Quote:
Originally Posted by ttldomination
I'm curious about how you would reply to people who would say that this method fails to engage students at a higher level? That is to say that if a mentor is managing the big picture, it robs students from getting a chance to weigh into major decisions.
For some teams that operate on the principal of "student built; student designed," the aforementioned structure seems to challenge the very foundations of some teams.
- Sunny G.
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We very firmly believe in being a student run, student built team (in fact, it's our motto). In the years where we've performed very well (2007, 2008, 2010), we've had one person who filled that role. They just happened to be a student.
I don't deny that having a mentor be the "team tsar" detracts from student involvement and learning, but on some teams it's part of their culture. Frankly, I hardly find it surprising that high performing teams tend to have a mentor fill this role. It's extremely hard to find a student with enough dedication, let alone experience and political ability, to fill that role in a way a mentor could. If winning is a high team priority, a mentor almost needs to fill that role. (Now, before to all jump down my throat, winning isn't a bad goal...)