QotW [5-04-03]: Discrimination

[Madison]

While FIRST's mission is to inspire all students, we often see that a special emphasis is placed upon recruiting, involving, and inspiring women and minorities. Often, this is because these groups have experienced discrimination; either currently, or in their history.

Question 5-04-03: Have you ever witnessed or experienced discrimination through your involvement with FIRST? How did you respond? How should we, as a community, respond?

Where this exists, I'd like to see it vanish. Where it doesn't exist, I want to learn what people are doing (or not doing), to keep things that way. This can be a positive experience for everyone.

Today's Question of the Week was inspired by the actions of two individuals during the 2003 season. I am refraining from posting their names, which is something of a radical departure for me. I expect for that to set the tone of this thread. I want this to be a learning experience, not an exercise in libel.

Thanks.

[Kevin A]

I myself have felt like girls cant build as good a robot as guys. The Fembots proved me wrong, in their driving and in their robot. So simple yet able to do so much!

How should respond? No need to, all girl teams are making a big showing.

[Amanda Morrison]

I think that a lot of times, veteran teams are discriminated against, especially ones that have done well in the past. Talking with other mentors, I can see that sometimes teams are expected to do well because of past successes, or are expected to do badly because of past losses.

I guess what I'm getting at is that a lot of times teams or individuals make pre-judgements about other teams, and that is kind of aggravating. Nobody wants to come into a team with a lot of pressure to do well, and nobody wants to come onto a less successful team and get no encouragement. Sometimes good sportsmanship isn't present where it should be.

I'm sorry M. seemed to have experienced some bad times herself.

[Jeff Waegelin]

Originally posted by Amanda Morrison
I think that a lot of times, veteran teams are discriminated against, especially ones that have done well in the past. Talking with other mentors, I can see that sometimes teams are expected to do well because of past successes, or are expected to do badly because of past losses.

I find myself guilty of that. I know I really shouldn't, but I always find myself making judgements about veterans based on past performance. However, it's like the stock market: past performance does not dictate future performance. I'm sure there were some really good teams that I overlooked, either because I didn't know them by reputation, or I remembered a less-than-stellar robot of theirs from past years. Given the lack of success my team had with our 2001 robot, I probably should be more sensitive to that, but it's hard to get away from watching the big-name veterans.

[jon]

But of course, all the time. Engineers against the students because they dont know how to do anything, because you have to have to go to college to know anything about anything, against girls, because girls are stupid and are only good for spirit and making dinner, against other teams, because their robot sucks, againts judges, because they're always out to get you, against the good teams, because they always cheat, against, against something or other because of the person doing the thing.

People are always going to discriminate, because it's what people do. People judge, wheter you like it or not. FIRST or no FIRST. The only thing you can do is either stand up for yourself/others, or ignore it and let them think what they want. Of course it's not the way things SHOULD be, but it's the way things are.

Go ahead, desciminate this post. I don't care.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by M. Krass
While FIRST's mission is to inspire all students, we often see that a special emphasis is placed upon recruiting, involving, and inspiring women and minorities. Often, this is because these groups have experienced discrimination; either currently, or in their history.

Question 5-04-03: Have you ever witnessed or experienced discrimination through your involvement with FIRST? How did you respond?

We are two rival schools. They used to have 2 girls on the team. My freshman daughter recruited the more. We now have 8 on the team.

The other schools' team members view was, "Girls don't want to do this activity, and don't want to put in the time."

Several years ago underclassmen had to do the "b(^)_%" work. At the beginning of this season, those now upperclassmen had expectations that others would do "b^)(^)" work.

I as team mom would fill in. Nuts and volts...periodically need sorting. I would pull in ANY student who wasn't busy.

At one point the *ahem* captain made a remark about "b^)^%" work. I told him I'm doing the so-called "b(^)" work and he's not to call it that again - everyone is doing the work. Even captains are expected to pitch in.

[Christina]

Okay, I have a lot to say on this subject, but I'm going to try to make this short...

Discrimination happens, it's unfortunate, but it does. I mean, hey, I've been discriminated against for being Asian (even before I knew what discrimination was, but that's a different story). It sucks, but it happens.

On that note, I have to say something else. Everyone has their reasons for discriminating, whether it's something that was instilled in them as a child or whether it's through their own experiences that swayed them to think a certain way. From my own experiences, I've learned that yelling at someone or constantly berating someone for what they think didn't help sway my opinion.

