Loss of Gracious Professionalism Among First Teams

[Andy Baker]

GP is still in tact.

As we were elbow deep in our robot during every hour of Friday and Saturday in Pittsburgh, not 1 hour went by when there was a team who would come by and ask if they could help.

Almost all of the time, we would say "thanks, but no". Sometimes we would say "no, but wish us luck"... toward the end of the competition, I would just say "pray for us". heh. The help came when we would scramble for a part of a tool that we did not have... and so many people and teams would offer.

To all of the teams who offered this help, thank you. To all of the teams in Pittsburgh who were left high and dry during a Q match with us without a robot on the carpet, thank you for understanding. No one gave us crap about that and we appreciate it.

Sure there are a few well-publicized examples which are void of GP. These few are overshadowed by the vast majority of good people doing good things in FIRST. Don't dwell on the bad vibes, people... let's celebrate the good.

Let's give examples of good GP... another thread should be started.

Andy B.

[Madison]

Gracious Professionalism is embodied by purity of thought and deed.

It means treating people with respect and equality even if you they're your competitor. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be involved.

It means working toward achieving the goals of FIRST by providing students and mentors alike with every opportunity to learn from one another. It means getting students to see that there are more important things than winning a trophy or making a lot of money. It's about showing them how rewarding it can be to overcome challenges without fanfare and without recognition, but overcoming them nonetheless. It's about reinvigorating a generation of adults who may have forgotten what it means to see opportunity and promise in every problem.

It means appreciating the effort and commitment that people make toward the team and the program. It means realizing that we give of ourselves and it's a privilege to have our involvement.

It means standing by your word and acting with dignity and respect and conviction. It means challenging convention without getting media attention or awards. It means being part of a movement, not an individual. But, it means focusing on the individual and getting them to join the movement. It means changing the world.

Overall, I am concerned that many new teams in FIRST haven't yet grasped these concepts, but I don't doubt that many of them will grow wise in their years and begin to understand and appreciate the genius of these ideas.

810, however, has shown this weekend that it is a great disservice to gracious professionalism. We did what we could to help other teams, certainly. Where we had parts or tools that another team needed, we tried to share them.

We invited Melissa up from Florida to be our guest. I am appalled with how she was treated by my team's students and advisors. One day, our advisors solicited her help with the team's human player coaching, while the next, she was told that she's not a real member of our team, and her input was not valued. She tried to offer suggestions to get our robot running and was insulted by another student. She was promised an opportunity to practice her own human player strategies before her team competes next weekend, but had the offer rescinded by our team's advisor.

At a team meeting on Friday evening, other team mentors and students vocally insulted me and my efforts (outside of my presence) to bring innovation, acclaim and success to the team. I have given every effort toward supporting the team and making the robot work as designed, despite the immense prejudice I have experienced. I have spent the past 9 months tolerating off-color remarks about me, my life, and family from both the students and advisors because I was dedicating to helping the good, appreciative students. I was asked for my input regarding who our drivers and human players should be, and I was told that my input would be implemented. When it became convenient however, that immediately changed and my effort and my input became worthless. I, like Melissa, was used.

The few students on our team who truly put in time and energy on the team watched as their accomplishments were compromised and their meaning destroyed as the team's advisors handed the controls over to students who's involvement didn't approach half of what they'd done -- all because the other students' parents were present.

Gracious professionalism is not about taking advantage of those who offer you help, and it's not about saying one thing while doing something entirely different. It's not about letting personal prejudice in the way of inspiring your students. It's not about attending events only if and when you're certain you'll take home some trophies.

The only way things will change is if people know what's going on. Awareness leads to action. Team 810's behavior, with a few exceptions (Ian W. and SuperDanman, of note to CD posters since they each post here often) has been nothing short of disgraceful and disgusting this season. The way the administrators have treated their sponsors and benefactors is deplorable, and the example they've set for their students is damaging. The efforts of the students have been lacking, to say the least, and their propensity for passing the buck and shirking their responsibilities is disheartening. I stayed on to try to steer this team in the correct direction, but I have failed spectacularly. Their only concern is winning and appearing to be fulfilling the mission of FIRST. It's nothing but a clever deception, but now we've opened up the curtain for the whole world to see.

Please, everyone, whenever you deal with 810, know what you're dealing with.

[Ben Mitchell]

Wow.

[Team238-aholic]

that is so not cool....i would not stand for that at all....

