180: Day 17: Short period, a quiz, and Ahmed
I’m getting so used to 80 minute blocks that I’m not sure how to handle a 40 minute period when it gets thrown at me. Today was a 40 minute period day (five classes in one day, how did I ever handle this?), and I threw a quiz at my students in which they had to use Desmos to plot some data and answer some questions. I love Desmos, but from the results it seems like many of my students still aren’t getting it (I suspected many are letting their partners do the work, thus I gave them this quiz).
After the quiz, some students were discussing Ahmed Mohamed and his clock. We talked about it a bit as a class; I encouraged them to not immediately throw in the ‘race card’ without knowing more about the school (it’s very diverse, as is the administration and faculty). I did not deny that racism may have been involved, but I suggested they not call someone names unless they know more of the details.
Here’s a petition I wrote asking the principal and police chief to apologize to Ahmed. It has about 6,000 signatures in the first 24 hours, and it was mentioned in Cosmo!
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While I’m in no doubt that you mean well, I can’t help thinking you don’t know the full story behind Ahmed and his clock. Check out this link for a totally different take on the story:
http://pamelageller.com/2015/09/father-of-muslim-bomb-hoax-clockster-was-qurans-defense-attorney-against-terry-jones.html/
The question in my mind is this: “If the school administration was truly worried about this being a bomb or dangerous in some way, why didn’t they evacuate the school?” You can’t have it both ways–either they knew it was not dangerous, in which case this could have been handled with school discipline and not police, or they thought it was dangerous and they needed to evacuate the school for the safety of the other students (and staff!). The police chief even said in his interview that a “hoax bomb” requires an *intent* on the part of the student. The child did not need to be dragged off in handcuffs while they determined what his intent was. Interviewing his teachers and other students would have uncovered the ‘back story’ that this child was on the robotics team at his middle school, and that he had no intent to evoke fear–exactly what the police chief stated.
Hello Lee. That’s the problem with this kind of story: there are inconsistencies on all sides. Having said that, when I read Pamela Geller’s take on it and the father’s background I became suspicious of Ahmed’s true motives. Also, the question arises in my mind: why did his “clock” so closely resemble the IED and suitcase bomb in the photos shown in this article:
http://pamelageller.com/2015/09/teen-clockmakers-islamaphobia-huckster-father-claims-his-son-was-tortured-by-school-authorities.html/
…and why was the Daily Beast reluctant to include those pics? Here’s an excerpt from their piece:
Before we left for the television studio, Ahmed had taken me into his bedroom to show me the now-famous desk where everything gets built. I asked if I could take a picture; he nodded and sat on his desk chair holding up a tangle of wires, and, seeing his Koran, grabbed it from his desk and held it up next to the wires. Eyman comes in, sees me taking pictures, and asks Ahmed, “Why are you holding the Koran?”
June, the author of the article you cite writes, “One of the more interesting factoids from the many simpering, boot-licking press accounts of the poor bomb hoax clockmeister.” I am not inclined to take very seriously comments made by someone who clearly does not desire to have a respectful conversation (I’m not speaking about you, as your comments are very respectful).
I’m also worried that there images of the clock tend to show it without anything else in them to give a sense of scale–the pencil case tends to look more like a suitcase.
I’ll leave it at that, Lee. I’ve a feeling that the full facts will never emerge. I simply want us all to be safe!