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14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

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Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#311

Post by ashark »

x5n1 wrote: post #140
t2015_08_25 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How difficult was it to not suspect it anymore? Excellent observation. It's really about people conditioned to follow scripts. These people were missing the "de-escalation script" in which a teacher laughs, puts their hand on their forehead and says, "Wow, That scared the shit out of me for a minute there. Now let's show you how to make a tidy wooden box for your amazing clock project."

Well I guess they could logically suspect that he might be doing something more sinister than just bringing around a clock project. So fine get a court order to search his house while keeping him detained at school. Find nothing. Apologize and let him go.

I have a feeling a lot of this behavior from teachers and school middle management is driven by fear of having exactly the same sort of irrational punishment come down on them.

Didn't treat the clock like a bomb? Might get fired. Did treat it like a bomb, turned out to be wrong, apologized? Might get fired. Did treat it like a bomb, turned out to be wrong, uhhh... maybe if I get the police involved I can make this not my fault?

Reasonable errors on all levels are often greeted with harsh punishment and sometimes demonization by news media. It's not just kids who are subject to it. People are rightly terrified of being blamed for errors that anyone could make, and their behavior makes a lot of sense in that context.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#312

Post by pcote »

ahmad19526 wrote: post #3

Go into any Electrical Engineering department at any university and you'll find plenty of students with boxes filled with circuit boards and electronics. Everybody who's played with electronics knows that stuff is brittle and needs to be protected carefully. One wire coming loose renders your entire work obsolete and unlike software, there's no debugger to tell you where you potentially screwed up... Racial profiling…

There were debuggers in the electronics shops that I remember. They were called multimeters. You debugged by deducing where voltage, current, and resistance levels were in your circuit.

I've also made my share of brittle programming projects where one errant line could act like a "loose wire" and take down everything.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#313

Post by lemevi »

bedhead wrote: post #268
vermontdevil wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's the case of WebCamGate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School...

Holy shit, that is one of the most insane stories I've ever heard of. How was this not made into a prominent national news story? How have tons of school administrators not wound up in prison??

It was national news when it happened if I recall. It wasn't like 20pt font on the nytimes home page, but it was reported.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#314

Post by ChrisArgyle »

sp332 wrote: post #100
martincmartin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

Stupidity does not adequately explain why they are considering bringing charges of a "hoax bomb", or sent this letter home with the other students: http://www.irvingisd.net/cms/lib010/TX01917973/Centricity/Do... [PDF] Therefore, malice.

Ignorance easily explains this unfortunate, embarrassing incident.

The boy's father is from Sudan and is well known for being outspoken against anti-Islamic policies. To an unworldly south/midwesterner that spells "potential terrorist". It's not too much of a stretch to see that diagnosis extended to the son.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#315

Post by soggypretzels »

piqufoh wrote: post #271
austenallred wrote: post #143

This hits way too close to home. Not because I have brown skin, or because I've ever been arrested for making "a bomb" that is not a bomb, but because when you're that age you're constantly surrounded and disciplined by people who don't understand you. Or what you're doing. Or why it's cool. I'd be willing to bet part of the reasoning around his arrest is, "Why would a student need to make his own clock?" I wish I co…

Exactly. To quote the Police spokesman; "He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation" and "The concern was, what was this thing built for?" Why shouldn't he make his own clock?! Why does there need to be a 'broader explanation'? How can one develop an interest in anything if you must first provide an adequate explanation? sigh

Why are you trying to teach me English? This teacher should be arrested for trying to overthrow the government... What is the "broader explanation" for this English textbook?

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#316

Post by jodah »

sp332 wrote: post #100
martincmartin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

Stupidity does not adequately explain why they are considering bringing charges of a "hoax bomb", or sent this letter home with the other students: http://www.irvingisd.net/cms/lib010/TX01917973/Centricity/Do... [PDF] Therefore, malice.

True, though stupidity is not seeing how much this is going to cost them, ultimately.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#317

Post by exodust »

ajross wrote: post #275
exodust wrote: post #261

Sounds like he was asking for it. Notice in the video he says "he used a simple cable to lock it so it wouldn't look like a threat". People are forgetting that there's nothing impressive about a "clock in a case". He called it an "invention". Sorry kid, you're 14, not 8. Nothing inventive about sticking a digital clock in a case. His own engineering teacher suggested he not show it to other teachers. So what does he…

I can't see anywhere in that diatribe where he was asking to be arrested. The outrage is at the reaction here, not the kids level of martyrdom. We still aren't supposed to arrest 14 year old jerks with PCBs.

I'm sure it's always diatribe when you don't agree.

"Asking for trouble" is what I mean. The default processes in the USA are not what I'm talking about, but everyone here is defending his "right to be creative". Nobody is saying "hang on, he put a clock in a case, brought it to school, not part of any school project, advised not to show it around, showed it around anyway and was passive aggro when asked about it".

He was asking for trouble, and got it.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#318

Post by txru »

bargl wrote: post #156
chipgap98 wrote: post #37

That letter from the school just adds insult to injury. > talk with your child about the Student Code of Conduact and specifically not bringing items to school that are prohibited Since when can you not bring a clock to school?

If the school and the police had acted in the correct way this would be no big deal. Hey, we have a device here that could be a bomb. Police show up, call bomb specialist. Bomb specialist laughs in a few peoples faces, the school apologizes, the kid keeps tinkering. But no they had to go and dig in. Which makes this really wrong on their part. I hate it when organizations take a stance around stupidity.

Or even better- start by quietly calling him to the principal's office. Ask him about his clock. Tell him people were thinking he might be wanting to pull some bomb pranks, and that would be a very bad idea. Ask him to tell his teachers the day before the next time he wants to show off his gadgetry. Send him back to class.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#319

Post by JoeAltmaier »

DanBC wrote: post #283
nadams wrote: post #121

If anyone is actually surprised by the administrations intelligence - I should remind you of 3 events: - A teacher confiscates Linux CDs claiming that the student was essentially distributing illegal copyrighted software - because no software is free [1] - A system administrator was fired for installing/running seti@home on school computers. There is a lot of controversy about this case - but I read one news article…

Running seti / etc on the school computers does result in thousands of dollars spend on extra electricity. He was number one on SETI for years, running the client without approval on 5,000 machines. It's not surprising that people get fired for increasing costs by that much without getting approval first. See also http://www.securityfocus.com/news/300

Thousands can be wasted on dumb stuff like bad office-supply purchasing decisions. Those folks don't get fired. Sounds overblown - folks afraid of anything they don't understand.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#320

Post by ams6110 »

dopamean wrote: post #258
chejazi wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If public schools are going to succeed, then many states need to "catch up" when it comes to funding. More funding will attract more teachers, creating a stronger candidate pool. If you look at the average funding per student by state, Texas isn't doing so hot [1], especially for being the second largest state [2]. There's definitely more to it than just funding, but I think that would be a good starting point. [1] h…

I'm always find the "more funding" idea to be somewhat dubious. Don't we already spend a ton of money on education? Perhaps even more per pupil than other developed countries?

Yes, and on an inflation-adjusted basis we spend more on K-12 education than ever before.

It isn't a funding problem. It's a problem with how we spend that money.

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