I'm not saying discriminating is a good thing, in any way, shape, or form; being alienated is a horrible feeling. But, everyone has their opinions. Sometimes, those who are the most "open-minded" forget that sometimes you have to accept those who don't share your opinions or beliefs. Discrimination is a horrible things, but people do it because of what they believe. Sometimes, you can change someone's opinion on something, other times you can't. Just don't forget that discrimination works both ways.

[EddieMcD]

Originally posted by M. Krass
While FIRST's mission is to inspire all students, we often see that a special emphasis is placed upon recruiting, involving, and inspiring women and minorities. Often, this is because these groups have experienced discrimination; either currently, or in their history.

Question 5-04-03: Have you ever witnessed or experienced discrimination through your involvement with FIRST? How did you respond? How should we, as a community, respond?

Where this exists, I'd like to see it vanish. Where it doesn't exist, I want to learn what people are doing (or not doing), to keep things that way. This can be a positive experience for everyone.

Today's Question of the Week was inspired by the actions of two individuals during the 2003 season. I am refraining from posting their names, which is something of a radical departure for me. I expect for that to set the tone of this thread. I want this to be a learning experience, not an exercise in libel.

Thanks.

It depends on your definition of discrimination. I'm sure at one point in our lives, we've all been guilty of it even without realizing it. I personally haven't seen it directly related to FIRST, but I'll assume that there is some going on. Hey, we are only human. It's in our nature to descriminate, and even if we don't want to, it ends up happening.

[Mike Schroeder]

does the fact that my team automaticly picked me to be our team mascot in 2k1, and 2k2 just because i was a big freak of nature count as discrimination?:p not that i didnt end up enjoying, who know people <3ed the white boy dance so much

[Melissa Nute]

Actually, I think M's point is being misanswered. M asked about examples of this and what as a community we should do.

I've seen it many times - such as driver's being chosen just b/c they are seniors when others were better qualified, teams getting picked jsut b/c they have done well in the past and so on...

I dunno...
I wish people would just become more accepting.

[Madison]

Originally posted by Meli W.
Actually, I think M's point is being misanswered. M asked about examples of this and what as a community we should do.

I've seen it many times - such as driver's being chosen just b/c they are seniors when others were better qualified, teams getting picked jsut b/c they have done well in the past and so on...

I dunno...
I wish people would just become more accepting.

Perhaps I didn't structure my question well. Perhaps I made a few poor assumptions about how people felt about discrimination. I'm not sure.

There are many common forms of discrimination. They're so common, in fact, that our society needs to enforce laws that prohibit them and penalize people for exercising such discrimination. Age, race, sex, gender, orientation, religion, disability; or someone's perception of these characteristics are all common causes for discrimination.

I should also be clear that I understand the difference between making an informed decision that's based on some level of merit versus passing judgement based on stereotypes and accepted behavior. I know that this is a difficult question, as well, but I have been impressed by peoples' responses to difficult subjects in the past.

So, to elaborate further, where do we draw the line where discrimination is concerned? If the KKK wanted to bring FIRST to two dozen white children in Mississippi, but would only do so by the conscious exemption of black children, is that acceptable? If a church sponsored a team but excluded Buddhists? If a Boy Scout troop sponsored a team but excluded gays and women? In each of these examples, there doesn't seem to be any logical reason to exclude another group based on their ability and potential to accomplish the same things and benefit in the same ways as any others.

I understand that we, as a culture, and as individuals, cannot cater to the needs and desires of every individual, everywhere, all at the same time. To even attempt to do would drive us all insane. I understand that our beliefs and opinions are formed by our experiences. I understand that we're each entitled to form and hold opinions and that we're each, at some level, obligated to tolerate the opinions of others.

What I can't yet grasp, however, is where we draw the line.

[ZACH P.]

Originally posted by M. Krass
Perhaps I didn't structure my question well. Perhaps I made a few poor assumptions about how people felt about discrimination. I'm not sure.

There are many common forms of discrimination. They're so common, in fact, that our society needs to enforce laws that prohibit them and penalize people for exercising such discrimination. Age, race, sex, gender, orientation, religion, disability; or someone's perception of these characteristics are all common causes for discrimination.

