The “Clock Boy” Critical Thinking Test
Surprising as it might sound, by the end you’ll see a correct answer exists
Foreword
It’s hard for me to sit down and assume that my audience has the spider-web of historical connections I make in my head— the kind that when I talk to people, they wonder “How did you remember that and then draw that connection to that and show how they were so much alike?” A fair question so I give them the run down of how my mind worked to reach the end point.
Assuming you, my reader, gets my perspective out of the gate is not fair to you and your experiences, nor to my own goal of trying to communicate with you based on how I frame things.
So when it comes to something as loaded as can be — “Clock Boy” vs. Irving ISD— I’m going to ask your patience with the following approach that will be used throughout. Instead of “Clock Boy” or his given name, I’m going to use the label “the Student” to try and remove “otherness” from the person’s name etymology but also cast aside the nickname which seems to stir an immediate reaction and drive a wedge at the outset. In a way I’m already too late on that one, but I needed a functional context to get this essay some traction.
Critical Thinking should not be a negative concept. Yet I see there are significant recent examples of journalists and reporters ignoring how important it is to doing their job. The lead up to the Invasion of Iraq. Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme. Tiger Woods having numerous affairs. In my opinion, this subject is completely within the same silo and should serve as a case study of what not to do as a professional reporter with integrity by way of critical thinking.
Why Point the finger at Avi Selk?
In short: Legitimacy — the original Dallas Morning News article written by Avi Selk went out on the wires and became the predominant narrative from which the rest of the discussion was founded. By reporting a story, there’s a professional obligation to attempt objectivity based on facts, right? Simple enough.
What happens when the person doing the reporting doesn’t use critical thinking to differentiate the truth from a lie?
The result is that instead of giving professional Educators, Administrators, and Campus Police personnel the deserved respect for their careers following a contentious exchange at a public school, Avi Selk wrote down and reported a 14 year old Student’s testimony as truth. Why? Because the Student claimed that the situation was a result of Racism and/or Religious Intolerance and that’s some juicy stuff. Especially when it happens deep in the heart of Texas. It’s “a story with legs,” as the business might call it.
Following Avi’s article, the 24/7 news cycle of needing content like an Oxycodone addict needs a fix had it everywhere. I watched the narrative spread, go viral. Microsoft. Zuckerberg. Mark Cuban. The White House.
The story became a bandwagon for both sides — believe the Student, and his school is a Racist and/or Religiously Intolerant place because the Administration and Teachers and Campus Police are all like that, or think the Student is not being honest and somehow get thrown in the pile with the “basket of deplorables” just like those who persecuted the Student. This all happened within 48 hours.
If Avi Selk was a legitimate reporter, what follows is what he would have written up for you to read, to think about, and to be context for where we are now. As of this writing, we are in a lull between the Student suing his School for Civil Rights Violations and the outcome, because the School has publicly asserted they will fight the accusations in court. What Avi did is ride the viral publicity of his story all the way to a promotion, when realistically, his failure to fulfill his follow-up reporting obligations should have him writing shipping invoices for cargo planes flying rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong.
Technology…How does it work?!
48 hours isn’t enough to get to the bottom of a story, but in modern times, it’s sure plenty to dye the entire pool whatever shade desired. It’s one of my major beefs with legit journalism outlets in that the rush to get out in front ends up having to answer for their impatience later. I’m sure Richard Jewell would back me up on this one if he hadn’t been badgered to the point of suicide. Sound extreme?
Maybe not: There’s a 14 year old Student who brings a technology item to English class, and uses that item to get attention and otherwise distract from the course work. The Teacher has a Code or Protocol they have to follow regarding students who bring inappropriate items into class, be it a sparkler or an air horn or a technology item. It’s not the English Teacher’s job to ego-stroke, it’s the Teacher’s job to teach the course. Anything that doesn’t fit in that boring reality can either politely be thought of as a nuisance or, not so politely, as a threat.
In the first month or so following Avi’s lede, a bunch of technology commentators with different skills from mine pointed out that one of the fundamental claims by the Student was a lie. The technology item wasn’t “made” by the Student, it wasn’t “home made” in the sense of what those terms actually mean based on reasonable critical thinking. Was this being brought up to discredit the Student? Maybe. Was it necessary fact-checking for the story? Absolutely.
I thought Avi was an ignorant case in this respect, a person who genuinely doesn’t understand how electronics work, and was perhaps exploited in this regard by the Student and the victim narrative. However, I noticed Joe Mullin over at Ars Technica joined into the fray and shit the bed too. A tech site that won’t even call out a technology lie, trying to couch it in terms like:
Maybe he didn’t really invent the clock, or build it at home, but still, he was a victim of oppression!
