Inventing While Muslim

Parent Cafe
341

I think this cases shows us that if a situation is fact-poor enough, people will project their own viewpoints onto it. Usually, more detailed facts don’t come out in time for anybody to care enough to discuss it any more, because by then we’ll have gone on to the next outrage.

Based on the facts we have, you can create a scenario in which this kid is an entirely innocent victim of Islamophobia and police overreach, or a scenario in which he is a troublemaker who is getting all sorts of goodies he doesn’t deserve.

Here’s what I think, based on my own creative reconstruction of the situation based on what we do know: The kid showed his device to the engineering teacher, who saw that it wasn’t dangerous, but that others (less technologically adept) would think that it looks like a bomb (this is especially the case if it really did have a “countdown clock” visible outside the case). The engineering teacher didn’t think much of it, but told him not to show it to any other teachers.

Then, the thing beeps during English class and the kid shows it to the teacher, who is just the kind of person the engineering teacher was thinking about. Why did it beep then? This is a factual gap in the story. Was it an accident, or deliberate?

So this teacher calls the principal, and they bring in the kid. I’m going to assume that they did call in the engineering teacher, who says, “It’s not a bomb–it’s just the circuitry of a clock. But I TOLD him not to show it to anybody else because it could be misconstrued. I don’t understand why he would do that after I explicitly warned him not to do so.” (I am assuming the engineering teacher said this, because he needs to make himself look responsible.)

So now, the school authorities have to figure out if the kid was trying to cause trouble. Who else did he show it to? (We don’t know.) What did he say about it to his friends? (We don’t know.) Why did it beep in English class? (We don’t know how he explained this.) Why did he ignore the engineering teacher’s warning? (We don’t know.) We also don’t know what he said to explain why he brought this gizmo to school–and the police didn’t really like what he said about this either. Would we have been convinced that it was all an innocent mistake if we’d been in the room when he was being questioned? We don’t know.

Still, it seems like a big overreaction for them to arrest him and take him away in handcuffs, and for them to keep him from contacting his parents. I think that overreaction has kept people from asking (or wanting to ask) questions that might make the school’s actions seem more reasonable.

342

I am almost certain the commenters backing the school and police were outraged when the Free Range kids were detained by CPS after they were picked up and their parents weren’t notified until hours later.

343

I think we do know: he showed the device to his English teacher because the English teacher asked to see it. We don’t know whether it beeped during English class because he intentionally set it to beep then, or he accidentally set it to beep then, or it was beeping because of low power. But once it beeped, he wasn’t going to be able to get out of showing it to the teacher even if he didn’t want to.

344

If I’m not mistaken, the reports are simply that he showed it to the English teacher, not that she asked to see it. She may have simply reprimanded him for having something that beeped–the most likely thing would be a cellphone.

345

Is there any excuse for his being handcuffed?

Questioned without his parents’ knowledge?

Were the actions of the police justified?

346

I had thought I read that he showed her the clock because she asked to see it, but I have been unable to find any reports to substantiate that belief. So I conclude that I was wrong and you are right, Hunt. I apologize for the error.

347

At the risk of being labeled “worst parent ever” (again, I already hold that title), my son went to school today with an Arduino kit and a bunch of sensors. Making a timer out of this would be pretty easy. He is white and Catholic, so will not be hassled no matter how many teachers see it. At his school, the muslim kids with beards would not be hassled.

Also, I am an EE and have taken things way more dangerous looking than Ahmed’s device through airports and into secure government facilities. I have never had a problem. Could they fabricate a reason to take me to a back room? Absolutely.

Cuffed and interrogated for an imagined threat is the grown-up police version of given a wedgie and stuffed in a locker. They know they are being bullies, but they also know they have the government backing them and the approval of our most prussian citizens. The list of “reasons” in this thread seems to be never-ending.