I should also be clear that I understand the difference between making an informed decision that's based on some level of merit versus passing judgement based on stereotypes and accepted behavior. I know that this is a difficult question, as well, but I have been impressed by peoples' responses to difficult subjects in the past.

So, to elaborate further, where do we draw the line where discrimination is concerned? If the KKK wanted to bring FIRST to two dozen white children in Mississippi, but would only do so by the conscious exemption of black children, is that acceptable? If a church sponsored a team but excluded Buddhists? If a Boy Scout troop sponsored a team but excluded gays and women? In each of these examples, there doesn't seem to be any logical reason to exclude another group based on their ability and potential to accomplish the same things and benefit in the same ways as any others.

I understand that we, as a culture, and as individuals, cannot cater to the needs and desires of every individual, everywhere, all at the same time. To even attempt to do would drive us all insane. I understand that our beliefs and opinions are formed by our experiences. I understand that we're each entitled to form and hold opinions and that we're each, at some level, obligated to tolerate the opinions of others.

What I can't yet grasp, however, is where we draw the line.

You must understand that it is human nature to compete, and a way of competing is discrimination. If we make such extreme laws against such things we have gone to far. Discrimination is so ingrained in our lives and characters that it is impossible to eliminate most of it with out extremely limiting laws. You cannot makes laws to control all aspects of our life like that. When that happens we stop being a democratic republic, and start being some sort of dictatorship. Ever read Fahrenheit 451? The best that we can do is to not accept such actions in anyway, and to apply the laws that we currently have to such situations.

Those are my feelings.

[Yan Wang]

Discrimination occurs differently per person... you may try to coax them to do something but in the end it's always that person's free will.

I haven't seen that much discrimination in FIRST... on our team, one of the mentors (not mentioning gender) seemed to have a problem with Steve and I sometimes getting frustrated at people who screwed things up... well, we mentioned it to the person that screwed up regardless of who was doing it, we'd get frustrated; just because it happened to be a larger percentage of girls was not our fault. That in itself is not supposed to be a sexist remark. What I feel like pointing out is that sometimes descrimination will be used against someone. In this case, a mentor seemed to think that we were being sexist even though it was more of "screwingupist". Another example, even though I'm part of a minority, I think affirmative action is a pos because it gives unequal oppurtunity. In fact, I'd rather agree with the Bush administration's stand on it; base grants/scholarships on family income and not genitalia or race.

[Josh Hambright]

Okay so going back to what Mike said about being tall. I dont know if one of my experiences would fall into discrimination since discrimination has a negative conotation that goes along with it and my experience wasn't a negative one. But 2 years ago at Sweet Repeat i was chosen by my team to be human player for 2 reasons. 1> I am tall 2> I knew the game and we didn't have alot of experienced people going with us. Basicly when we got to competition it was my first time ever being down on the field and it was a little scary. At first i didn't know what to do but all of the other coaches and human players assumed because i was big they assumed i knew how to play human player and that i had done it before. I ended up being human player in every single match that day including during the finals when we won. Basicly because i was tall and it was easy for me to load over the top of the wall.

Further then that i know i have experienced discrimination because i am A>Big, funny looking, and have strange hair. B> i'm a high school student C>On a team that isn't really known for being that good at the robots side of things. I know that often times when i talk to members of other teams they automaticly make judgements on me because the assume that i dont really know what i'm talking about. Also people often judge my team, partialy i think because we have a midrange number and partialy because we have never had that great of robots. People assume when i go up and start talking strategy that they have it all figured out and that i dont know what i'm talking about. Or when i talk to engineers and I must not have any idea what i'm talking about because i'm merely a high school student.

Further i think there has been in the past alot of discrimination against rookie teams. This years game really allowed the rookies to shine and to be just as good as the double diget teams tend to be. Team number needs to not be a way of judging teams. Team numbers are merely there to make identification and administrative tasks easier but no team should be judge by the number that they were assigned.

Umm so yah there is my rant about this topic.

As far as fixing it, i think that just showing everyone respect is often the best way to avoid discrimination. I try not to judge anyone until i have atleast talked to them, first impressions are more often then not decieving.

there is my 2 cents.

