Ahmed's Clock
As sometimes happens, I recently wrote a comment on Facebook and forgot to click "enter" afterward, insuring that the comment posted. Consequently, when I tried to leave Facebook some time later, I got a message asking if I was sure I wanted to leave this page since my comment wasn't finished yet. What comment? I couldn't remember. So I left the page without finishing, and the Facebook world never heard my brilliant sentiment. Much later I remembered that it was probably a comment on one of the first posts I saw about the 14-year-old in Irving, Texas who was arrested, handcuffed in front of his peers, and marched off to be questioned after he made a clock at home and brought it to school and showed several teachers. The child is part of a Sudanese Muslim immigrant family. The family's last name is Mohamed and the child is Ahmed.
I was incensed at how the child was treated. It turns out that a lot of other people were incensed too. From Mark Zuckerberg to President Obama to MIT to the local Cosmosphere, invitations and awards were extended to Ahmed, all from people who were eager to make amends for what they saw as a big mistake. To my great surprise, however, hardly anyone was upset about the same thing I was most upset about.
Some people immediately saw in the authorities' response to Ahmed's act overt discrimination against Muslims. Predictably, others saw in it a covert Muslim-designed provocation, useful as evidence that discrimination against Muslims is real. Because Ahmed's father has been involved in public Muslim identity activities (I can't remember the details), this grows the "evidence pile" on the side of conspiratorial intention associated with Ahmed's clock.
Stupidity is what others saw in the event--not Ahmed's, but of the people who couldn't tell the difference between a bomb and a clock.
"Responsible vigilance" is how the teachers' reporting and the officers' show of force was characterized by others. Everyone should take school violence seriously, after all, and we can't be too careful.
One writer labeled Ahmed's clock a fraud because he used parts from an old clock in making his clock--so it wasn't really his invention at all. Puh-leese. He must not have gotten the memo that everything man creates is made from what God provided when He created the world originally, and that one person's invention always builds in some way on the provision of parts or forces in nature or on the inventions of those who have gone before. It's true, of course, that Ahmed really made nothing so new as to be patent-able in putting together his clock, but it was nevertheless ingenious and creative and inventive, It did what he said it would do--show the time of day or night. It was a clock, as he said it was.
Someone else saw something sinister in the fact that Ahmed put the whole contraption into his pencil case to bring it to school. Deadly weapons are often concealed, after all. Fact checks are in order here. The parts were visible to anyone who opened the pencil case. It made a convenient carrier for the rather untidy assemblage of wires and other parts that comprised the clock. Why would he have showed his trusted teachers his "invention" (with no accompanying threats) if he intended to blow up the school or harm other students? Do most people feel a need to be furtive about the clocks in their possession? No. Do most people prize validation from the people around them when they have tried to do something good? Of course. In putting together his clock and then packaging it in a pencil case before shyly showing his teacher what he made, Ahmed acted sensibly in every way on the good side of normal.
I do have some sympathy for the adults involved in the debacle at Irving, Texas. I wouldn't be too likely to know either if what I was looking at is a bomb or a clock if the main thing I could see is a jumble of electronic parts. I'm just that ignorant. I know what it's like to feel shackled by policies that I have no enthusiasm for. The teacher who triggered the involvement of the authorities might have been in such a position. The first teacher (his adviser, as I recall) to whom Ahmed showed his clock advised him not to show anyone else, no doubt foreseeing the possibility of such a scenario as the one that actually materialized later. Ahmed could have avoided a lot of trouble if he had followed the first teacher's advice. I'm guessing that the first teacher did not explain his recommendation (possibly wishing to spare Ahmed knowledge of the foolishness likely to be unleashed in such circumstances), and Ahmed simply did not understand the consequences. He probably couldn't resist sharing his special secret with one more trusted adult, another teacher. I may be wrong in some of the assumptions I'm making here, but I'll stand by them until I hear information that counters it.
My sympathy grinds to a halt, however, when I hear no apologies for the obvious mistakes made in the Irving events. Ahmed was a good student who had never caused problems in school. Under these circumstances, why a teacher immediately thought "bomb" when Ahmed said "clock" is beyond me. Why authorities found it necessary to handcuff Ahmed when the clock (bomb?) was already in their possession is another incomprehensible act. That had to do with shaming him, as I see it. Inexcusable. Public apologies are in order.
My brilliant Facebook sentiment said something like this: "It's a sad day for students who are inventive and who have a life outside of school . . ." It doesn't look so brilliant here, but that's the crux of what I was incensed about. I saw a bright and conscientious young boy treated very unjustly. My Mama Bear and Teacher Bear instincts were aroused.
I don't know what school was like for Ahmed, but I know what it's like for some students whom I perceive to be much like him. It can feel stifling and full of trivial pursuits. I also don't know exactly what life outside of school was like for Ahmed, but some students don't have much of a life outside of school when it comes to learning independently, interacting with others constructively, and using time to acquire skills.
For Ahmed to be doing well in school, spending his time constructively at home, attempting to bring both worlds together by sharing in school a product of that productivity at home, and to be smacked down and humiliated for it is a huge offense to my sense of justice and my sense of how to treat children well. It encapsulates much of what I feel is wrong with traditional education systems, especially in their sense of institutional self-importance and ignorance of and disregard for the value of life and learning outside of institutional schools.
