I had planned on talking about something else this week, but just before I got down to business I saw a post on a friend’s Facebook wall that absolutely floored me.
Meet Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old inventor. He made a rather sophisticated clock that required an understanding of electronics, programming, and a bit of fun. He made a digital clock, shown below, then took it to school. It was a moment to be proud of for the boy, his sister that so obviously adores him, and his family who provides for him.
Until it wasn’t.
The suspicious clock
His English teacher insisted it was suspicious even after Ahmed showed it to her, confiscated the clock, and then the principal pulled him out of his 6th hour class. The police questioned Ahmed, handcuffed him “for their protection”, and took him into their custody.
Everything about this is wrong and could have been avoided.
First off, bravo to Ahmed. It’s an absolutely brilliant device and invention of your own design. But, allow a little constructive criticism: Engineering is not done in a vacuüm. Everything we do has a political and social implication, even at the beginning stages of exploration.
To avoid this sort of thing in the future, an inventor should consider that people are paranoid in this crazy world where terrorists can walk into a building and leave a device that could cause mayhem. This device doesn’t look too far off from what could raise suspicions. To avoid the situation he could have explained to his teachers what he made, show them pictures on his phone, and ask them permission to bring it in to show off for a day or two. This shows innocence in intention.
As inventors, researchers, and scientists, it is our job to help those outside of our expertise understand. What we do is unknown to them, and that makes it inherently freaky. Add to that the paranoia that something, anything bad could happen, and they go off the wall with stuff. (Thank gods we don’t live in the age of witch burning any more…) We need to communicate early and often with those around us about what we are doing. In the modern age this is incredibly easy: Snap a picture and post it on social media while geeking out about it. Sure, it might be over their heads, but at least you’ll have established credibility as a certified geek instead of a certified crackpot.
But why is it our responsibility?!
I understand that many of you would lambaste the teacher for being so harsh on the kid. And then you’d go after the school for not listening. You’d go after all of them for not being educated enough. Honestly, I feel the same as with a simple introduction to the clock you can see what it is, how it works, and you can then praise the kid, explain why it makes people nervous, and be a lot more human about it. It’s called dialogue, and it goes a hell of a long way.
But, then again, if the device was dangerous, you’d freak out twice as hard wondering why they didn’t do something earlier.
It’s a fine line to walk for the teachers, principals, and police. They must err on the side of caution when safety of so many other’s is concerned. When we lean on the civil servants of our society to protect us, that is part of the cost that we must pay, even if it’s not a fair price for a teen.
As a community we need to do better at communicating.
Frankly, the whole of our community could do better. His engineering teacher obviously understood that, but did a poor job of communicating it to Ahmed in just a sentence. When the alarm on his clock kept going off, Ahmed was in trouble by a teacher a lot less geekily inclined than us. It makes for a sad story when most of society is this poorly educated in our geeky crafts. They don’t know, understand, or care to understand — I should know, as an educator and owner of Insanitek, I come across it hourly in the world at large.
Communication is a two-way street. We can’t force those with no interest in our crafts to understand it. We can try to convince them it’s cool, it’s not dangerous, and what we do can better society. We can try, but we are often talking to walls screaming about the latest craze. Admittedly, it’s not easy. We can’t give up. But we also need the rest of the world to listen at least a little bit.
