{"id":3526,"date":"2015-09-16T14:16:22","date_gmt":"2015-09-16T19:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=3526"},"modified":"2020-07-25T18:58:05","modified_gmt":"2020-07-25T23:58:05","slug":"criminalizing-show-and-tell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=3526","title":{"rendered":"Criminalizing Show and Tell"},"content":{"rendered":"

S.T.E.M. is every\u00a0politician’s favorite acronym. The White House held a Maker Faire. Barnes and Noble stores will soon be hosting Mini-Maker Faires and next week’s World Maker Faire NYC<\/a> expects over 100,000 attendees sharing and celebrating personal ingenuity, engineering, creativity, and invention.<\/p>\n

The maker movement<\/a> is being touted as education reform, a matter of national security, and resurrection of the American manufacturing economy. We are told that we need to prepare kids for S.T.E.M. jobs and help them love math and science.<\/p>\n

Against this backdrop,\u00a0Ahmed (Texan for, “We’re all gonna die!”) Mohamed was detained, suspended, and arrested in handcuffs for bringing his homeade clock to school. He thought his teachers would be impressed by his handiwork or be proud of him. Boy was he wrong. (Read<\/a> the rest of the story here via Washington Post)<\/p>\n

This adolescent reign of terror began when Ahmed showed his clock to his\u00a0Engineering<\/i> teacher. That teacher knew it wasn’t a bomb. When the clock\u00a0beeped during English class, he showed it to the English teacher who confiscated it. She knew<\/em> that Ahmed had not brought a bomb to school. Nowhere in the story is any threat or violence insinuated, but that didn’t stop the school from calling the cavalry.<\/p>\n

During 6th period, Irving’s own Thomas Edison was pulled out of class by the school principal.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey took me to a room\u00a0filled with five officers in which they\u00a0interrogated\u00a0me and searched through my stuff and took my tablet and my invention,\u201d the teen said. \u201cThey were like, \u2018So you tried to make a bomb?\u2019\u00a0I told them no, I was trying to make a clock. But his questioner responded, \u201cIt looks like a movie bomb to me.\u201d (Washington Post<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

At this point, the only charges that should have been filed are for racism and stupidity by school officials.<\/p>\n

Yet, young “Kill-Whitey Antichrist” was handcuffed, dragged to the Police headquarters, and not allowed to call his parents or seek legal representation. Not wanting to be accused of being fair or rational, the high school suspended the innocent boy tinkerer for three days. That will teach\u00a0his kind to be good at math!<\/p>\n

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During questioning, officers repeatedly brought up his last name, Mohamed\u00a0said. When he tried to call his father, Mohamed\u00a0said he was told he couldn\u2019t speak to his parents until after the interrogation was over.\u00a0(Washington Post<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So, let’s just stipulate that this was an act of racism and\u00a0islamophobia.<\/p>\n

How should this have been handled?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let’s say that Ahmed’s teachers were a-scared. The lad could have been questioned in a civil fashion with his parents present while the Irving, Texas police force investigated the clock. If there had been a more serious threat, say, an actual “ticking time bomb,” the police could have still investigated before the\u00a0parents left\u00a0work and arrived\u00a0at school. Surely, a city the size of Irving has the equipment, manpower, and expertise to examine a suspicious object. DFW, America’s 3rd busiest airport is in <\/em>Irving, Texas!<\/p>\n

Once the clock was determined to be – well, a clock. Ahmed’s school principal should have apologized to the student, given him two Pizza Hut gift certificates, and called an emergency faculty meeting to ensure that nothing this stupid ever happens again.<\/p>\n

All systems go!<\/strong><\/p>\n

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NBC-DFW reported that a police report released\u00a0Tuesday cites a \u201choax bomb\u201d incident, listing three MacArthur High teachers as complainants against Mohamed.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(Washington Post<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

According to press accounts, the\u00a0only system in the school to perform flawlessly was the one in which three “educators” conspired to frame a 14 year-old student within the blink of an eye.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

What Should Happen Now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now that MacArthur High School Principal Dan Cummings has lost this round of “Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?”<\/p>\n

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  1. The suspension must be lifted and expunged from Ahmed’s record.<\/li>\n
  2. The school district and principal must stop defending their actions.<\/li>\n
  3. The entire administrative team and each of the three teachers involved must\u00a0apologize to Ahmed\u00a0publicly at an all-school assembly or perhaps at Friday night’s football game.<\/li>\n
  4. Each school administrator and the three teachers who filed a complain need to write “I will not be a racist clown who hates children” 100 times on a sheet of paper.<\/li>\n
  5. The police officers involved should be suspended without pay.<\/li>\n
  6. If you think someone has a bomb, don’t ask them to hand it to you ala Wile E. Coyote. Run and call the police.<\/li>\n
  7. Diversity and sensitivity training – blah, blah, blah…<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Speaking of racism\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0islamophobia<\/b><\/p>\n

    Can you believe that the Washington Post calls the student “Muslim boy” at the top of their reporting?<\/p>\n

    \"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

    And here is just one of the racist tweets you might find online.<\/p>\n

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    Obama will speak out about this boy .. Yet remains silent on cops being killed by thugs and BLM supporter https:\/\/t.co\/fKa6EHH7uj<\/a><\/p>\n

    \u2014 Renegade Cowboy⚓️ (@Rene_gadeCowboy) September 16, 2015<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Update 9\/16:<\/strong> The Irving School District and Irving Police standby their actions and refuse to admit that they did anything wrong.<\/p>\n

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    Veteran teacher educator, journalist, and speaker Gary S. Stager, Ph.D. is\u00a0the co-author of\u00a0Invent to Learn – Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>called “the bible of the maker movement in schools” by the San Jose Mercury News.<\/p>\n