DailyDirt: What (Not) To Do With Smart Kids...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Mon, Sep 21st 2015 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Last week, lots of people were outraged that a 14yo kid was handcuffed and arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school. Some folks tried to point out that such extracurricular projects should never be brought to school... because we live in a "day and age" of terror or something. That suggestion -- that kids need to somehow restrict their enthusiasm for trying to impress their teachers with something they've made outside of school -- is awful. The education system is often faulted for failing to improve test scores and leaving more than "no children" behind. However, Ahmed Mohamed's experience highlights that schools might want to start thinking more about how to identify talent and nurture skills that are valuable beyond taking tests.

High-ability students have not been well-studied to determine how they might best be served by teachers. Should they be allowed to skip grades or just specific classes? Should teachers give them extra projects? Does class size matter for high-ability students? It's a shame that many gifted children are overlooked -- or that they are recognized (hopefully in a positive way), but that no one is certain quite what to do with them. [url]
An 11yo boy in a gifted-and-talented program in Virginia brought a leaf to school -- that was mistakenly thought to be a marijuana leaf. The result was charges of marijuana possession in juvenile court, a year of suspension, and probation terms that mean he'll be searched for drugs every day, twice a day. Quite a punishment. For. A. Leaf. [url]
Longer school days and more school days in a year seem like good ideas -- but making kids stay in school longer isn't necessarily a good thing. Learning is generally not taught as a joyful, fun thing to do, but a chore -- and making that chore more difficult and tiring isn't a recipe for creating a society of lifetime learners. [url]
In 2013, a then-16yo Kiera Wilmot brought a science fair project to her high school in Florida. It wasn't a particularly novel experiment, mixing toilet bowl cleaner (some hydrochloric acid) with aluminum foil. However, the reaction (excuse the chemistry pun) was far greater than the smoke and gases. Wilmot was arrested, charged with two felonies, and had to attend a different school for troubled teens. Thankfully, she was allowed back to her original school for her senior year, and she's moved on to college without a criminal record following her. But how about we try not to jump to the worst conclusions about kids, especially when all the evidence points to nerdy hobbies that should be encouraged? [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: ahmed mohamed, crime, education, kiera wilmot, learning, marijuana, punishment, schools, teachers

24 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Uriel-238 (profile), 21 Sep 2015 @ 5:56pm

School is more like a prison than an institution of learning.
Indeed, my experience in school was that you learned what the teachers taught you because it was expected, not because that material would be useful, and much of it was rendered about as dry and palatable as hardtack.

And history was whitewashed American exceptionalist propaganda.

People learn different ways. I learn from creating and doing projects. Some people need to hear stories. Some people need pictures. Some people need to read and write about it.

We knew in the 70s that the lecture/lab model worked only for a small minority. We knew that kids were being neglected, that some were abused by teachers, administrators and students, and that no-one was doing a thing about it. It enrages me that it's still the case. It may even be worse now that politics is so polarized

Adjusted for cost-of-living, teachers are paid even less now, and principals and appointed officials are paid more. Cafeterias serve ketchup-is-a-vegetable junk food. We have larger classes and more teaching to the standardized tests. And then we blame our kids for being imbeciles.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2015 @ 6:18pm

Re: School is more like a prison than an institution of learning.
And your comment is an indictment of both the education industry and your ideology.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2015 @ 6:20pm

Enough is enough, I'm mad as hell and am not going to take it anymore.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2015 @ 7:22pm

Re: Re: School is more like a prison than an institution of learning.
Brevity may be the soul of wit, but your single sentence comment isn't particularly witty nor does it make sense. Could you explain in what way Uriel 238's comment was an indictment of the education system as well as his ideology?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Spaceman Spiff (profile), 21 Sep 2015 @ 7:27pm

Boy am I glad!
That I'm not a high school student these days? If I were, I'd still be in prison 50+ years later! Ok, what did we do?

1. Made thermite bombs for 4th of July events. Big flash! Big noise! Very cool!
2. Made NI3 (Nitrogen Tri-Iodide), a contact explosive. Use anhydrous ammonia to saturate iodine crystals. Spread on floor (in the boys' bathroom in our case), and then wait for the pop, pop, popping as they stepped on them! Fun!
3. Made nitroglycerin. We realized that washing the acids from it to stabilize it was more than we wanted to deal with, so we left it in the acid solution to disintegrate without exploding!

