He brought the clock to school in the hope of finding like-minded people during his first few weeks of high school. Instead, his engineering teacher told him to put his invention away and advised him not to show it to anyone else. Then his English teacher confiscated the clock after it beeped in class. The teacher took the clock for a bomb and alerted the school's administration, who sprang into action and called the police.Īfter being questioned at the school about the device, Ahmed was taken in handcuffs to a juvenile detention center, where he was fingerprinted and interrogated further by five police officers about what some officials called a hoax bomb. Throughout it all Ahmed insisted the device was a clock.Īfter this incident, Ahmed's older sisters created a Twitter hashtag called #IStandWithAhmed. There has been an outpouring of support for Ahmed on Twitter ever since. Many of the quotes we read in the handout were from this hashtag. Having elicited what happened in Irving, Texas, ask students their thoughts and feelings about what happened. How do you think Ahmed Mohamed felt when he was building the clock and first brought it into school in the morning?Īdd these feelings words to the chart from before, using the same color. Then ask students how they think Ahmed felt when the teacher first told him to hide it and not show anyone. What about when the other teacher confiscated it?Īnd then when he was questioned at school. Has anyone in this class ever been made to feel bad about something they were good at or something they were proud of? What was that like?.Any similarities, differences, surprises?.Now ask students to look at the feelings web.Īnd taken to the juvenile detention center?Ĭhart the feelings words in a different color around the words already charted on the board. Tell students that it's important to support people, young and old, who have been the target of discrimination and injustice. We also need to consider how these instances of discrimination relate to wider issues we need to address as a society. Has anyone ever heard the term Islamophobia? What does it mean?.Can anyone relate to the tweets in any way?.What are your thoughts and feelings about these tweets?.Then ask students to discuss the following: Ask students to read the tweets included in HANDOUT 2. What is a phobia? According to Merriam Webster, a phobia is: "the religion which teaches that there is only one God and that Muhammad is God's prophet: the religion of Muslims." What is Islam? According to Merriam Webster, Islam is: Take the word apart if needed: Islam + phobia. Islamophobia, then, is an attitude or belief about Islam and Muslims.Īn Islamophobe is an individual who holds a closed-minded view of Islam and promotes prejudice against or hatred of Muslims.Īccording to, Islamophobia is "dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force." "an extremely strong dislike or fear of someone or something : an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation."īased on these definitions, ask students to try to come up with a definition of Islamophobia as you keep in mind some of the definitions below:Īccording to CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) Islamophobia is closed-minded prejudice against or hatred of Islam and Muslims. Attitudes and beliefs often determine our actions.Īsk students to think about how some teachers, administrators, and police behaved in the case of Ahmed Mohamed.What do you think might have been the underlying beliefs and attitudes of the teachers, administrators and police in this incident?.Do you think Islamophobia was displayed in this case? Why or why not?.Can you identify discriminatory actions in this case? If so, what are they?.
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