Teacher gets 14-year-old student arrested for creating a cool clock that looked like a bomb.
You would think that your teacher would be full of praise for a job well done, but that was not the case when 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed of Irving, Texas showed his teacher a digital clock he created.
What happened?
Mohamed was greeted with disdain from this teacher and was arrested after school, but for what?
"I built a clock to impress my teacher but when I showed it to her, she thought it was a threat to her," Mohamed told reporters Wednesday. "It was really sad that she took the wrong impression of it."
Mohamed, a self-assured kid with thick-framed glasses and a serious expression, had just started at MacArthur High School a few weeks ago. The ninth grader has a talent for tinkering — he constructs his own radios and once built a Bluetooth speaker as a gift for his friend — and he wanted to show his new teachers what he could do. So on Sunday night, he quickly put together a homemade digital clock ("just something small," as he casually put it to the Dallas Morning News: a circuit board and power supply connected to a digital display) and proudly offered it to his engineering teacher the next day.
But the teacher looked wary. "He was like, 'That's really nice,'" Mohamed told the Dallas Morning News. "'I would advise you not to show any other teachers.'"
Mohammed's cool clock invention.
Photo Credit: www.latinpost.com
Mohamed was pulled out of school in handcuffs after the digital clock was mistaken for a bomb.
On Wednesday, Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd said that Mohamed would not be charged with any wrongdoing.
"We have no evidence to support that there was an intention to create alarm or cause people to be concerned," Boyd said during a press conference after news of Mohamed's arrest prompted national outcry.
Photo Credit: www.wtvr.com
President Obama tweeted:
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.
— President Obama (@POTUS) September 16, 2015
Obama even invited Mohamed to the white house. By yesterday morning, the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed was trending everywhere. Social media users posted in solidarity with the teen, expressing outrage over what they believe was a case of discrimination:
#IStandWithAhmed cause I was once a brown kid in the south too. Plus sure he'll lead an amazing life & I'm trying to get in the bio pic game
— Aziz Ansari (@azizansari) September 16, 2015
Other notable people who Mohamed has picked up encouragement from has been Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Hillary Clinton, musicians Pharell, Janelle Monae, and many others.
He also got an invitation from his dream school, MIT, and was told by astrophysicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, who works for the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research and the Department of Physics and MIT, "I just want to say, you are my ideal student, a creative, independent thinker like you is the kind of person who should be becoming a physicist. As a theoretical physicist, I would love it if you took an interest in the mathematical side, although you’re clearly very adept with your hands and at building things . . . you are the kind of student we want at places like MIT and Harvard."
Mohamed had some words of encouragement for other young talent. He spoke at a conference where he told the press about his plans to transfer out of MacArthur High School:
"Don't let people change who you are, even if you get a consequence for it," he said. "I suggest you still show it to people, at least show them your talent."
Turns out Mohamed got the praise and attention for his cool clock invention after all.
Article Sources: www.stripes.com, www.cnn.com
Daniel Pillai
Author
Daniel is the Digital Media Manager for ANOKHI MEDIA and the host for ANOKHI's entertainment channel, PULSE TV. As part of the dream team, Daniel manages all multiple channels under ANOKHI’s portfolio, while also training new on-air talent, and showing budding p...
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