[Mike Schroeder]

Originally posted by oneangrydwarf
I try not to judge anyone until i have atleast talked to them, first impressions are more often then not decieving.

there is my 2 cents. That is awsome, more people need to do that, not only in FIRST, but in the world as well

[Christina]

Originally posted by M. Krass

So, to elaborate further, where do we draw the line where discrimination is concerned? If the KKK wanted to bring FIRST to two dozen white children in Mississippi, but would only do so by the conscious exemption of black children, is that acceptable? If a church sponsored a team but excluded Buddhists? If a Boy Scout troop sponsored a team but excluded gays and women? In each of these examples, there doesn't seem to be any logical reason to exclude another group based on their ability and potential to accomplish the same things and benefit in the same ways as any others.


Alright, if the KKK wanted to have a FIRST team that discriminated against black children, even though it wouldn't be something I necessarily agreed with, it is their money and they can choose to do whatever they want with it. Would it be fair to those 2 dozen white children to take away their chance at a FIRST team? Same thing with all those other examples you listed. It is their money, and their choice to spend it as they please.

Look at scholarships. There are scholarships that are based on gender and race, even sexuality, which aren't viewed as "wrong." But, really, what's the difference? You are then discriminating against people who aren't eligible.

I'm not saying that discrimination is right, but it does happen. There is definitely a very fine line and it's not always easy to see. Just remember though, discrimination works both ways.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by Meli W.
I've seen it many times - such as driver's being chosen just b/c they are seniors when others were better qualified,

We just had a similar issue. Voting for captains. Some wanted a certain student cuz he was going to be a senior. Was he at a lot of meetings/exhibits/fundraisers all year? No. Did he lead others and teach them? No. Is he available by email since a lot of team communication is thru that medium? No.

Some didn't want an incoming soph to be president. Was she at a lot of meetings/exhibits/fundraisers all year? yes. Does she work on the team? Yes, she's the welder. Can she organize people, write, work with team members, with mentors, is she responsive by email? Yes.

[Lisa Rodriguez]

discrimination is a very hard thing to deal with and is sometimes and unspoken problem on my team
One of our team mentors thinks that the drive team should be an equal representation of the team rather than the people best qualified for the job. Because our team goes from urban to suburban to rural towns, there is a great mix of culture, so therefore making an equal representation is hard. What this mentor has often done is chosen the drive team without consulting the team members at all [which had been done in the past] Bascially he put one caucaisian boy, one african american boy, one hispanic boy and one girl, now I would see no problem with this drive team if I knew that they were the best people for the job, but they were not, drivers were put on the "b" team because of their race or sex, which was very wrong, and does not give us the best representation on the field.
No one has ever approached our mentor because he is the team leader, and he doesn't always listen anyway, but opinions have been expressed to various adults and they are trying to talk to our mentor
also a minor discrimination problem, seniors
now i love seniors, and I am friends with every single one of them that is on our team, but them being picked over better underclassmen or making decisions that affect the drive team without consulting the team or adult is a problem, and example of this is last yeat [2001] when I tried to become a human player and my brother [a senior at the time and the arm driver] decided that he didn't want me on the drive team because me being on stage somehow made him angrier and less able to control himself, even though I never even spoke to him when we were up there. a LARGELY unfair situation that honestly, no one on my team did anything about, most due to the fact that my brother was worshiped as a god [why, i will never know]

[srawls]

Originally posted by Keiko173
discrimination is a very hard thing to deal with and is sometimes and unspoken problem on my team
One of our team mentors thinks that the drive team should be an equal representation of the team rather than the people best qualified for the job. Because our team goes from urban to suburban to rural towns, there is a great mix of culture, so therefore making an equal representation is hard. What this mentor has often done is chosen the drive team without consulting the team members at all [which had been done in the past]

Wow ... you just described exactly what happened on our team this year. We have people from the governer's school (a magnet school for gifted kids), the Vocation Technical school (for kids in classes like welding, autobody, etc), and Point Options (a "last chance" type school for would-be drop outs). Our team leader felt it would only be fair if we had each one of the "factions" represented on the drive team. This caused a LARGE rift during the build season (oh yeah ... we decided the drive team at the last minute). I do feel this has been debated and talked about suffuiciently on our team, such that another debacle will not happen next year.

