Bus, he is a 14 yr old “absent-minded prof” type of a kid. 
I bet that to him, it was a clock (because that’s what he built!), and it did not even remotely look like a bomb. So he stuffed it into the backpack. The parents… I dunno, I’m sure they had talks, but since it was a clock… it was good to go. We did not check our teens’ backpacks. As long as all the cats were accounted for, there was no need. So there’s that. I agree that the first teacher should have been more proactive and asked to “safe keep” the clock when he realized it might create some problems for the boy.
Lots of parents would look at a circuit that their child made and think, “Cool circuit.” It wouldn’t occur to them that it looked like a bomb; they’d think it looked like a circuit. If you think every circuit is a bomb, you haven’t taken very many things apart in your life.
Pro tip: bombs have explosives in them. If it doesn’t have an explodey part, it’s not a bomb.
Hey, how do you know those cats weren’t in the backpack?
I haven’t seen a picture of the clock, and don’t think anyone has linked it here. Has anyone actually seen a picture of it, or is this all based on assumptions that it actually only looks like a clock? Since I haven’t seen the pictures, I was basing my thinking on the premise that it looked like it could be a bomb.
“Pro tip: bombs have explosives in them. If it doesn’t have an explodey part, it’s not a bomb”
Non pro tip: Sometimes a bomb can look very innocuous. The explodey parts are not always apparent.
There were definitely links to pictures/articles with pictures here. I think that would be pretty important to understanding and commenting on the story!
How many of you checked your 14 year olds backpacks on a daily basis. Raise your hand? Especially if you had kids whose only worry was if they took an additional granola bar to eat on the way to school stuffed in there? That’s what I thought.
I am flabbergasted that any kid would think it’s ok to bring an electronic anything to school. This is also the best thing that ever happened to this kid. Victimhood is currency and this is a jackpot.
“Hey, how do you know those cats weren’t in the backpack?”
With all the textbooks kiddos had to lug, I doubt there was room in there for anything else!!
“There were definitely links to pictures/articles with pictures here. I think that would be pretty important to understanding and commenting on the story!”
I guess I should have looked at the picture in the original article. So wait a minute, that is a clock? Jeez, maybe I need my glasses, because in no way does that look like a clock. I have no idea what it looks like, but it sure looks closer to some explosive device than a clock.
Uh…the parents really didn’t know he was bringing that to school? Have they said that? Have you guys looked at that picture? What would you think if you saw it in a bag at the airport? In what universe would you or any of your kids think that was okay to bring to school and show to your teachers? Why is anyone talking about kids plugging in cellphones or computers all the time, are they plugging in weird looking homemade electronic devices that look like this? It may not look like a bomb to the all knowing explosive specialist science teachers, but it sure looks like he was trying to create something that looks suspicious.
Bummer that the kid got harsh treatment, but now he’s reaping the rewards of victimhood, as zoosermom says. In fact, as he said it himself: "Asked what his plans for the future are, he told GMA, “That clock was part of my future.” Wonder why he said that?
“With all the textbooks kiddos had to lug, I doubt there was room in there for anything else!!”
Ha, you THINKI they were textbooks. Who knows?
It does look like a clock. It does not look like a box we’re used to seeing wrapped around a clock.
It has a transformer for stepping down the AC voltage, it has a logic board, it has LED’s for display, it has an interface (buttons) for adjusting the time, and it has a battery backup to keep the time when the main power is pulled.
These are the things that make a digital clock. You can do it other ways; this clock was done this way, and that’s why it looks like a clock. Also, because it is a clock. It isn’t a clock because it looks like a clock - no doubt. But because it is a clock it looks like a clock.
If he was an aspiring carpenter, he might have brought to school a thing that looks like a box which contains a clock, but he isn’t, so he didn’t.
For future reference, the guts to a cuckoo clock do not look like a bird. As a society we really gotta start looking at - and understanding - what goes on inside of things.
The metaphor of judging something based on the physical appearance we expect is too obvious to need mentioning.
