[Deetman]

Originally Posted by rcmolloy

Al,

I just wanted to hit on this quote. Even though I do believe that the country does not pay enough attention to our education, I know that the apathetic ideas that are in many of American students it a leading factor.

For some, their will and want to learn is just non-existent. The only thing that they care about is something that may unproductive or impractical for the future. It can happen but it is completely difficult to motivate millions of kids. FIRST will do it some day but American society needs to jump on board.

I think one of the big problems today is that there is not one big, public, "cool" engineering feat that the country as a whole is united behind and inspired by like the space program was. I don't think anyone could deny that the space program inspired an entire generation of students.

That is not to say that there aren't any important problems to be solved today, in fact I'd argue that the problems needing solved today are more important. The difficulty is that there isn't a unified front exposing the public to these problems and treating them as "cool". FIRST is making an effort to do this as are other programs, but there is still work to do.