Quote:
Originally Posted by sean-from-5113
Imagine hearing all your friends giggling in their hotel rooms while you are alone and lying awake. No one on the team wanted me to room by myself, my mentors didn't want me by myself, but at the end of the day, the school administration decided for me. I wasn't told about my rooming situation until the day of.
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This - this, my friends, is the reason that these issues have to be discussed. I remember when I received a call from a parent who had a student that was trying to understand their sexuality.
"Is it ok that they stay in a room with someone of their same gender - especially if they are attracted to them?"
This question, asked by a parent trying to understand their own child, is only the beginning.
I have had students on my team from a large spectrum of the LGBT+ community, from the student seeking to understand their gender to students who had been gay for years. There is one thing that they have in common - they all have experienced some form of discrimination, bullying, or prejudice. They have had to suffer under ignorance and fear. They have had to hear their lifestyle choice used as an obscenity or as a description of something that is 'stupid' or 'wrong'.
FIRST is NOT just about robotics. It is about the growth of leaders - of Gracious Professionals that understand how to deal with differences with grace and with a lack of ignorance. It is to expand on the idea that everyone should have a superhero in STEM; someone that they can look to and say "There is someone who is like me and is successful." It is not an organization that avoids issues but one that should run to them because the best innovation happens when there is clarity, transparency, and understanding.
Whether it is by blog or by talking among our own teams, I think it is incumbent on FIRST teams as incubators of innovation and designers of leaders to help create people who can adapt to social changes with understanding and skill.
After all, when any student is isolated because of a difference - because of race, gender, social beliefs, or ideological concepts - we all lose.
Thanks.
Daniel.