348

The young man knew that the clock could be seen as a threat because he said so. The school code of conduct is available on the website, with the first page being where the student and parents have to sign that they received it and accept responsibility for the student’s behavior. He violated at least a couple of rules set forth in the code of conduct, which is very much like the one for my kids which I outlined earlier. I wonder how many of you who were surprised by what I said either are decades away from being in school or have kids who are a bit older than mine. In the age of smart phones, the rules are pretty common The rules apply to everyone, even Ahmed. Should he have been handcuffed? I’m not getting how that was appropriate, but the code of conduct does make clear that the school followed the procedures set out within it.

349

"I think this cases shows us that if a situation is fact-poor enough, people will project their own viewpoints onto it. Usually, more detailed facts don’t come out in time for anybody to care enough to discuss it any more, because by then we’ll have gone on to the next outrage.

Based on the facts we have, you can create a scenario in which this kid is an entirely innocent victim of Islamophobia and police overreach, or a scenario in which he is a troublemaker who is getting all sorts of goodies he doesn’t deserve."

This is probably the most SPOT ON post on this subject (yes, even more so than mine, believe it or not :smiley: ). Fact poor, mostly with the kid and parents viewpoint, and people making guesses based upon a tiny bit of information or biases. And by the time the actual facts come out, it will be out of the news, and very few will care.

350

It’s bizarre to me that anyone would have the position that kids can’t bring Arduino kits to school. Or maybe it’s that kids can’t bring projects made with Arduino kits? Or is that a kid can’t bring an Arduino project to school if the kid is brown? What are these, schools for Luddites? Zoos, why is it a good idea to prohibit Arduinos from schools?

351

CardinalFang, be careful when you construct straw men, they can be flammable!

I didn’t say any of the rules were a good idea. I said they existed. Note the difference.

I also said that Amhed and his parents were required to read the school code of conduct and sign that they had read it and agreed that the student would be held accountable for his behavior. Being held accountable is generally not a pleasant thing, although handcuffs were a little much. However, he knew the clock could be viewed as a threat, therefore the rules governing faux weapons came into play. He was held accountable and he didn’t like it.

There is no reason for an Arduino to be in any classroom other than the room or activity pertaining to it. Leave it with the teacher involved or in a locker. Not that complicated.

There was a specific rule that I had a major problem with in my son’s public middle school. Therefore, he attends a private school where the rules are simultaneously tougher and more flexible.

352

Please cite the specific rules from that code of conduct he supposedly violated.

From what has been reported, it doesn’t seem like he violated any of the rules and there’s serious concern that this action is the latest example of a school district with law enforcement and educational officials being quite punitive with its K-12 students…especially minority students.

A commenter’s statement that the Mayor of the town in which the school district is located made statements of “dangers of Sharia law” is also disturbing. It’s disturbing as it’s reminiscent of similar xenophobic pandering by politicians throughout US history towards those who feared new immigrants whether it was the “Know-Nothing” party supporters against Irish immigrants in the mid-19th century or fears of the “Yellow Peril” in the 19th and 20th centuries which prompted the Chinese-exclusion act of 1882 and a certain bigoted government official to deny Wong Kim Ark the right to re-enter the US* despite the fact he was born in San Francisco and as later confirmed by the 1898 Supreme Court ruling…is a US citizen by virtue of being born on US soil to immigrant parents subjected to US laws…even if they weren’t eligible to become citizens under the laws of that era.

  • He was returning from visiting relatives in China and had made one such trip previously without incident before this bigoted official denied him the right to reentry, declared him a non-citizen, and felt the courts...including the supreme court would conform to his views that no person of Chinese ethnicity...including those born on US soil should ever be US citizens.
353

I have not seen any proof that he would have been treated differently if he were white or non-Muslim, especially with the evasiveness he originally showed.

I have however heard that apparently not just Muslims are being targeted, and not just African-Americans, but Sudanese-American Muslims. The kid’s father apparently thinks that “now” Sudanese-Americans can’t become engineers etc.

Smacks of entitlement IMHO. With or without the actions of the school being wrong or right, there is no cabal.

354

And for the record, the same rule applies to the NYC DOE, although the disciplinary process is, I think, more flexible and, dare I say it, smarter. That code of conduct is also on the website.

