[Bharat Nain]

I’ll dive in. Thank you for bringing up such an important topic Jane. I
am glad everyone acknowledges that success has different meanings
for everyone and misusing concepts like “Gracious Professionalism”
and “We’re all winners” is not the right thing to do. I find these to
be very important because 4 years of participating in FIRST in your
early teens can severely shape your ideas to lead you to either
success with correct concepts of failure with fluffy concepts.

FIRST is a “microcosm of the real engineering experience” a famous
educator once said (Woodie Flowers). This program has certain “key
values” which I have always felt were overused and abused by the
majority. Couple years ago it would almost be taboo to say that “Gracious
Professionalism” is not what FIRST is governed by and the bitter truth is it
takes a little more than words to actually be winners. This is because
nobody wants to think of themselves as losers regardless of whether they
worked hard and failed or did not even try. This is also regardless of
whether they know what it takes to win. Obviously, there is a difference
between teams who seem to consistently product wins (even if it is
different areas of FIRST) year and after and those who don’t. In my years
in FIRST, I have noticed some teams “feel” that they should automatically
“win” because they are “winners” because they are “told so”. When that
does not happen, they turn bitter and express resentment towards teams
who do win. This only serves to hurt the self-image of the students (and
maybe mentors) on the team. The lesson there is wins don’t always come
easy.

On the other hand, some teams use questionable means to achieve a win. I
have seen this. In the end, however, this only hurts the team who “won”
because they did not really “win”. This only taught the students that it is
ok to use cheat. This also hurts their self-image.


And then there are obviously teams who will work to excel in every area of
their team. This is the type of team every team strives to be, as it should
be. I think it is important to learn from these teams as this is what “truly
makes us all winners”. As many of you have rightly pointed out earlier in
this thread that there is a lot of “win” in the learning process itself.


It is important to realize that not all of us have the resources and
opportunity to win (in FIRST). All we have is the hope that through hard
work, determination, and [insert positive qualities here], we will be able to,
someday. Growing every individuals self image, self worth and character will
result in a rewarding experience for everyone and truly create a setup for
success in the real world. Using truthful means that promote honestly,
integrity, authenticity and good values is what is important.


Perhaps a better way to “promote” the “we’re all winners” idea is by
rewarding the positive aspects of your team. On my team, we know that
we can only control our robot in an alliance. If our alliance loses, we make
sure (or strive to) our team/robot is not the reason. When it is, we learn
from it. When it is not, we reward ourselves with the satisfaction and
happiness. When we win, we celebrate. But without honesty, we would
never learn from our mistakes as we would be living in the delusion of “we’re
all winners anyway”. This sends the correct message to the students.
Once again, thank you Jane for bringing this up. If there is one thing that
will help improve the quality of the competition, this is it. So, we are not all
winners, but we can be. We must strive to be. We must learn from our
mistakes and celebrate our success, even if it is little success.


Cheers.