Ahmed Mohamed, 14, had thought that he had achieved something that would garner praise at at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas. He had made a homemade digital clock from a pencil case. Instead, teachers called police and Ahmed was interrogated and taken to the police station on suspicion of a bomb hoax. UPDATE: some critics have expressed doubt over the clock as well as the narrative.
The teen, who wants to go to MIT, was a robotics club member and won awards for his inventions. He said that he actually showed it to one teacher who said it was impressive but recommended that he not show it to people at the school. Then it beeped in class and he showed the source of the noise.
Ahmed’s English teacher thought the clock was a bomb and that triggered a bizarre response of multiple teachers and police who took Ahmed into custody without any evidence supporting the allegation of a bomb. He said that was pulled out of class and taken to a room with four police officers. He said that one immediately said “Yup. That’s who I thought it was.” Another said to him, “So you tried to make a bomb?” He said that he kept saying it was a clock.
Irving Police spokesman Officer James McLellan insisted “We attempted to question the juvenile about what it was and he would simply only tell us that it was a clock.”
Well, that was probably because it was a clock Officer McLellan.
Chief Larry Boyd added that Ahmed should have been “forthcoming” by going beyond the description that what he made was a clock. Like what? I can only think of two relevant points. One it is a clock. Two it is not a bomb.
What he did allegedly say is that he wanted to speak with his parents, but that was allegedly one thing that the police did not want to hear. He was held without a lawyer or speaking with his parents according to reports.
Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, reportedly came to his country after fighting for greater freedoms in Sudan where he twice ran for the presidency. He would find his son “surrounded by five police and . . . handcuffed.” He also learned that the police had denied him the right to call his parents by saying that they had not technically put him under arrest.
His family have questioned whether he would have been treated the same way if his name were not Mohamed and was Muslim.
Thousands have rallied around Ahmed under the hashtag “#IstandwithAhmed.” They include Nasa scientists who noticed he was wearing a NASA teeshirt as well as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Even President Barack Obama, tweeted to Ahmed: “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.”
Some of the stupidest people I have encountered in my life are teachers and attorneys. Stupid cops at least have street smarts, or Darwinism kicks in and they die quickly. Unfortunately, Darwinism doesn’t work w/ union teachers and bar protected barristers.
Paul
I did read the article. One teacher out of all the others who couldn’t muster a working brain amongst them. The kid was suspended for three days. The science teacher who warned the kid will probably get fired or at least ostracized. The police chief is complimenting himself for not jailing the kid.
“The difference between stupidity and genius is stupidity has its limits.”
Albert Einstein
First he says, she’s a “nervous Nelly” now he says she “neglected her gut”. Which one is it? Speaking out of both sides of mouth syndrome, lol.
bam, The author speaks @ length that children have the best gut instincts but adults and culture breed that good gut instinct out of them. The author, Gavin DeBeck, is a former cop. But, he came from a horribly dysfunctional childhood and he had to use his gut @ a very early age to literally save his life. His focus in the book is teaching our children how to use and not lose their gut. One of the points he hammers is not making kids afraid of everything, something parents do now w/ things like “STRANGER DANGER.” DeBeck explains in detail why we need to teach our kids how to engage strangers and how to evaluate strangers. If we teach kids every stranger is dangerous we are breeding that gut instinct right out of them.
Now, lets get back to this incident. Ahmed is a science geek. Although an English teacher, this nervous Nelly should have known her student well enough to know that. So, him having a Rube Goldberg like clock in a pencil box is not the same as some disaffected, angry kid having one. Secondly, what was Ahmed’s reaction. He obviously didn’t flee w/ his clock. But, was he proud? I would surmise that to be possibly the case. Reading people is my business. I don’t expect the teacher to be a PI, but I do expect her to firstly know her student and his science geekiness, and secondly be able to read his body language when asked about his clock.
bam, it’s been over a decade since I read The Gift of Fear. As I’ve said previously, I give the book to high school girls as a gift. I think the author would say that for someone like this adult teacher, who has neglected her gut, she is probably SOL w/o maybe some intense training. I’m glad we can have an open, frank and civil discussion on this.
Nick
In the book, The Gift of Fear, does the author advise the reader as to how to differentiate between what you call “horse manure” instincts and those which are valid? While I haven’t read the book–and it does sound interesting–the whole point of going with one’s gut instincts is that those very fundamental and often mysterious instincts can’t be explained in a rational manner. Having to justify one’s inexplicable physiological reactions to various stimuli runs contrary to what you advocate. This teacher’s reaction to a homemade object, which closely resembles a bomb, should be applauded, not ridiculed.
What is amazing is that there are people here who try to act AS IF they know exactly what happened after the female English teacher saw the clock. WE DONT. Quit trying to act as if you do. Assumptions and assertions, that is all some people have.
