A Sky Without Stars

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by MysterE

In truth, it seems that our society at large has tried to dim the stars of our generation - hiding them through under-utilization, separate schooling, or other methods. The first thing that I notice about this entire process is that most people, without stars, easily find comfort in complacency. If no one else is shining, I find no need to shine. If no one else is striving, why would I strive? My school is filled with complacent students with very little drive to succeed. Even in our smartest kids - those that are gifted/talented/AP class taking students - there is little motivation to be great because most of our stars have been removed from us and placed in silos of learning far from their peers.

This is a great thread topic.

The quote above is exactly why I think the competition aspect of FIRST is so important. Students that are complacent need something the shake that complacency out of them. There's nothing better for that than first being on the receiving end of a serious whoopin' in a competition, then deciding you aren't going to let that happen again, and finally seeing your efforts pay off. That really helps prove the point that serious motivation has a larger effect on outcome than any other factor.

The trick is to get from the whoopin' to the winning, which isn't always easy. But if you can do it, it sure is powerful.

Our team this year had a rather disappointing season. We had some serious motivation issues within the team all year that was frustrating to a lot of us. Complacency is really the best word to describe it. Myself and another mentor had a discussion on Saturday morning in St. Louis, and the result was we thought that it would be better for our team to not get picked for the eliminations. Yes, we would have played had we been picked, but we thought that sitting out Saturday afternoon would provide us some much needed motivation for the future. As it turned out, we didn't get picked. That resulted in our team doing some soul searching, and it has me thinking that we will not have the same motivational issues next year. I'm very much looking forward to turning this into a positive experience for our students - one of those great life lessons about how your level of achievement is directly proportional to effort, and that is one lesson that is hard to teach without a competition environment.