Speaking about factions, last year our teachers accused the people on our team of discriminating against the different schools, and being exclusionary. Part of it is natural ... I am a programmer, so I am around programmers/eletrical people all year, so I tend to hang out with those kids, just because I know them better. It's not that I have anything against another student just because he goes to a VoTech school, it's just that by circumstance, I'm not around him a lot. I do act friendly at competitions and such (well ... I am a shy person, so this is a relative term I suppose), but my teacher complained that afterwards, when us kids would go out to have fun, we would form groups ("factions"), and exclude other groups, completely based on which school a student goes to. Now, I know this sounds a lot like typical high school elitism, forming cliques of friends and assuming a role of social dominance, but our mentor's accusations were really unfounded. Any result was not due to active discrimination on our part, but by circumstance. This year, for instance, a few of the VoTech kids went to a lot of our parties and such (the kids on our team like to throw robotics parties, where we invite everyone on our team to just have fun). We became friends, and the issue of school never really came up. Of course, our teacher still accused us of exclusionary practices (*sigh*).

To answer the question ... discrimination can rear its ugly head in many circumstances. In our team we never really noticed it until our teacher attempted to "set things right" by discriminating himself. In our situation at least, the teachers are making a mountain out of a molehill, because I know the kids don't take what school someone goes to into consideration when making friends. In other circumstances, though, I suppose it can be a serious problem, which must be fought and countered if the discriminated person wishes to continue to participate in his team.

Stephen

[Wetzel]

Originally posted by Christina
Alright, if the KKK wanted to have a FIRST team that discriminated against black children, even though it wouldn't be something I necessarily agreed with, it is their money and they can choose to do whatever they want with it. Would it be fair to those 2 dozen white children to take away their chance at a FIRST team? Same thing with all those other examples you listed. It is their money, and their choice to spend it as they please.

Look at scholarships. There are scholarships that are based on gender and race, even sexuality, which aren't viewed as "wrong." But, really, what's the difference? You are then discriminating against people who aren't eligible.

I'm not saying that discrimination is right, but it does happen. There is definitely a very fine line and it's not always easy to see. Just remember though, discrimination works both ways.

And FIRST is its own competition, and can choose not to accept certain values. FIRST is more about the INSPIRATION then the robot, the robot is merely the medium for the inspiration. Now, you have 2 dozen kids with mentors that express the views of the KKK. That is not how FIRST is trying to inspire students.

It is their money, and I invite them to spend it elsewhere.


As to discrimination, I havn't seen that so much as favoritism. While not setting out to discriminate, it does so when the captain picks his friends for things, the seniors get the leadership positions. This happens all the time in business, and seems to be an accepted practice. Its all in who you know. It is the realization of this that has changed my opposition on gender/race specific scholarships from disagreement and opposing, to just disagreement.


Wetzel

[Madison]

Originally posted by Wetzel
And FIRST is its own competition, and can choose not to accept certain values.

Can it? Currently, it is at a team's discretion to determine who participates on the team and how they participate. There are teams that accept anyone who wanders in, there are teams that only accept students from the sponsoring school, and there are teams that have implemented an application process to screen students.

FIRST has no mandates regarding how teams should use this discretion. Furthermore, do teams participating in FIRST have any legal affiliation with FIRST, the organization? If FIRST says, "Each team must be composed of equal parts males and females," are teams legally obligated to comply? If they aren't, can FIRST impose penalities against those teams?

FIRST's goals for growth are going to lead them into new territory. Particularly, as we garner more media attention and scrutiny, the practices and policies of the organization and its teams may come under attack.

Already, the 'family' feeling that many of us have experienced in the past is diminishing. Soon, it will disappear. I'm really curious to see how FIRST will adapt to that change, as well as how we, as participants, will adapt.

It seems inevitable that FIRST will have to mandate against discriminatory practices in the future. Right now, FIRST exercises no control over the 'inspiration' we're providing to our students. They're relying on good will and good faith in the mentors to do the right thing. It's noble, really, and it's worked amazingly well so far. Unfortunately, I don't if it's good enough for the "real world" of public scrutiny. ...and, as FIRST grows and gathers more attention, it's increasingly more likely that one of these "rogue" groups, like the KKK, may enter into the equation.

It'll be interesting to see how things play out when controversy finally comes to FIRST. Not all publicity is good publicity.

