Quote:
Originally Posted by Cody Carey
Mr. Lavery... I'm not sure I understand at all. Your first statement points out that you were the one to make the comments, and suggests that "Molten" was in the wrong for suggesting that it was Dean, but the last statement leads me to believe that you expressed just that: yourself, Dean, and Woody are all in full agreement on the subject.
I believe that any person who states that any specific non-extreme team composition is or is not truly in the spirit of FIRST is, himself, missing the point. I will hold fast to my statement regardless of what that person has done or who he is... Everyone needs to be able to take a step back and examine everything that they say impartially. To do otherwise is bullheaded.
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OK, jumping back into the fray here, albeit some of the discussion may have become OBE (and as a side note, I will note how refreshing and mind-cleansing taking a break from the forums and all things robotics for two weeks can be). Cody, setting aside any value judgements on just exactly how bullheaded I may or may not be (and trust me, you have absolutely no idea...) I would ask that you go back and read my post again. I made one correction and a request. So as not to unfairly put words or blame into Dean's mouth, I corrected the earlier statement regarding the source of the quote (and I note that the statement was made by Michael Schreiber, not Jason as you indicated). I then requested that Jason thoroughly research his interpretation of my quote, so that he might understand exactly what I said and our discussion could progress from there. My statements during the kick-off presentations had to do with the specific issue of teams that choose to participate in FRC without the incorporation of adult mentors on their teams. I stand by those statements, I agree with them, and I believe that they fully support the vision and focus of FIRST. If we were going to discuss those issues, then I wanted to be sure we were starting from the same context.
The need for that is made obvious by the remainder of your post. I was referencing the role of the adult mentors on a team. Your post argues for the role of an adult coach on a team. While one person may fulfill both roles, they are not the same thing. Whether or not a team utilizes an adult or a student as a coach during the game is, to me, a minor issue. The rules issued by FIRST clearly permit the team to make their own choice in this regard. So I don't see it as even worth debating. The utilization of an adult mentor on the team, on the other hand, is one of the fundamental tenets of FIRST. If a team chooses to do without adult mentorship of the team, then I believe they are choosing to miss out on one of the truly significant benefits of FIRST, and the principal reason to participate in this program versus almost any of the many other robotics competition programs out there.
To put it simply: An adult coach impacts a team for two minutes. An adult mentor impacts a team for a lifetime.
-dave
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