clock, but other students “just forgot that skill because they never used it, because they always pulled out their phone.”

Tiana Millen, an assistant principal at Cardozo High School in Queens, said, “That’s a major skill that they’re not used to at all. They don’t know how to read the clocks.”