355

@zoosermom, what do you mean, “the activity pertaining to it [the Arduino]”? The activity pertaining to an Arduino is playing with the Arduino. Saying a student can’t tinker with an Arduino without a teacher’s supervision is like saying a student can’t read a novel without a teacher’s supervision. Teachers aren’t the gatekeepers for kids’ technological creativity.

356

How many other kids at that school have been handcuffed and fingerprinted for violations of the code of conduct? Swearing? Skipping class? Writing in a textbook? PDA? It’s not about the code of conduct.

Inventing a “reason” for handcuffing this kid takes more imagination than his clock “invention.” If it looked even remotely like a bomb to the police I might agree with his treatment, but the police and the school admit it did not.

357

And what proof do YOU have that there isn’t a cabal or at least a leadership and institutional factors which condone or even encourage extremely punitive punishments against K-12 students…especially minorities.

Especially when there are reports this school district is in an area with racial tensions and said district is one of the most punitive in Texas regarding educational officials and law enforcement treatment of K-12 students for transgressions which wouldn’t have warranted such a response or in some cases…would never be considered punishable period.

A commenter’s post about the mayor of this town making a xenophobic statement about “dangers of Sharia law” recently only adds to suspicions the leadership and those who support it exhibit mentalities reminiscient of the “Know-Nothings” in the 1850’s or those decrying the “dangers of the Yellow Peril” in the 19th and 20th centuries.

It certainly wouldn’t have been against the rules or be considered punishable under the rules of the NYC public HS I attended. If anything, if he had attended Stuy, his actions would be so unremarkable the admins/teachers would treat it no differently than a student bringing a notebook and a pen/pencil to class. Then again. my HS had an atmosphere which encouraged budding engineers and technical tinkerers…not one which punishes them or regards their activities as suspicious merely for being such.

358

To be honest, it doesn’t sound to me like the Arduino equipment is cheap, so what the heck would the problem be with requiring supervision to use it?

There are many examples of items that are controlled at schools; there are such things as locked doors so computers etc. don’t get stolen, or purposefully broken.

Equating equipment with a book is bull. We have to pay money for my kid to use a tablet for school, and sign significant agreements about it, including owing the full price if their tablet is broken.

Go buy your own equipment to tinker with at home. I don’t want my tax dollars wasted on kids messing around with equipment - or books - unsupervised. Books are taken out with the person who is taking it out having responsibility to take care of the book.

359

How absurd. Teachers are the gatekeepers for their classes. Ahmed brought his creation into another class. He could have left it with the advisor to any EC he participates in or with the teacher he wanted to impress. He didn’t have the right to bring it into any other class.
My son is a serious musician. Very creative. He can not bring his instrument to every class. He can be creative in music class, in his free periods and during ensemble practices. He can not be creative in anything but English in English class, and sometimes he can’t actually be creative in school. Sometimes he has to actually engage in learning and in being respectful of others.

Actually it’s all about the code of conduct. It’s about not seeing yourself as better than or above others, and I don’t believe that you know the answers to your own questions. It might be a lot. My kid went to a NYC public high school and you might be surprised at how often kids were arrested. I don’t know what the situation is in the school in question, but in many NYC high schools, there are metal detectors and actual police officers. As I said, I’m not comfortable with the choice to handcuff Amhed, but he knew what he was doing because he said on video that he did, and he and his parents were required to sign the code of conduct. They were entitled to protest that code or even to engage in civil disobedience if they chose, but actions have consequences.

360

rhandco,

Unless you can show reports the clock and the parts used were school property and that tinkering was banned…the above post is not applicable to this case. A tinkering ban would be especially odd in a HS where engineering is offered as a course/activity by an engineering teacher.

From the reports so far, the parts to make the clock were the property of Ahmed and his family and he merely brought it to school to excitedly show teachers of his technical tinkering talents and interest. An inclination common among kids…especially boys who are excited about technical tinkering or aspiring to be engineers. Saw this not only among older relatives who later became engineers/technical tinkerer hobbyists, but also among HS classmates where kids like Ahmed were so commonplace what he did would be considered normal at my HS.