What Does Ahmed Mohamed’s Experience Say about Our Schools?

We don’t know Ahmed Mohamed.

We don’t know his teachers.

We don’t know the police officers who came to his school in Irving, Texas.

But we do know that a teenager with unique brilliance, passion for robotics, and dreams of becoming an engineer ended up in handcuffs for bringing a digital clock he’d made from a pencil case to school.

“They arrested me and they told me that I committed the crime of a hoax bomb, a fake bomb,” Mohamed told  WFAA News 8.

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To some, this is a simple mistake and an innocent misunderstanding. To others, this is an outrage. Either way, we’d be remiss to not ask ourselves what this means for Ahmed and other kids like him who stretch their brains beyond the basics and strive for more than just showing up to class and taking tests.

Are teachers underestimating our kids? What could or should the teachers and officers have done differently? Do you see your own child in Ahmed? Does out-of-the-box thinking have a place in our schools?

What do you think?


Featured Image/Video via The Dallas Morning News – YouTube

 

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