Watching these dominoes of momentum keep going in the direction of tossing aside facts for the sake of a “right way of thinking” got under my skin really bad.
Doing Avi Selk’s Job For Him Out of Pity
This is where I have to actually do some work, the kind of work that Avi should have done if he had any legitimate integrity in reporting. Does this seem inappropriately antagonistic? Well I’m from the Mark Twain and Hunter S. Thompson school and I think I’m doing my best to tone it down.
Following the expose videos that the Student didn’t actually bring a “home made” clock to school, but rather assembled some parts into something else that kind of looks like a movie prop, this revelation was rationalized away. If you’ve not seen the amount of “inventing” involved, then just watch:
When the Student and his family were able to say whatever they wanted for reporters at their home-based press conferences, Avi and company minimized the legal handcuffs that the School was not allowed to comment unless the Student’s family would allow permission. A former teacher was contacted by a different outlet and, wouldn’t you know it, didn’t exactly mirror the flattering portrait scribed by Avi — a bright kid, sure, but one with a taste for causing trouble.
Then Motherboard over at Vice did some FOIA work, maybe Avi read it, maybe not, but the emails can be read through two different lenses. The narrative Motherboard latched on to (via Avi) is that the School is admitting guilt for behaving improperly. The other narrative, which makes sense after learning about the Student’s conduct record, is that the School knew they had a situation where they were being played and felt like the aggressor was winning — they knew they got trolled.
After all this coverage, wow, looked like a slam dunk of a case! Not so fast though…remember how Avi pointed out Zuckerberg and the White House were all in his corner? Mark Cuban was one of those voices until he took the time to engage himself and give the situation some critical thinking — and wouldn’t you know it, he had some reservations.
The Student reaped rewards — the kind that would make Chewbacca Mom have to sell her car to pay the IRS tax at the end of the year kind of rewards. Microsoft. A trip to the White House. A full scholarship in Qatar.
So was it out of pure Civil Rights motivation when the Student threatened a $15 million lawsuit unless he got an apology within 60 days? He moved to Qatar, without irony regarding his Civil Rights accusations against his school. The apology never came. 60 days passed and no lawsuit came.
For a while, I thought that was the end of it — after all, the Student got a lot of benefit from three hours of being questioned in accordance with School policy. Free equipment. Free trips. Free education. Publicity that can’t be bought.
But…that wasn’t the end of it. Apparently all that wasn’t enough — not the material items, not the travel, not the free education — no, the Student came back to a place he says he is afraid of and decided it was time to file a lawsuit, oddly enough with a different legal team than when the 60 day apology-or-lawsuit threat went down. This time the Student didn’t put a dollar amount, because according to his Attorneys, the Jury should decide how much justice should be served by way of dollars.
So here we are, a year and a couple months and change since the Student was taken out of English class for causing a disruption, the School is legally barred from responding because the Student’s parents refuse to allow that to happen, and Avi has just landed an awesome gig with the Washington Post.
The Student will more than likely lose his lawsuit, which Avi did cover for the Dallas Morning News, but it looks like both the Student and Avi have come out real winners in this.
The losers are the rest of us, because we trust reporters to put the Truth, whatever it may be, in front of their own personal beliefs. This, starting with Avi and clearly seen with Joe Mullin at Ars Technica, did not happen in the process of reporting the situation with the Student who brought a technology item to English class and caused a disruption. They failed so poorly on basic fundamental Critical Thinking that I don’t feel bad calling them out — they chose their fucking job, not me. They shit the bed, not me.
Epilogue
My hands and knuckles have scars from working on PCs and doing IT projects in the 90s through the early 2000s. I had to do IRQ conflict resolution. Change power supplies. Figure out which RAM stick was dead out of four. I grew up in a technology environment were everything was sacred — waste not, want not.
So, when Avi Selk reported the Student’s Father calling him “brilliant” and then the Student exhibited his talents by saying he “built CPUs and soldered them and stuff” I knew that kid was full of shit. I earned my scars. I never claimed to be better than I was when it came to tech because I have integrity.
Want to know what happened when I acted up in class as a Student and the School disciplined me? My parents chewed me out, punished me, and did their best to guide me to be an upstanding member of society. You know what my parents didn’t do? Blame the School for picking on me because I was handicapped and hold press conferences in our fucking yard and make me out to be a Saint. To my knowledge, my parents have never called me brilliant within earshot, but I never fixed their car when I was 14. Maybe it’s because they wanted me to grow up and be my own person, rather than use me as a tool to raise money to run for President of Sudan.