[Erin Rapacki]

I am a female and heavily involved in FIRST, but I bearly touch the robot during build season. Just because of my personality and nature, I enjoy the organizing, spirit, awards, fundraising, and other "people aspects" of a FIRST team... and sometimes I consider myself exemplifying the "FIRST female stereotype."

(Nowadays I do everything but the actual designing and building on the robot... but it isn't uncommon to see me in the machine shop helping out. But if you think about it, I give the people who DO build the robot a big advantage because then they don't have to worry about such things. You can't have one group without the other.)

My point, we all would like to see more girls designing, testing, and machining on FIRST teams, and girls are not uncapable of doing such things... but the in most cases the interest just isn't there.

Unfortunately, females in the world today are mostely raised to do 'girly' things. I wouldn't say that it's because of discrimination that there are not many girls are on FIRST teams, if a girl came to a team and told them that she was interested in the robot or already had skills... I'm sure the team would be more than happy to accept them.

It's only when the mentors know they're qualified and still refuse to let them show off their skills that I'd call it discrimination.

I believe that unless there is a drastic change in the American culture, there will NEVER be a 50/50 ratio between guys and girls on FIRST teams. The only way that there could be is to reverse descriminate against guys... which is also wrong.

Ok, so I've just babbled for a little while too long... last year I tried to get my sister to join FIRST, and I learned that it's IMPOSSIBLE to drag anyone on a team unless they have a personal interest in doing robotics.

There are many things that girls can do on a team, it's just unfortunate that most of them won't want to build the robot.

That's the fact... accept it
(But congradulations to all the girls out there who break the stereotype! Keep spreading the word and the enthusiasm of being techy's... and maybe a culture change will occur someday)


ByE

erin

p.s. I'm not completely mechanically inept... I am doing well as a Mechanical Engineering student. I just agree with the more experienced guys on my team that they have the better ideas when it comes to building robots... lol

[Josh Hambright]

Okay so i was thinking about this and what if a team had a minimum GPA that all students had to have to keep on the team. Is this discrimination against students who dont perform as well in school or this just a 'standard'?

What do you guys think?

[Erin Rapacki]

I think its perfectly legitamate for a team to require a certain GPA, as long as it isn't so rediculously high that only 'honors' students are allowed to participate on the team

however, some teams have interviews and cuts anyway where GPAs might be a factor... that's similar to trying to qualify for any sports team in school

Obviously if a kid is failing, has a really low GPA, and is on a FIRST team... perhaps they should spend more time on homework than in the machine shop (school is more important), and FIRST could be a motivation for them to keep their grades up

so yes... requiring a certain GPA, I feel, should not be considered discrimination. Teams could even tutor fellow students and help them get their grades up, so that those students may participate in robotics the following year


ByE

erin

p.s. A situation where it is discrimination is if you have a team of say... 30 students, and only 18 can travel to nationals, and you pick the 18 students with the highest GPA instead of the students who were the most enthusiastic and active in building the robot... that would be wrong

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by oneangrydwarf
Okay so i was thinking about this and what if a team had a minimum GPA that all students had to have to keep on the team. Is this discrimination against students who dont perform as well in school or this just a 'standard'?


Brings up memories. The RUHS VP insisted 3.0 was the "standard", and he sometimes threatened to kick off the team those that didn't measure up. Then a mentor happened to be at the school meeting where the MCHS teacher applied for funds for our team. The description said the team was open to all kids regardless of GPA. I was happy to use that description instead.

We wondered why on other teams a 2.0 was the standard for whether kids could miss school and go to games, but the VP was trying to say 3.0. A more reasonable administrator agreed, it's 2.0 .

For the VP, I don't think it was so much discrimination as much as that if the kids all had 3.0 then no teachers could argue with him about the time the kids were spending in robotics.

[Amanda Morrison]

Originally posted by Redhead Jokes
We wondered why on other teams a 2.0 was the standard for whether kids could miss school and go to games, but the VP was trying to say 3.0.

In that case, I would have never been allowed into FIRST.

Where would I be now? :confused:

I think this is a perfect example of discrimination in FIRST. Who should say a kid is 'too dumb' to be in FIRST based on what their GPA is?

Just because our championship field is named Einstein doesn't mean that every kid in FIRST is a genius. They don't have to be. That's what FIRST is for.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by Amanda Morrison
I think this is a perfect example of discrimination in FIRST. Who should say a kid is 'too dumb' to be in FIRST based on what their GPA is?