[Dan Richardson]

I'm sorry 810 was like that for you this year, I wish there was some help I could offer, but it sounds like I'd be shirked at, I wish you could do something to allow FIRST to actually see whats going on in the team

however just remember everyone has their disagreements, tentions get high and things get overbarring.. This year Team 710 tentions were getting very high, and I was getting pressure as the Teams chairman to quwell it.. the main threat was coming from the mentors who seemed to become overbearing ( we have more mentors this year than ever, which is a good thing, just its hard to get working on the same page )

We had been told that it was our bot this year and when they started to try to make everything their way.. all it took was the threat of the team leaving and they backed off some, it was a minor episode that created an extreme ackwardness for a few days, but we are the better for it, we all see where everyone else is coming from

IT seems to me a lot of teams need revamping, and a lot of times tentions do arise from overbearing mentors on kids

The way I theorize it is if we all wanted the tention that a football gives breathing down your back when you miss a block or a tackle, if that was all our nature, then most all of first would be playing football

FIRST is more laid back than that, and needs to be seen as such, don't get me wrong hard work needs to be done Trust me I know those 9am- 1am days will haunt FIRST forever, but just be down right jovial about it, and try to use GP to stay off eachothers backs so everyone can enjoy the learning process, I think thats why FIRST is growing so fast, because it is so exciting and an innovative way of learning and its just fun to be around the FIRST people, I think every year there is a slip in GP due to high tensions, but I think if GP was not there ne more, or was declining as rapidly as some believe then FIRST would not be growing so quickly

Just remember to stay light hearted and have a good time with what your doing try not to take things that are said under pressure wrong, just know they were said under pressure shirk the comment off and forgive the person for it

FIRST isn't about holding grudges its about taking those grudges and crushing a box with them :-) hehe

Dan

[DaBruteForceGuy]

i can't believe this..... My team does have it's weaknesses and there are a few people who have brought down the teams spirit but i am sure that all teams go thorough times and lows like this.... What i can;t understand is why it has to be blown out of proportion, beat on, and broadcasted all over chiefdellphi..... Our mentor M. Krass had been the heart of our team for our rookie year and a good half of this year..... But there are things that he has failed to mention.....The fact that he left us high and dry for a week and a half in the middle of the build season with a very very unfinished design. So we ditched it and had to start from scratch to design and build a robot with no mentors, engineers or technical help whatsoever. All we had was a wasted 2 weeks of build season on a spectacular design which our mentor was unfolding and one year of experience in FIRST. I worked very hard on designing a robot by myself for a good week, and i think that it was coming along wonderfully and it was definitly a do-able project. At this point, our mentor comes bursting in out of nowhere with an almost fully-completed spectacular design (yes it had many kinks that us students helped figure out)...but almost flawless....we had no choice but to scrap our design, and go back to his because we were out of time.................The incredible amount of time that we put into the robot during the build, taking as much effort as possible to fabricate and assemble various components was tremendous, and very restraining. We only have one teacher planning all that happens (because of financial reasons) and she has no technical knowledge whatsoever. The only person who did commit time is an electrical engineer from our sponsor. M is no mentor to our team, never drove us in any direction whatsoever! If there were things happening on the team that were non-FIRST spirit or that needed to be simply fixed and moved on with, they were never ever brought to our attention. How dare he bash our team, with regards to direction, there was nobody who has had any experience guiding us along our FIRST path. Everything that our team is is from a rookie year, and us students (who # fairly few).
Meli W.- i am sorry if there were people who treated you unfairly (i might of been one of them, and if i was i am sorry) but you don;t seem to realize that we had no idea what was going on. If there were people mistreating you, u, M or anybody else really should of brought them to our attention. I was stunned after reading the posts by u and M, i had no idea that M had known that we were veering off course for some time now...because our supposable mentor had never even come out and say it----4get showing us a way to correct it. We didn't have a mentor, what we had was a wonderfully genius technical mind to design a spectacular misconception of our reasons for being in FIRST. But you have no right to bash our team, hey man, we havn't had a mentor for some time, at the point that this team is at we don;t need one either.
I know what GP is and i exercise it to the best of my ability, i don;t bash other teams, and i will not bash mine.....Though i know that we have our problems, thats simply what they are...problems.....and we are definitely able to reverse them. Keep in mind, the tension that M and Meli W witnessed was due to biting off more than we could chew during the build season. our "Mentor" gave a radical, complicated design to a second year team, and gave it late in the build, and we needed to finish it in a very short amount of time. On top of the blizzard, we didn;t finish it, and thorough Annapolis we had to be cheery and excited with a lot of pressure us. We had a huge amount of pressure because we had to compete AND finish a robot at the same time in three scattered, strewn days. On top of that, since our limping barely operable, unfinished, complicated robot has been doing terribly, it had a huge affect on our hyped up team. Somehow though, we pulled together in the end, on Saturday. We finally finished the robot, and now it is working like a charm for our next two regionals.
I am really sorry that Meli was caught up in this tension, i hate to say it but it was very bad timing for us to be trying to present ourselves to a guest.
I hope there are some people reading these posts and not feeding into these people ganging up and bashing our team on Chiefdelphi. Don;t forget, they really are ganging up, because not all believe this about my team, or atleast i don;t.

