[JesseK]

My whole attitude towards the kickoff speech is "eh, he still doesn't understand the nation's true problem". If Dean would ever speak and truly listen to teachers who aren't in FIRST, he'd have a different perspective I think.

Sport & the arts aren't our nation's problem. Our nation's problem is parenting complacency: parents seem to expect schools to teach their kids work ethic. I state this not from a FIRST perspective, but from a perspective of a guy who has had 7 roomates in the past who are (or were for a few years) elementary or middle school teachers. Parents need to teach (constantly, all the time) their kids that the only way for 99% of people to get what they want in this nation is to work hard at whatever they want to do. It's been that way for 100's of years.

Even so, FIRST is still the best organization that can take kids with existing interest/motivation and turn them into better problem solvers.