I think it was Chatsworth who had a special ed kid who was such a valuable member - mechanical.

[Wetzel]

Most sports teams require a 2.0 GPA for eligibility.
The January/February grade dip is also now hurting the team. The lead teacher for the past 5 years has burned out and is stepping down. The annual grade dip is part of the reason some teachers have declined becoming the lead teacher. (The fact that Tripp burned out dosn't help much either).

The reasoning goes like this. School is for learning certain things, and grades are the standard for how well you are learning the certain things. If you are not demonstrating this with good grades, you are not doing what you are supposed to.
GPA isn't even a measure of intelligence, although that figures into it. Your GPA is more a measure of your effort and work ethic. In the real world, if you don't meet at least the average expectations, you are often fired.

What I've heard from 116 is requiring a 2.5 current GPA to go on any of the trips. I think this, while unpopular with the students, is perfectly valid and not discriminatory. If you are failing school, maybe you shouldn't be missing school to goto a competition or spending 8 hrs a day working on the robot, but spending some time doing homework or studding.


Wetzel

[Josh Hambright]

It would be fun to graph a teams grades throughout the season. I know on my team atleast we have good grades first semester but by the time second semester and build season rolls around our grades all usualy dip but by the time the end of the year rolls around they are right back up again.

Unfortunately this year the first week of the build season matched up perfectly with our week of finals, which really sucked!

[Jeff Waegelin]

Well, I know a certain team member of mine (who will remain unnamed, though you all know him) is getting a rather-less-than-average grade in one of his classes, right now, because of Houston... hehe... waiting for him to kill me now...

Our driver from last year used to always have that problem, too... he was taking college classes in the evening, and would always skip them for robotics, then wonder why he was failing. I guess I'm one to talk, though, given that I got 23% on my second Linear Algebra test at OU. It was the week after the robot ship, for heaven's sake... what was I supposed to do? Go to class, or build a robot?

[Tully]

Originally posted by Erin Rapacki
It's only when the mentors know they're qualified and still refuse to let them show off their skills that I'd call it discrimination.
I'm an animator and I don't work on the 'bot. I'm a girl. I'm also a freshman,
To me, none of these things ever really came up, in my mind at least, as being different. My team members treated me the same as everyone else.
However, I realize, more so in hindsight, that this season I was slightly descriminated against. What am I gonna do about it? I can't change how people feel about something by putting them on the spot or explaining it to them. Sometimes words just aren't enough.
I chose to work harder, make sure I mastered 3dsmax for next year so that I can be more assertive and make sure I'm allowed to work. Sort of proving them wrong.

Also, our team had quite an issue ((which I'm really not going to get into)) before nationals and it occured to me that I had not seen any discrimination from the students this year. The mentors ((not all)) were a different story. I noticed some discrimination against students and other mentors and one mentor even brought it up as an issue when it wasn't there. The way it was brought up made me realize that if the mentors teach us that that's the way everything's going to be in the "real world" then that's how it's going to be because we are the next generation and it's up us how it's going to be.

Well, that's my opinion. I'd like to note that my team members and mentors, in my opinion, are so awesome even if we have our issues. I believe that's the main reason why we won our Regional Inspiring Engineering Award. ^.^

((Does any of that rant make sense??))

EDIT: spelling and tyops

[Marygrace]

Originally posted by Erin Rapacki
I am a female and heavily involved in FIRST, but I bearly touch the robot during build season. Just because of my personality and nature, I enjoy the organizing, spirit, awards, fundraising, and other "people aspects" of a FIRST team... and sometimes I consider myself exemplifying the "FIRST female stereotype."

(Nowadays I do everything but the actual designing and building on the robot... but it isn't uncommon to see me in the machine shop helping out. But if you think about it, I give the people who DO build the robot a big advantage because then they don't have to worry about such things. You can't have one group without the other.)

My point, we all would like to see more girls designing, testing, and machining on FIRST teams, and girls are not uncapable of doing such things... but the in most cases the interest just isn't there.

Unfortunately, females in the world today are mostely raised to do 'girly' things. I wouldn't say that it's because of discrimination that there are not many girls are on FIRST teams, if a girl came to a team and told them that she was interested in the robot or already had skills... I'm sure the team would be more than happy to accept them.