[MBiddy]

I don't know why a bad robot would inhibit cheering. Just think: the less your robot works, the more spectacular small feats are. I remember all the times we got excited because our robot moved. Woohooo! It's moving!

Also, DaBruteForceGuy, "engineer" is not spelled with a "j".

[Ian W.]

Thank you Dan.

This is exactly what I feel my team needs to do. I've been trying, since the beginning of this season, to get them to see that FIRST isn't about winning and being the best. It's about changing the world, and well, having the best time you can while you do it.

If I could have my team realize that one simple thing, we would be better off. The problem is not just in making the students realize that, but the mentors too. One mentor, he sees this. He'd love for everything to work, but if it doesn't, oh well, we tried, and had a damned good time doing it. The other mentors though, well, as far as I can tell, need to win to feel that we accomplished something. If the robot you build changes the point outcome for your alliance in just one match, you are successful. My team just doesn't see that simple "rule" no matter how hard I try. When I try to explain this, I'm silenced, when I try to talk to the mentor who silences me, I get no help, and wind up fustrated and worse off than I was before. I wish it wasn't so, but that's how it seems to be.

The problem with 810 is that we had an amazing rookie year. Now the team thinks a robot will pop out of nothing, and work. I'm trying to change that, and there are several students who see that, and have realized that they've been shooting for the wrong goal. The mentor however, is telling students that all must be fair, everyone must be happy, and to be happy we must win. This is the wrong message, and I don't like hearing it. The world isn't fair, don't hide that fact. The kids who work on the robot should be the ones that have fun with it, driving, human player, mentor, etc. Just because a kid's parent comes, well, no, there's no reason for that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, my team has disappointed me, and destroyed my view of FIRST. Luckily, I know plenty of other people in FIRST, in part due to this message board. Due to that, my view of FIRST has not been destroyed beyond repair. In a way, I've made it my task to try and help the team come around. Can I do it? Probably not by myself. In the spirit of FIRST though, I'll try as hard as I can. If no one cooperates with me though, I can't do much.

[Madison]

Steve,

I'm sorry to read that you believe I've failed you as a mentor and that my effort was unappreciated. I'll try harder in the future.

You'll be happy to know that I won't be returning to 810.

I hope that, in the future, you'll show the least bit of respect to those who dedicate their time to trying to give you a good experience.

It's the least that they deserve.

You are a student. Respect that you do not know even the slightest amount about what I have been through this season at the hands of your team and your advisor. Respect that I did the best damned job that I possibly could under those circumstances.

Don't take that away from me. You don't have the right. You should be ashamed of your behavior this weekend.

[Joe Matt]

M, another friend of mine had a problem like that on his team. It was a simple problem: a hissy fit. M, if your good intentions are that good at heart, then the group will set aside the problem one and work with the right one.

Also to add, I have fully read and re-read the posts and can say this, there is something more that lies beneith this. Something personal that M has gone through. Guys, be nice, this is FIRST.

[DaBruteForceGuy]

mikey mikey mikey......Last year you were great...incredable even, u displayed the characteristics of a leader beyond what us as a rookie team needed. But this year (from a students point of veiw) i seen it diminish and u fade away. I was wondering why, i had no idea it was the mentors and whoever on my team. All i knew was that the driving spirit and force of our team was going away, and our team is loosing it's foundation....believe it or not, our foundation was you, and by u going away we had slowly lost our bonds, now that you have totaly been kicked and booted away by idiot mentors who are narrow simpleminded, poeple who don;t like anybody who doesn;t resemble them.....well we have to try to restore ourselves, and if it means having a bad regional and some unsettlement.....well so be it.........I just don;t think this is something that should be posted all over on cd, i think that it is our internal matters and the fact that you are broadcasting it to all confuses me. Why can;t u let use heal after we loose the foundation which is u. we need to repair, and this rlyt isn;t helping-so epople out there, stop bashing our team and concentrate on your own.......we have some work to do.......But i guarantee that you will see a new, refreshed Mechanical Bulls at the upcoming regionals...i promnise it!!!!

