I'm sure by now you've heard about Ahmed Mohamed, the child who got to
spend some time in juvenile detention and was suspended from school for
three days because the school principal thought his extracurricular
project was a fake bomb. Even though much has been said already about the incident, I think there are a few important points that haven't been addressed yet.
When I first saw the released picture of the clock, I immediately identified on sight all of the components. (See this article for a labeled diagram if you are curious.) You don't have to be a government munitions contractor to know that bombs have to have an explosive component. None of those parts are capable of that.
No one doubts that electronics are an extremely important part of the modern economy. How did we get so far removed from them that seeing a box of very basic and innocuous electronic parts is enough to make school officials freak out and call the cops? How can a school like that possibly do an adequate job educating its students about how things work?
I'm not saying that I expect every school employee to be an electronics expert. But I have to think that if the school is doing its job there should be enough exposure to basic electronics just by being there that adults won't mistake them for something more sinister, in the same way that you wouldn't expect an English teacher to panic at a multiplication table or think that it was a computer virus. Perhaps this year in addition to testing its high school students' aptitude in the economically critical skill of filling in bubbles with a #2 pencil, the State of Texas should have a session where students have to build a three-bit adder out of electromagnetic relays.
Irving Chief of Police Larry Boyd unknowingly said it best: "We live in an age where you can’t take things like that to school." I learned very quickly in my educational career that school was incapable of helping me pursue my academic interests. I can count the number of teachers I had that were even interested in nurturing my extramural learning on one hand, and I had very good teachers overall. Even those teachers were unequipped to devote more than a few minutes in a school year on such things.MacArthur High School's Administration Just Failed a Very Basic Electronics Literacy Test
Security expert Bruce Schneier said it best: Child arrested because adults are stupid.When I first saw the released picture of the clock, I immediately identified on sight all of the components. (See this article for a labeled diagram if you are curious.) You don't have to be a government munitions contractor to know that bombs have to have an explosive component. None of those parts are capable of that.
Saying that Ahmed's
clock looks like a bomb is like saying that a metal tube with windows
cut out from it looks like a plane -- it's obviously missing an
essential piece of the puzzle.
No one doubts that electronics are an extremely important part of the modern economy. How did we get so far removed from them that seeing a box of very basic and innocuous electronic parts is enough to make school officials freak out and call the cops? How can a school like that possibly do an adequate job educating its students about how things work?
I'm not saying that I expect every school employee to be an electronics expert. But I have to think that if the school is doing its job there should be enough exposure to basic electronics just by being there that adults won't mistake them for something more sinister, in the same way that you wouldn't expect an English teacher to panic at a multiplication table or think that it was a computer virus. Perhaps this year in addition to testing its high school students' aptitude in the economically critical skill of filling in bubbles with a #2 pencil, the State of Texas should have a session where students have to build a three-bit adder out of electromagnetic relays.
Schools Want You To Keep Out-of-School Learning Where It Belongs
Can you imagine what kind of chaos there would be if every student brought their interests to school and expected teachers to help them learn more about them? As an adult, I see why when children refer to outside learning they might at best get some small praise: it's much easier for the teacher.
Still, I think that encouraging students to bring their interests to school and teaching them more is worth it. Can you imagine how wonderful it would be, and how much more motivated students would be to learn? There would probably be a lot of cross-pollination of interests between students as well. I can't think of a better way of exposing children to new topics.
If at First You Don't Succeed, Fail, Fail Again!
Perhaps the most serious problem is that the school is unwilling to admit it did anything wrong. Irving Independent School District's insistence that it stands by the teachers and administrators and that the proper procedures were followed correctly sends a clear message: it's ok to be ignorant, it's ok to not learn from your mistakes, and anyone who has the gall to learn outside its walls should be treated as potentially dangerous.
What a bad example! Now that they know there are serious flaws with their system, if they choose not to address them, we have to assume that they are satisfied with having those flaws.
I know I would never send my children to a school that is satisfied with having them.
What a bad example! Now that they know there are serious flaws with their system, if they choose not to address them, we have to assume that they are satisfied with having those flaws.
I know I would never send my children to a school that is satisfied with having them.