Yeah, we were AP chem students and the lab assistants, so we had easy access to all the base chemicals needed! FWIW, we both ended up with full college credits for chemistry... :-)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
JoeCool (profile), 21 Sep 2015 @ 11:24pm

Re: Boy am I glad!
Same here. Powdered aluminum, Iodine crystals, and water. It'll clear out the school in a flash! Pun intended. We'd throw bits of magnesium into people's beakers for fun.

Anywho, on the story about the boy persecuted over the "fake marijuana", I bookmarked it in my "funny" category, then had a thought that maybe I needed a "horrifying" category for these stories.

On the topic of what to do with kids who are too smart, I haven't the faintest given that no one wants to spend the money. I went through school utterly bored by the material. Just getting a perfect grade wasn't nearly enough, my goal for every test was to finish the test before the teacher finished passing it out. My folks wouldn't let me skip grades on the guidance counselor's advice that I'd never make friends with older kids. Of course, since I was too smart for my age group, but not a younger student, they never felt the need to restrain their showing me what they thought of ruining curves and in general being a smart ass. There weren't any schools for smart kids anywhere we lived, so I just plodded along, reading books or drawing in class to try to relieve the boredom. One kid in geometry class tried to get me in trouble, but the teacher just told him if he maintained a 100 average in his class, he could do whatever the hell he wanted just like me.

Thank goodness "zero tolerance" policies weren't all that big at the time as I'd have been in big trouble given the hell I put most teachers through in my boredom. I was smarted than nearly every teacher I had, and not afraid to let them know it. Given many of the policies most schools have today, I wouldn't have lasted a single year before ending up being hauled off by the cops for something really stupid.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2015 @ 1:03am

Those people are right I feel. You wouldn't want your kid to write an essay on "How much I like my Jewish neighbours" in Nazi Germany, or "Capitalism isn't bad" in the USSR, so by pretty much the same logic they shouldn't bring devices that look like a Hollywood prop bomb to school in post-9/11 USA.

Writing this out made me realise that the current regime of tyranny is pretty much run by idiots, which makes it all the more terrifying. It's like 1984, but written by Douglas Adams.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2015 @ 3:15am

When it comes to "high ability" students, there are some who cannot understand the teacher's method no matter HOW hard they try, but they can "think outside the box", and come up with their own solution.

More kids have that problem then you think, because a lot of kids may have "high functioning" autism, like I do, that caused me that kind of problem in school
[ link to this | view in thread ]
voiceofReason (profile), 22 Sep 2015 @ 3:58am

What "Smart Kid?"
There's nothing smart or homemade about a kid taking a 1973 digital clock out of its case, sticking it into another, bringing it to school, and then refusing to listen to a teacher who told him to put it away because it looked dangerous, and then the kid taking it to another classroom.

Take a look at pictures of it. It looks like a classic Hollywood bomb. If it had shown up like this in the street where the pope is visiting the street would be cleared and the bomb squad called in. Same thing if found in an airport. This is another example of political correctness run rampant. And, I suspect that it was a manufactured crisis. Look who his father is.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2015 @ 4:39am

Re: What "Smart Kid?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHk_6Vh4Qeo

He is a modern day genius. Takes others work, presents it as his own then gets massive attention for it.

He even included the jello bags for whatever reason.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2015 @ 7:14am

Re: School is more like a prison than an institution of learning.
Some schools are literally a prison. We avoided going to the local middle school when part of what we learned in the orientation was that every entrance had metal detectors, students needed identification and permission at all times, and armed police roamed the halls.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Thrudd, 22 Sep 2015 @ 7:41am

Re: School is more like a prison than an institution of learning.
In certain parts of the states that may be true but here in Ontario they make well above average in pay and benefits as well as having a huge say in administration.

We would love to bring in the hard working caring teachers if only we could dump the privaledged self important jerks we have now.

I see way too many new luxury cars in school parking lots and whining on anything that could smack of accountability by the unions here.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ninja (profile), 22 Sep 2015 @ 7:45am

Re: Boy am I glad!
Make it three. I'd certainly be in jail before my adulthood nowadays because of some stuff I did back then. My grades were stellar but my behavior not so much haha
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2015 @ 7:55am

Re: Boy am I glad!
You're now on a government list.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2015 @ 7:55am

Re: Boy am I glad!
You're now on a government list.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2015 @ 8:22am

