Quote:
Originally Posted by Nawaid Ladak
Thats understandable, but when you lose mentor support/school sponsor support, thats a whole different thing, FIRST needs to make this appealing to schoolteachers and make it worthwhile for the teachers to stay after their scheduled hours. A lot of teams fold because of funding, or a ridiculusly high percentage of their kids are graduated the previous year. or just overall support for the program has donwhill.
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It isn't FIRST's job to make this appealing enough to school teachers. It is the job of teams to communicate the value of FIRST programs to policy makers including the general public that this is an important program.
Teams should help policy makers and educators learn how to embrace FIRST programs as a critical co-cirricular activity that reinforces classroom learning. Far too often the educational establishment view robotics as a "club' and not as a serious adjunct to learning.
At this past Championship the message was clearly stated. Corporations, Foundations, students and volunteers have donated an enormous sum of money and effort to promote STEM education. This group has voted with their time and money. This vote serves as a clear statement of dissatisfaction of the methods of how STEM education is currently taught.
Institutions do not like to be told they are wrong. They have to go through the Kubla-Ross stages of grief as they process this information. If FIRST'ers persist these institutions will eventually get the message and you will be able to ask them to build into their structures proper teacher stipends and other support resources.
Transforming the public culture and attitudes, including the institutional attitude is precisely the goal of FIRST.