Here’s the scenario from a smart English teacher who knows her students.
Ms. Landers: “Ahmed, I just heard your pencil box beep. What’s going on?”
Ahmed:” I have a homemade clock I made for a science project.”
Ms. Landers: “Can I see it?”
Ahmed: “Here it is Ms. Landers.” A proud look on his face.
Ms Landers: “Thank you, Ahmed.” Ms. Landers quietly and CALMLY gets on the phone and calls shop teacher Gus Triandos. “Gus, I have Ahmed here in my English class. Yes, the science genius kid. He has a wired device that beeped. He says it’s a clock. He’s very proud of it and I don’t want to make a big deal out of this. Could you casually stop in to ask me something under a pretext and then I’ll have Ahmed show the contraption to you.”
Gus: Happy to do it. I’ll be down in a
A few minutes later.
Gus: Walks into English class. “Ms. Landers, do you have the lunch duty schedule for next week?”
Ms. Landers: “Yes Mr. Triandos, here it is. Oh, Ahmed, show Mr. Triandos your clock, I know Mr. Triandos likes to tinker w/ electronics like you do.”
Gus: “This is a great homemade clock, Ahmed. How did you solder those 2 small connections?”
This is the scenario of a teacher w/ common sense, tact, and savvy.
Misogyny on display.
It hasn’t been publicized yet just who saw this clock directly AFTER this female teacher. For all we know the shop teacher or engineering class teacher DID see it and was on board with calling the cops on this kid. How many of the cops were male? Blaming the female teacher for overreacting and then acting ALONE to call the cops is silly and short sided and an clearly an attempt to bash women…. Once again.
Inga – schools have a chain of command. Teachers do NOT call the cops. They call the principal. The principal calls the cops (assuming they do not have a cop on campus).
Tell that to Spinelli Paul, he should know this as a former history teacher, no?
If she were a brave English teacher she would have hurled her body onto the clock and yelled to her students, “RUN..RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, CHILDREN!”
Nick – at least the teacher could have cleared the classroom to save her students.
bam, The Gift of Fear is a book you really need to read. Some people have horse manure “gut” instincts because they are afraid of everything. If the teacher truly thought this was a bomb then she should have immediately had the entire school evacuated. It does not appear that occurred. So, not only does she have a dysfunctional gut, she’s stupid for not acting properly on her bad gut. Am I wrong? I really don’t care enough to research this cluster coitus.
I don’t blame this female teacher as much as those who looked over the clock and STILL ran away with the idea that it was an attempt at creating a faux bomb. Again not all women.
Some folks have no sense of history and current events converging. Hopefully we don’t have such people teaching history in our schools to our young people.
Shop teacher chuckling, “This is a great homemade clock, Ahmed. I guess some teachers don’t know a clock from shinola.”
Nick
I must admit: your take on this whole episode is baffling. I’ve read your admonitions on various threads, declaring that individuals must learn to listen to their gut instincts–that mysterious inner voice which warns them of impending danger or threat. You have stated that you have conducted seminars/classes in this topic. Great. Fantastic. We all need to learn to listen to our gut instincts. What confounds me is that here we have a teacher, who just happens to be a female, and you slam her for being a Nervous Nellie with a bad case of the vapors. I don’t get it. What possible difference could what is dangling between her legs, or not dangling between her legs, make here? This isn’t about the teacher being a female. This isn’t about picking on Muslims. It’s about a person, who is charged with the safety and care of students while they are on her watch. Expecting her to have some advanced technology degree, in order to decipher the possible danger of a device such as this, is ludicrous. She did the correct thing in immediately reporting this so-called clock, even if one does not necessarily agree with the manner in which the student was subsequently handled by the authorities. That is a completely unrelated issue. Gender and religion have no place in this discussion.
The nanny teachers should have called down the shop teacher before calling the cops.
Trump=Hitler @ 3PM. Someone should have paid attention in history class, otherwise they would not constantly invoke Godwin’s law. I was taught to never make the same mistake twice. My old man taught me that was how to be successful. But, I see people making the same mistake over and over and over and over, etc. Sad really.
“There was reason for concern. Unfortunately between the school and the police there was not one person intelligent enough to proceed appropriately.”
*******************
And I bet they weren’t all women.
There was reason for concern. Unfortunately between the school and the police there was not one person intelligent enough to proceed appropriately.
Thank you Isaac
We are in accord on this one. There was some reason to be alarmed or suspicious……HOWEVER, the reactions lacked common sense and were out of proportion by the adults.
On the other hand…..if the kid had gotten permission prior to bringing the device to school and made the administrators aware of it, there would not have been any problem.