Arduinos are home hobbyist devices, and they’re pretty cheap: Amazon sells the Arduino starter kit for $85, and just the boards are a lot cheaper. I have no problem with a school requiring supervision for use of the school’s Arduinos, but not for a kid using their own.
okay, I’m leaving now…was just hoping to be brought up to speed on some factual information. Not interested in conjecture and conflict.
ZM,
Sounds like your son’s school…which is a private one if I recalled from past posts is much more restrictive than my HS,
While PLAYING one’s instrument was not allowed in non-music classes, bringing it to each class…including non-music classes wasn’t unheard of…especially considering lockers weren’t big enough to accommodate some and the school music rooms didn’t have enough room for all student instruments…especially in the old building. While some teachers would be annoyed, there was no rule against merely bringing an instrument to class.
One story to illustrate this point was how one of the guitarists of the band Television and fellow Stuy alum(would be class '69 if he didn’t opt to drop out just 2 weeks before graduation after completing all course requirements/exams) recounted bringing his Fender Stratocaster to all his classes. Several HS classmates in my graduating class brought their instruments to different classes due to lack of adequate storage space options.
A video to illustrate how many alums of my HS, nerds, and nerd sympathizers perceive the Irving School District admins and local law enforcement:
My son’s school is public but has no lockers. Kids bring everything to every class, including what they will need for either before or after school.
I guess I have been doing this too long. I thought the picture of what is in the case would be obvious to all - an LED display, a simple pcb, another simple board with switches, and a roughly 5 watt transformer with shrouds so nobody gets shocked. The only thing dangerous would be to swing the thing around by the cord and smack someone with the transformer.
My kids’ school is public but backpacks are not allowed to be carried around during the day, they have to be put in lockers in the AM and not removed until PM. This rule is only two years old and while the school said at the time that they presented a tripping/crowding hazard in classrooms, the CW among the kids was that kids were carrying drugs in them and this was an effort to prevent that (which made no sense to me, you can put drugs in your pocket).
Anyway, goes to show every district is different.
I’m surprised that you think “all” even know what a “pcb” is, or what these electronic parts are. Why would you expect an English teacher to recognize this?
I will reiterate that people have a very black and white view of this situation–either everything the school did was totally justified, or everything the school did was an outrageous overreaction (and part of a racist cabal, even). Same for the kid–either he’s a totally innocent victim, or he and his father are troublemaking plotters. I guess it’s no fun if the truth is someplace in the middle–that is, if the school took some reasonable precautions and then overreacted, because of actions by this kid that weren’t dangerous, but which were unnecessarily provocative.
By that way of thinking, the vast majority of my STEM-centered public magnet, other HS like it, and students with the same passion for technical tinkering and being a normal 14 years old boy should be singled out by school admins, arrested and interrogated for hours by law enforcement in a community known for racial tensions, being denied the ability to contact his parents for hours despite being a minor, and being extremely punitive with students even by Texas standards according to a Texas report, and being accused of various nefarious motives by the larger public.
More interestingly, the same folks who feel this way seem to give the adults in law enforcement and educrats a pass despite reports from Texas that the district, educational admins, and law enforcement were well-known to be quite punitive with K-12 students and has racial tension issues. A commenter’s post the major of said town made statements pandering to fears of “dangers of Sharia law” also seem to be ignored/downplayed despite the fact this mayor was elected by and supported by the local White dominated ruling elite with reported racial tension issues vis a vis the growing minority population.
this made me snort with laughter. so true
responding to the post about Ahmed "taking someone’s kids place in three years’…oops i failed CC comments
I like Bill Maher’s perspective on this situation–
http://www.ew.com/article/2015/09/20/ahmed-mohamed-bill-maher-istandwithahmed
ETA:
Sorry I just went back and saw this was linked already, several pages back. I did a search for “Bill Maher” and it did not come up…oh well. Maybe worth watching again!
I don’t even need to click on the link to know what noted Muslim basher Bill Maher thinks about a Muslim kid. I’ve watched his racist rants before; I don’t need to watch them now.
Bill Maher’s not only wrong here, but making the same stereotypical prejudicial arguments reminiscent of the “Know-Nothing” party in the 1850’s against the Irish, those making “Yellow Peril” arguments to justify the Chinese Exclusion act of 1882, those justifying internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII despite FBI reports the vast majority were loyal Americans notwithstanding a poorly researched revisionist book written by someone who I am ashamed to say attended the same undergrad as yours truly, and more.
A thought experiment…are White males expected in the larger US society and public to be responsible for mass murders and domestic terrorism like those perpetuated by Eric Rudolf, Timothy McVeigh, James Eagan Holmes as Maher to the same extent holds Ahmed responsible for Islamic radical terrorism by virtue of being Muslim and a minority?
In practice, Whites tend to be treated as individual and not stereotyped as mass murderers or domestic terrorists whereas minorities are held to be responsible for the behaviors of their fellow group members even if they had little/nothing to do with it. Sorry, but that’s a double standard which has had a long notorious history and making such an argument says much more about the blindspots and negative characteristics of those making them.
responding to the post about Ahmed "taking someone’s kids place in three years’…oops i failed CC comments
I can’t believe some people are still defending the public arrest. At my high school we had a grand total of 2 kids who were handcuffed and brought out of school that way (and both times their heads were covered). One stabbed multiple people with used needles and the other murdered someone. Even people who were caught with drugs and whatnot weren’t handcuffed and publicly taken out.
"I guess I have been doing this too long. I thought the picture of what is in the case would be obvious to all - an LED display, a simple pcb, another simple board with switches, and a roughly 5 watt transformer with shrouds so nobody gets shocked. "
You cannot seriously believe that “everyone” would know what the heck a “simple pcb,” “a board with switches,” and a “transformer with shrouds” were. Come out of your little tech shell, already. It looks like a bunch of stuff to me. I wouldn’t know what a transformer was if I tripped over one, nor would I have a clue what it does (it transforms something? beats me).
^^ So we are to go on the opinion of people who have no clue of what they’re looking at to decide to handcuff the kid and question without an attorney or parent present? Way to go, America!
This is about where I fall. I get the initial concern and pulling him out of class, I do not get involving the police. That seems unnecessarily punitive to me, given the situation (they clearly knew it wasn’t a bomb by then).
The handcuffs and without parents stuff strikes me as WAY over the top.
The only kids I knew of who were arrested during/not too long after I graduated HS were either taken very discreetly or arrested away from campus. Only found out about it later from HS classmates or from the local papers. One case was of a kid bringing actual fireworks into school and another was an NYPD bust of a gang with some members who were students. In the latter case, the report stated the gang had a rule to avoid even discussion of gang activities on or near the Stuy or other Specialized HS campuses to minimize drawing unwanted attention to themselves and their activities as well as bringing ill-repute to those schools.
“^^ So we are to go on the opinion of people who have no clue of what they’re looking at to decide to handcuff the kid and question without an attorney or parent present? Way to go, America!”
This is one police department, with the decision made by a small number of people. You’re blaming it on America? The Blame it on America crowd is so easy to find.