NYC teachers discover teens can’t read clocks after school cellphone ban | 26 Dec 2025 | Time got away from them! 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. 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. “That’s a major skill that they’re not used to at all,” Tiana Millen, an assistant principal at Cardozo High School in Queens, said. “They don’t know how to read the clocks.”