BAH!
First off, he didn't "invent" anything. What was shown in the box was a standard, off the shelf, large digit alarm clock with a 4-digit display. He simply removed the clock from it's original case and mounted the components in the "lunch box". No magic and no original design. Obviously no one in that school or police department had ever disassembled a table clock. But where did "Hollywood Bomb" come from? Goldfinger maybe? Not big enough. Whatever these people are smoking, it must be really good stuff!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Craig Welch (profile), 22 Sep 2015 @ 8:24am

Re: Boy am I glad!
Boy am I glad - to read that another potential criminal made nitrogen tri-iodide at school. We soaked blotting paper (if anyone else can remember that) in the solution, and left the residue in the school hall on the last day of school (1965). The principal swept majestically down the aisle resplendent in his robes, and then entered the mine-field. He jumped at the first explosion, then raced through the next. We thought it was fantastic. I still do.

Thanks for the memory.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2015 @ 8:54am

Nice to know that we are basing our responses on first determining what the village idiot in the community thinks, and then going with that.

With the Texas kid, the village idiot thought it was a bomb, so it has to be a bomb.

As for the 11 year old, "if another kid thinks it might be marijuana, that's grounds for expulsion."

These village idiots watch TV (the boob tube), and because they see something called marijuana on TV or they see something called a bomb on TV, they suddenly become experts everyone listens too?

We need some institution to send children where they could obtain knowledge from intelligent individuals. What we have now, seems to be trade program for village idiots.

On a side note, it looks like about 10,000,000 people watched Scorpion last night. Weep for the future.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2015 @ 9:23am

School Sucks
The system was NOT created to deal with, identify or even understand smart kids. I was bored as fuck in school, now I am a high school drop-out zero college making 6 figures... but no one in the world thinks that anything I have to say has any fucking valued because they do not like how I say it.

The Education system was designed to only do a couple of things, indoctrinate and provide a minimum level of knowledge to keep society functional. It is not there to improve humanity, nor improve the nation (this is just a potentially positive by-product). It only serves the purpose to try to prevent the degradation of society via incompetence.

The people that actually give a damn about learning will do so on their own and improve society themselves despite the ineptitude of the education system.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Uriel-238 (profile), 22 Sep 2015 @ 11:07am

OUSD?
Ontario is slightly outside of the states, but damn I wish I could send my kid to school there.

It may not be much better than the local school districts but it sounds like an improvement.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Uriel-238 (profile), 22 Sep 2015 @ 11:25am

Non-smart kids
Yeah, we discussed this in the articles when the news came out. Let's not look at all the grown-ups mistaking him for a terrorist when we can call him out for being a fraud.

Frankly, having the wherewithal to put a clock in a pencil case is pretty good for a 14-year-old tinkerer, no matter what words he used. Note that he's not on the stand, hasn't been coached by his lawyer and is freakin' fourteen. But if he's not really a boy genius, somehow that makes it right that he was cornered and isolated, pressured to sign a confession of intenting to terrorize and was denied some basic human rights that we'd be freaking over if it turned out to be a pretty white girl.

No, the thug card has been played before, and it was sickening then.

Incidentally, if a bombsquad found someone called them in for this, the officers who had done so would be mocked for years back at the precinct. A bomb without a payload is just a clock, no matter how big and bright you make the display. Years.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2015 @ 12:09pm

Re: School Sucks
I was a strait-A math student until I had a high school trig teacher that would not issue a grade unless all homework assignments had been completed. Got all A's in that class too, but wound up with an F for not finishing the busywork. Not sure what lesson I learned from that, but I dropped out of high school the next year.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2015 @ 4:21pm

Re: Boy am I glad!
Oh man, my high school chemistry class got to make thermite bombs too. That was so cool. It is a shame to think we'd all be convicted felons right now if it had happened today instead of 15 years ago. And our chemistry teacher was a black man from South Africa, I'm terrified to even think about what today's police would have done to him...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Zonker, 22 Sep 2015 @ 4:23pm

From the second (Japanese maple "marijuana" leaf) article:
It doesn't matter if your son or daughter brings a real pot leaf to school, or if he brings something that looks like a pot leaf -- okra, tomato, maple, buckeye, etc. If your kid calls it marijuana as a joke, or if another kid thinks it might be marijuana, that's grounds for expulsion.
It doesn't matter if the assistant principal of Bedford Middle School in Bedford, Virginia is a real child abuser/pedophile, or if they just look like one. If someone calls them a child abuser/pedophile as a joke, or if someone thinks they might be one, that's grounds for their immediate arrest, firing, and registry as a sex offender.

We can play that game too.
[ link to this | view in thread ]