More Than Ahmed: The Clock, Teachers, and Racism

In September, a 14-year-old boy in Texas created a small clock inside a pencil box, connecting a tangle of wires in an attempt to impress his teachers with tangible evidence of his learning and motivation. By the end of the day, he had been arrested, handcuffed in front of his classmates and suspended from school.

A big story forces reflection on racism in education

The ensuing media circus surrounding Ahmed Mohamed’s story included tweets from President Obama and invitations to visit elite institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Between the initial handling of the case and the subsequent media embrace and backlash, several concerning issues arose.

At the forefront of the discussion, of course, is an issue of race and creed. A boy named Ahmed brought a box full of wires to school that was perceived as a fake bomb, despite his testimony and all evidence to the contrary. The school district and local police department have consistently defended their decisions to investigate and suspend Mohamed, and a subsequent media spin includes elaborate theories about the young man’s intentions.

Students of color are regularly perceived as troublemakers in school

It’s not outside the realm of a school’s responsibilities to ask questions about anything brought into the building that could be used for violence. However, I cannot help but wonder if Mohamed’s racial and religious background inspired the depth and breadth of the investigation.

The statistical reality in this nation is that children of color are more likely to be perceived as engaged in negative behavior at school and tend to receive harsher discipline. Even outside of direct punishment, students of color face a variety of forms of subtle racism in their exchanges with teachers and administrations.

Mohamed’s story is painfully familiar to many

“Ahmed could have been my nephew or cousin, or any other nerdy and black Muslim kid we knew who was eager to please adults and prove their worth,” said Sarah Hagi in her recent article, “Will Anyone Stand with the Next Ahmed Mohamed?”

While she did not suffer the arrest, humiliation, and subsequent media storm that he did, Mohamed’s experience in school was painfully familiar to Hagi and her family. Like Mohamed, she grew up in North America with parents who had emigrated from East Africa as refugees.

‘Mom and Dad taught us to trust teachers’

Hagi’s parents taught their children to trust educators, but it was clear that Hagi and her siblings were treated differently from their white classmates. During Hagi’s junior year of high school in Canada, a teacher accused her of plagiarism after she turned in a “suspiciously advanced” essay.

Guidance counselors tried to dissuade her siblings from taking advanced classes. Although Hagi’s brother was told he “wouldn’t be able to handle” calculus, he took it anyway, earning an A. Years earlier, her sister’s counselor told her to drop a gifted English class, even though she was doing well, and said “I probably shouldn’t think about university too much, because the farthest I’d go would be community college, at most.”

Racist treatment by educators does not surprise people of color

The education system Hagi and her family experienced consistently demeaned them using dog-whistle language and quietly racist behavior: low academic expectations, expressions of surprise and doubt at their intelligence, and having their achievements and ambitions ignored by teachers and counselors.

The lack of shock from people of color about stories like these is one of the particularly troubling points. Even worse, students who were taught that teachers are trustworthy role models often blame themselves for being treated badly. “It’s so difficult for a child experiencing racism to not believe it’s their fault,” writes Hagi.

The media narrative undermining Mohamed illustrates how racist treatment of students of color flies under the radar

The media narrative has shifted in a predictable way to undermine Mohamed’s success and creativity. When Bill Maher discussed the case on his show “Real Time,” he consistently downplayed the pro-Ahmed media response with a story focused on the concept that Mohamed didn’t “build” or “create” anything. Maher is not alone in simultaneously defending Ahmed while discounting the nature of his intrinsic motivation and creativity as a student.

This method of undermining of the work and talent of students of color is exactly what Hagi describes in her article, but those outside their experience aren’t even aware of what’s happening. “Trading these stories among ourselves is the only way they get validated,” she wrote. Ultimately, Hagi reported being “troubled less, in the end, by Ahmed’s treatment than the fact that so many people found it surprising.”

How can educators prevent the ‘next Ahmed’ from happening?

In an educational culture that struggles to engage students and increase knowledge transfer through project-based learning and hands-on knowledge application, a student was punished for doing everything educators would want him to do.

If Ahmed Mohamed had been a Caucasian boy named Steve, the school’s handling of a curious student who applied his knowledge in a useful way is still inappropriate. Even if educators were able to set aside the incredibly troubling racial aspects of this case, we are left with the disturbing fact that a learner has been not only shut down, but punished, for engaging learning in a practical way.

It is essential for educators to change our thinking and behavior so that Hagi’s prediction that “the next Ahmed will surely not have a hashtag to support him. He probably won’t even tell his parents,” is far from the truth. It is not acceptable for there to be a “next Ahmed.”

Next week, I’ll discuss how educators can address racism head-on in teacher training, professional development, and with students in the classroom.

Monica Fuglei is a graduate of the University of Nebraska in Omaha and a current faculty member of Arapahoe Community College in Colorado, where she teaches composition and creative writing.