It's only when the mentors know they're qualified and still refuse to let them show off their skills that I'd call it discrimination.

I believe that unless there is a drastic change in the American culture, there will NEVER be a 50/50 ratio between guys and girls on FIRST teams. The only way that there could be is to reverse descriminate against guys... which is also wrong.

Ok, so I've just babbled for a little while too long... last year I tried to get my sister to join FIRST, and I learned that it's IMPOSSIBLE to drag anyone on a team unless they have a personal interest in doing robotics.

There are many things that girls can do on a team, it's just unfortunate that most of them won't want to build the robot.

That's the fact... accept it
(But congradulations to all the girls out there who break the stereotype! Keep spreading the word and the enthusiasm of being techy's... and maybe a culture change will occur someday)


ByE

erin

p.s. I'm not completely mechanically inept... I am doing well as a Mechanical Engineering student. I just agree with the more experienced guys on my team that they have the better ideas when it comes to building robots... lol

Yeah, we debated about that in this thread (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=20174) .

Personally, I am against discrimination. (Ok, that was stupid, everyone is, LOL) Coming from a family that has gone through a lot of it, i know the effects of it. Our team doesn't really expirience that much direct discrimination. It is just assumed that a friend of mine and I can't do a lot of stuff because we are the "Blonde Ditses: of the club. We like to laugh and mess around alot, ok, all of the time. But give us something to do and show us how to do it, and we get it done. I admit i do not know that much about the function of the robot, but that is because i spent most of my time welding the frame. Even though i was voted to be Captain this year i still get some, whats the word....criticism. Some one even came up to me and told me the only reason that i won the "election" I guess you could call it, was because of my mom. |Granted, my mom is one of the mentors in charge, there were ten other people there that voted. I worked my butt off welding that robot. They changed the design three times and we had to do tose over a couple of times because someone did the measurements wrong. (I am not pointoing fingers or anything), and at one point i broke down into tears, and still, i get discrimnated against. I think that the only thing that can solve this problem is by learning to step into another person's shoes. I know, everyone has heard this saying, but it really needs to be taken seriously.

I don't think i really answered the question, but those are my thoughts.

[Mercutio]

just some random observations:

to date, my team has only had two human players who played more than one or two matches, and both of them are girls. no idea why.

a canadian team won last year's FIRST regional in Grand Rapids.

many of the teams i've seen are either mostly black or mostly white... there are few even mixtures. i've only been to in-state regionals, tho, so maybe it's just in my area.

if you put all of us together, my team this year is fluent in five different languages, speaks two others, and understands about eight more.

and here's something i found on google (http://www.muziqpakistan.com/board/read.php?TID=4642).

i am the king of irrelevancy!

[Elgin Clock]

Wow... You always go for the hard hitting questions don't you?

:)

Now for my answer, I do believe discrimination is wrong.
I also feel that this country in whole, as well as FIRST are making strides to correct this.

BUT, I feel it is being done in the wrong ways.

Case in point: This year in a certain regional one team was followed around the whole regional by the media who were attending the event just because, I believe, that they were an all girl team.

Now I believe that an all girl team is just as qualified to be in FIRST as an all boy team or an all black team, or an all white team, or even a mixed team.

BUT, is the way to change the old ways to just all at once emphasize the new?

I heard from a girl on my team that a member of the media came up to her and asker her flat out, "Are you a member of the all girl team?", and when she said no, they said, "Oh, OK", shrugged her off, and kept walking.

Like I said, I have no problem with an all girls competing, but when the main thing that got the media to attend was the inclusion of an all girls team, well then that is wrong.

Also, I personally felt like they got an award from the judges just because they were an all girls team as well.

Also, this year at the Kickoff, FIRST was guilty of this "rapid non-discriminating turn around" as well. The round table discussion this year featured two team members who came from an inner city gang, and were transformed by their involvement in FIRST.
I THINK THIS IS WONDERFUL!! But as I said before, why the rapid change in who is in the spotlight?

I know I might be biased because of the fact that I am the typical all-american white male, but this is just my opinion.

Discrimination is a two way street.
The words discrimination and minority does not only refer to blacks or women, but all races, creeds, sexes, and nationalities.

So even I as a typical all-american white male can be discriminated against, and considered the minority.