A cell phone with a couple of wires taped into a brick of play-dough - that looks like a bomb. A clock does not.
In the universe where I live in Silicon Valley and we’ve seen a circuit or two in our lives, none of them bombs. Are you suggesting that nobody at Stuyvesant High, or Bronx Science, brings circuits to school? You are so wrong. Heck, my friend’s daughter at Gunn High in Palo Alto brought circuits to school; the was on the robotics team, and she built things.
You know what really looks like a bomb? A backpack. The Boston Marathon bombs were backpacks. Should you say that now no kid should bring a backpack to school, because some moron principal might call the police, or should you say that intelligent people realize that the vast majority of backpacks and circuits are not bombs? Shouldn’t we expect school principals to be smarter than root vegetables? Shouldn’t we expect that when the principal discovered the kid showed the clock to his engineering teacher, who realized immediately that it was a clock and not a bomb, the story should have been over?
You at least think that the principal could have talked to the engineering teacher.
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“I’m wondering why some are singling out “public schools”. Do you think a private school would have responded differently??”
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Yes. We just don’t hear these crazy stories in regards to private schools.
We hear of little ones getting in trouble for drawing pics of guns or “making guns” out of play doh…and it’s always public schools clinging to Zero Tolerance…as if they’re not smart enough to use discernment…they might as well replace themselves with a handbook and save everyone their salaries.
“I am flabbergasted that any kid would think it’s ok to bring an electronic anything to school. This is also the best thing that ever happened to this kid. Victimhood is currency and this is a jackpot.”
Really? Even my kid who is not a Robotics kid worked on a number of gadgets that required her schlepping electronic gizmos and thingamajiggers to school. Let’s not be so dismissive of STEM and all the wonderful things are kids can be working on and bringing back and forth to school.
As for the rest of your statement…
I’m wondering why any of you would think that teachers and principals are any smarter than anyone in the general public. Sure, the engineering teacher knows what it is. But why would the English teacher know? Do you expect the art teacher to know too? Not everybody knows what the inside of a clock looks like, why would they?
Interesting thing, he said he took it to school because none of his teachers, “know what I can do”. And the article says he didn’t spend much time making it, that he “just threw it together in 20 minutes the night before”. Hmm. So if you want to show your teachers what you can do, you slap a circuit board together, wire a power supply to it in a couple of minutes, and that’s your masterpiece?
I expect, as usual, there is more to this story. Sometimes people are looking for a reaction.
I don’t expect the English teacher to know what it is, but I expect the principal to talk to the engineering teacher before suspending the kid for three days and calling the police. Moreover, I don’t see that the English teacher thought it was a bomb. She wouldn’t say, “Hand over that bomb, kid. I’ll just carry it around/stick it under my desk.” Nobody would say that if they thought they were dealing with a real bomb. Nobody actually thought this was a bomb, or they would have behaved differently.
One would hope they didn’t react this way to something they thought was a bomb. They obviously were uncomfortable with it, though, perhaps thinking that it looked like he was bringing something with the appearance of a fake bomb. It probably is their procedure to call the police to investigate when something looks suspicious. As idiotic as many school zero tolerance procedures are, I don’t think you can blame them for what the police do, after they arrive and take control. And the cops don’t know that this is just a smart creative kid, seems odd that they wouldn’t have talked to his engineering teacher. However, hopefully sooner rather than later, we will hear the rest of the story.
Dumbest discussion yet.
And yet every day, boys and girls do bring electronic devices to school: calculators, cell phones, nintendo DS. Some of them beep in class.
“And yet every day, boys and girls do bring electronic devices to school: calculators, cell phones, nintendo DS. Some of them beep in class”
And also yet, strangely enough, they actually look exactly like calculators, cellphones, and nintendos. Which is why they aren’t suspected of bringing something that looks like a homemade bomb into class.
“Dumbest discussion yet”
You obviously haven’t been on cc for very long.
Chance me, I’ll chance you.
My dog is looking at me funny, what should I do?
