What "old skills" students have lost

[apl68]

Which reminds me of another "skill": wearing a wristwatch.

I don't mean knowing how to read one (since there have been digital watches for years). I mean actually wearing one. Because, why would they, with cell phones and all?

This, also, is not just for students. A friend of mine, a retired professor who got his PhD decades ago, looked at me funny when I looked at my watch to find out what time it was. He asked me why I would have a watch since everybody has cell phones.

The reasons that I wear a watch is that I don't like to pull out my phone in a class because, well, that usually prompts everybody else to do so. Now that I have not been in a classroom for more than a year, I am not entirely sure where I put my watch.

I don't ever pull out my phone in class, but most of our classrooms still have a clock on the back wall so I use that. The display on the projector controls also has the time.

I had a blind undergrad professor who wore a watch with a face that could be popped open so that he could read the dial by touch.  I'd occasionally see him discreetly check it while he lectured.

He just kept right on going with his lecture when the lights went off one stormy day.