Quote:
Originally Posted by Karthik
Ed's post should be required reading for everyone. The word "fair" gets tossed around far too often, both in FIRST and outside of it, without being fully understood.
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Absolutely. I know people who think that FIRST itself in unfair. They know FIRST students who do better in math and science than other students who spend their spare time playing video games. Even if those other students did all the assigned homework! Is that fair? What about being able to put their FIRST experience on a resume, or apply their learning to real world problems? And beyond FIRST itself is it really fair to take a special class that helps you study for an SAT when others can't afford it? Of course it is a bit unfair, but it does not, and should not, stop us from helping these students learn even if it is a bit unfair to those we can't reach.
Lets all try hard not to break the real rules. Lets embrace gracious professionalization. But at the same time lets make sure that students with ambition and talent get the most opportunity we can give them to build, practice, and learn. Goodness knows that the real world will not be worrying about what is fair to them when the time comes for them to face it.