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Originally posted by seanwitte
Dave didn't say that it IS an elite organization, just that when it started it was INTENDED to be. All he did was point out that the statement:
Ackkk that was never the original intent of the program. It's intention was to get the people who would have never really had a chance to participate and get interested in science and technology.
is incorrect. Maybe thats the the situation now, but apparently that wasn't how it started.
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Thank you! It is nice to know that someone actually
read my post before firing off a response!
Before anyone quickly jumps on the "Dave's wrong" or the "I agree with Dave" bandwagons, they should probably make sure that they know what my position is. I have been very careful not to articulate whether I agreed or disagreed with the past FIRST intent, or whether I agree or disagree with the current approach. When composing that post, I was very careful to make sure that it did only two things: provide a little history on some of the philosophies that FIRST used to have, and ask a few pointed questions about the implications of those philosophies.
Those questions are asked for a very simple reason - to see if you have thought about the "why" and "how" of what we and FIRST are doing. These are hard questions - they are supposed to be, and they are supposed to make you think.
Have you really thought about who this program is intended to reach? Are you satisfied with what you perceive to be the answer to that question? If you agree with it, have you actively supported the growth of that target audience? If you disagree, have you actively tried to change it? In other words, have you become a participant in defining what FIRST is about? Or are you just going with the flow, and accepting the baseline philosophies of your team, your school, or FIRST, without really thinking about how well they match/don't match what YOU believe?
Can you provide a well thought out answer to these questions, without resorting to a politically correct, knee-jerk reaction:
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Isn't having something where you have to earn your way on to a team by being smart a good thing? Why is it OK to be "elitist" when we select people to be on a team to hit rocks with sticks, but not OK when we try to reach the special group of students that embody the intellectual capital that will define the future of this country?
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Note that I am NOT saying which answer is "right" or "wrong" - that is not my role, nor is it within my authority. But I do know that if you haven't really thought about this question, then you are unprepared to really understand and defend - or understand and change - this program that you all profess to support so much.
-dave
p.s. KenLeung - whether you recognize it or not, I do consider you part of the "special group of students that embody the intellectual capital that will define the future of this country." Being part of this group has almost nothing to do with how many times "A+" shows up on a report card. It has an enormous amount to do with how hard you are willing to work, how well you can take lessons learned and apply them to new problems, how long you will chew at a problem until it is solved, whether you are self-motivated enough to do a job without hand-holding, your leadership skills, perseverance, ability to decompose a problem back to first principles, and a lot of other poorly-quantified attributes. These are abilities that I have seen you - and many, many other people in FIRST - demonstrate. And I would posit that the people that can do this ARE part of an "elite" group.