Coaches/Mentors on the Drive Team

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by MentorOfSteel

Everyone seems to agree that FIRST is about training and inspiring the technical leaders of tomorrow,...

I do not agree.

The mission of FIRST is "to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders" -- the word "training" does not appear. While the mission statement includes the phrases "build skills" and "foster life capabilities", I believe those are not what FIRST is "about". Depending on the team, they can be a tool for accomplishing the mission, but they are often a secondary effect of how the programs are run.

The best way to create leaders is to give them opportunities to lead.

A great way to create effective leaders is to give them examples of effective leadership. You don't get good machinists just by giving people opportunities to use a mill; you get good machinists by having them watch and work with good machinists. If you have a good adult leader acting as the drive coach, you can inspire very good leadership from the students.

If you don't have an inspirational role model available, then there's probably no loss in having a student learn "on the job". But for those teams fortunate enough to have high-quality mentors, I don't see a reason not to take advantage of them.

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by MentorOfSteel

Of course having an experienced adult running the show during the match will improve the odds of winning, but it also deprives a student of a unique experience to compete and make snap decisions in a high pressure situation with thousands of people watching.

This is true. But, on the other hand, using a student as field coach deprives the other 3 students on the drive team another opportunity to learn and get inspired by working alongside an adult mentor.

[MentorOfSteel]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I do not agree.

The mission of FIRST is "to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders" -- the word "training" does not appear.

OK, that is fair, but I think my point is valid even if you remove the word "training" from it.

A great way to create effective leaders is to give them examples of effective leadership.

I agree with this 100%, and did not mean my original comment to exclude the need to provide examples of effective leadership. But the point I would like to make is that, throughout the year, there are thousands of opportunities for mentors to demonstrate leadership. I do not see the need to add one more at the expense of taking a unique and valuable experience from a student.

-George

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by MentorOfSteel

... Everyone seems to agree that FIRST is about training and inspiring the technical leaders of tomorrow ...

-George

FIRST is about inspiring students for "tomorrow", yet it's an unfair assertion to imply that FIRST isn't about inspiring the adults that can bring about change "today".

My overall take on coaching:
Mentors put so much work into organizing, fund raising, mentoring, and such -- why leave them out of the fun of competition altogether? I get no internal satisfaction from the cliche "we're all winners" when I know that if I weren't on the sidelines I would have played a strategy would have worked to win us a particular match rather than lose it. The core model of FIRST is a competition; while overarching message isn't ever lost on me, for 2 minutes at a time it's nice to be able to play to that model (with integrity of course).

[MentorOfSteel]

Originally Posted by JesseK

FIRST is about inspiring students for "tomorrow", yet it's an unfair assertion to imply that FIRST isn't about inspiring the adults that can bring about change "today".

Hmm, I'm not sure I see your point. I did not assert, nor did I intend to imply, anything about the role of FIRST in inspiring mentors. In my experience, FIRST inspires everyone involved, that is part of what is so great about it. But what does inspiring mentors have to do with with the current conversation? Maybe some mentors are more inspired and put more energy into the team because of the pay-off of playing in the game? I guess I could buy that, I'm just not sure what you're saying. Could you please clarify?

-George

Ah -- I see that you amended your original response while I was drafting this post. That clarifies things, thanks. I won't try to disagree with you. But I would like to provide this perspective: it can be extremely rewarding to hand over the reins and guide someone as they grow into a role, even when you know you could do a better job in that role yourself. I would encourage you to consider that as a source of future inspiration instead of the more direct inspiration of winning the game.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

A great way to create effective leaders is to give them examples of effective leadership. You don't get good machinists just by giving people opportunities to use a mill; you get good machinists by having them watch and work with good machinists. If you have a good adult leader acting as the drive coach, you can inspire very good leadership from the students.

So I have a story to tell. I'm not claiming it should change the minds of the rather-not-have-adults-coaching thinkers (is that an appropriate hyphenation?), but it might be valuable insight. I'll preface it by saying that there are some great student coaches out there. However, they're rare, rarer than adults, and I think there's a reason for that. As always though, YMMV:

I was a student driver with an adult coach for 3 years. I valued it for a lot of reasons, but one of the more important was that I got to work alongside an adult in a high-pressure situation. He didn't always take it well (neither did we), but I learned a lot--no, a lot--from it, as did my fellow drivers. I sincerely believe I couldn't have learned that anywhere else. At the very least, I know we didn't have student that could have taught us that.

After 2 years, I started coaching some off-seasons myself. I'd done a few my first post-season, but I wasn't very useful. So I learned, and I practiced, and I beat myself up for stupid stuff, and I observed my own coach. I managed to really coach some senior year, alright according to my drivers. I firmly believe there is no way I could have gotten to that level in that time--as a coach or as a person--without an adult coach with me behind the glass.

This isn't to say that alumni must make the best coaches, or that this process is optimal. Rather, my point is that a very important aspect of driver (and personal) growth and coach training for me was actually being coached by an adult. This is primarily because I think it takes quite a while to make most really learn from-able drive coaches. I say that based on 5 years behind the glass, but feel free to object.

So if I can pick a coach that can teach drivers something about handling the irreplaceable experience in the box, or help them grow in any way (and there are a lot), or help train a new coach...well, that sounds good to me, even if they are an adult.

TL;DR: There are some things you just can't inspire and/or teach from the other side of the glass. Many of these things can only be taught by adults. (There may be a few very rare students, but not to the point that every team would be expected to have them.)

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by MentorOfSteel

This is an interesting thread. As a FIRST newbie, I was surprised when I learned that it was legal to have a mentor in the coach position during competition. I was even more surprised when I started going to competitions and saw the number of teams that take advantage of this rule and the level to which some mentors get involved in the execution of the actual game. I was also surprised to read about the aggressive role that Amir Abo-Shaeer takes as described in The New Cool. My first year in FIRST and FRC has been full of surprises, but frankly, this is one of the less pleasant ones. I am against having adults in the coach position. This discussion so far has been excellent and has presented compelling arguments on both sides of the issue. I do not have much new insight to add, but I will try.

I would just like to point out that Amir has created the most innovative FRC team structure I have ever seen; It truly is a blueprint of what effective FRC teams should be at the educational and institutional level. He routinely inspires a consistant and large group of students; His methods work.

One could argue that the fact that Amir, and the entire team for that matter, is so intense gets the students and team more excited, and more likely to learn how to do xyz to make component abc 2% better.

For students that are only on the team a single year, they do amazing things. I wouldn't argue with his methods one bit.