Why We Invited ‘Clock Kid’ Ahmed Mohamed to Maker Faire
By Dale Dougherty, Founder & Executive Chairman, Maker Media Inc.
September 22, 2015, 5:00 AM PDT
No doubt last week’s arrest of 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed overwhelmed him and his family. I doubt that he expected to be detained in juvenile hall for bringing to school a homemade clock that a teacher thought looked like a bomb.
The story that resulted from it on social media rapidly generated a response that also must have been overwhelming to Ahmed and his family. Yet the reaction to Ahmed’s story was positive, a public recognition that Ahmed was a maker, a young inventor and science geek. “Every story like this previously read: “Bad student did bad thing,” wrote Jay Silver on the Sketching in Hardware mailing list. “This is, in the reaction, the best news on this subject ever.”
People reached out to me and thought it would be good to bring Ahmed to the upcoming Maker Faire in New York City. Numerous others — President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mark Zuckerberg — reached out to him and offered gifts, scholarships, internships and more.
The maker subculture responded like antibodies identifying and attacking something it saw as an infection in the mainstream culture — an inability to understand and appreciate science and technology, particularly in education. The personal or institutional biases against people of color or members of certain religions are part of this story, but our schools and communities also need to be places that elevate science and understand the role of technology in making our world a better place.
More:
http://recode.net/2015/09/22/why-we-invited-clock-kid-ahmed-mohamed-to-maker-faire/
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When they get this rabid they don't take time to know the facts, unfortunately.[/center]
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