Enough of that for now. Since I have a life to live outside of school, I'd better get on with my day and wait till another day to elaborate.
I was incensed at how the child was treated. It turns out that a lot of other people were incensed too. From Mark Zuckerberg to President Obama to MIT to the local Cosmosphere, invitations and awards were extended to Ahmed, all from people who were eager to make amends for what they saw as a big mistake. To my great surprise, however, hardly anyone was upset about the same thing I was most upset about.
Some people immediately saw in the authorities' response to Ahmed's act overt discrimination against Muslims. Predictably, others saw in it a covert Muslim-designed provocation, useful as evidence that discrimination against Muslims is real. Because Ahmed's father has been involved in public Muslim identity activities (I can't remember the details), this grows the "evidence pile" on the side of conspiratorial intention associated with Ahmed's clock.
Stupidity is what others saw in the event--not Ahmed's, but of the people who couldn't tell the difference between a bomb and a clock.
"Responsible vigilance" is how the teachers' reporting and the officers' show of force was characterized by others. Everyone should take school violence seriously, after all, and we can't be too careful.
One writer labeled Ahmed's clock a fraud because he used parts from an old clock in making his clock--so it wasn't really his invention at all. Puh-leese. He must not have gotten the memo that everything man creates is made from what God provided when He created the world originally, and that one person's invention always builds in some way on the provision of parts or forces in nature or on the inventions of those who have gone before. It's true, of course, that Ahmed really made nothing so new as to be patent-able in putting together his clock, but it was nevertheless ingenious and creative and inventive, It did what he said it would do--show the time of day or night. It was a clock, as he said it was.
Someone else saw something sinister in the fact that Ahmed put the whole contraption into his pencil case to bring it to school. Deadly weapons are often concealed, after all. Fact checks are in order here. The parts were visible to anyone who opened the pencil case. It made a convenient carrier for the rather untidy assemblage of wires and other parts that comprised the clock. Why would he have showed his trusted teachers his "invention" (with no accompanying threats) if he intended to blow up the school or harm other students? Do most people feel a need to be furtive about the clocks in their possession? No. Do most people prize validation from the people around them when they have tried to do something good? Of course. In putting together his clock and then packaging it in a pencil case before shyly showing his teacher what he made, Ahmed acted sensibly in every way on the good side of normal.
I do have some sympathy for the adults involved in the debacle at Irving, Texas. I wouldn't be too likely to know either if what I was looking at is a bomb or a clock if the main thing I could see is a jumble of electronic parts. I'm just that ignorant. I know what it's like to feel shackled by policies that I have no enthusiasm for. The teacher who triggered the involvement of the authorities might have been in such a position. The first teacher (his adviser, as I recall) to whom Ahmed showed his clock advised him not to show anyone else, no doubt foreseeing the possibility of such a scenario as the one that actually materialized later. Ahmed could have avoided a lot of trouble if he had followed the first teacher's advice. I'm guessing that the first teacher did not explain his recommendation (possibly wishing to spare Ahmed knowledge of the foolishness likely to be unleashed in such circumstances), and Ahmed simply did not understand the consequences. He probably couldn't resist sharing his special secret with one more trusted adult, another teacher. I may be wrong in some of the assumptions I'm making here, but I'll stand by them until I hear information that counters it.
My sympathy grinds to a halt, however, when I hear no apologies for the obvious mistakes made in the Irving events. Ahmed was a good student who had never caused problems in school. Under these circumstances, why a teacher immediately thought "bomb" when Ahmed said "clock" is beyond me. Why authorities found it necessary to handcuff Ahmed when the clock (bomb?) was already in their possession is another incomprehensible act. That had to do with shaming him, as I see it. Inexcusable. Public apologies are in order.
My brilliant Facebook sentiment said something like this: "It's a sad day for students who are inventive and who have a life outside of school . . ." It doesn't look so brilliant here, but that's the crux of what I was incensed about. I saw a bright and conscientious young boy treated very unjustly. My Mama Bear and Teacher Bear instincts were aroused.
I don't know what school was like for Ahmed, but I know what it's like for some students whom I perceive to be much like him. It can feel stifling and full of trivial pursuits. I also don't know exactly what life outside of school was like for Ahmed, but some students don't have much of a life outside of school when it comes to learning independently, interacting with others constructively, and using time to acquire skills.
For Ahmed to be doing well in school, spending his time constructively at home, attempting to bring both worlds together by sharing in school a product of that productivity at home, and to be smacked down and humiliated for it is a huge offense to my sense of justice and my sense of how to treat children well. It encapsulates much of what I feel is wrong with traditional education systems, especially in their sense of institutional self-importance and ignorance of and disregard for the value of life and learning outside of institutional schools.
Enough of that for now. Since I have a life to live outside of school, I'd better get on with my day and wait till another day to elaborate.
posted by Mrs. I (Miriam Iwashige) at
7:42 AM
1 Comments:
I greatly enjoyed your perspective on this. Yes. So many kids and adults who do unexpected and creative things are casualties to "institutional self-importance."
By
Becca, at 10/02/2015
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