[Brandon Martus]

Originally posted by DaBruteForceGuy
..I just don;t think this is something that should be posted all over on cd,

Then lets drop it (publically). I'd rather any further 810 talk should be via PM, rather than for all of us to see. This is obviously something you guys need to work out, probably not in public for everybody to see.

[Melissa Nute]

First off I would like to apoligize...I did not mean for this thread to take the aim it did. My intentions were for the team not to be name, but rather a discussion about loss of GP among other teams. It took a turn for the worse, something I did not want.
I know 810 will recieve a lot of unfriendly welcomes for this, and for that I apolgize now...

and I apoligize to CD for creating a thread that went off from where it should have...

If you care to discuss this with me my AIM address is Yearbook50 or PM me

[Katie Reynolds]

First:

It is not, by any means OK for someone to say a volunteer for their team gave them nothing. You should be grateful that there are people out there who are willing to give their time to your team, and to stick with the team through the entire season. I know many people who would have just given up and left the team halfway through the build. M. Krass stuck with the team the entire way through. Staying up late, trying to think of ways to make the team better ... thinking of ways to make things work. Ian was right. 810 had a great rookie year.

Second:

Usually when a team has a great year, they expect that the following year will go just as smoothly. Nine times out of ten, this is not the case. It's disappointing, but it is something that a lot of teams deal with - mine included.

Third:

By bashing a volunteer on your team, you are practicing the reciprocal of Gracious Professionalism. Think about that word for a second. "Volunteer". A person who is willingly giving up their personal time. Time that could be spent doing something for themselves. Any adult who is willing to give their time to an organization dedicated to inspiring students about science and technology... that, is awesome. Any of the volunteers for FIRST - whether they be professionals, teachers, parents, college students, or just adults willing to help out - deserve nothing but the utmost respect from the students on their team. It doesn't matter if they show up or help out once or one-hundred times. They are there to help you and to better your FIRST experience.

Because of the actions of certain people on a team, the team has lost on of their key mentors. That sucks for both sides.

- Katie

[edit]Sorry, this was being written while people were still posting some things. If anyone would like to discuss this with me further, feel free to PM or IM me. Thanks. [/edit]

[DanL]

From my life, I know that one's expierience depends entirely on the people involved in that expierience. If one surrounds oneself with people who know how to have a good time, one has a good time. The past four summers, I've kept going back to a summer program (JHU's CTY, if anyone is familiar with it - you guys know what I mean) for one reason only: the people. It's the group that makes the atmosphere, and it's the group that defines your expierience.

The question is how does one have a good expierience when the group doesn't work?

What does a team do when two prominent members' personalities completely clash? How does one resolve the tension without having to resort to explusion? How does one 'fix' personalities in general? When certain people just can't get along, how can this be remedied? I've talked before about how if FIRST is expanded to "every high school in the nation," the bad are going to come in as well as the good. Call me idealistic, but isn't the point of FIRST to expand its message to both types; expulsion of the problematic isn't the solution.

I've talked about students, but how about mentors. What happens when one doesn't agree with the way mentors act? It's a lot easier to fix students' behavior than mentors' behavior. Mentors have the advantage of expierience, but students have the advantage of not yet having developed strong biases. What one mentor might think is for the benefit or success of the team, a student may think they are not given the right opportunity. How does one determine who is right in a particular situation?

I guess I am aiming at changing people's personalities. Convincing a person to act one way or another is easy; changing their personality - their thought-process - the way they think - that is the challenge. How does one go about changing a person? The problem I see is who's to say that you have the authority to make one person behave one way as opposed to another way.

Someone I deeply respect said about my team,

"While there weren't as many students actively interested in completing our robot this season as I would have liked, each of those students who made a commitment to completing this machine is well versed in its design and function. They can not only repair it, but explain the concepts that drive its design."

The potential on 810 is there, just there are obstacles; lack of opportunity to get involved, personality clashes, social tensions, mentor conflicts, etc. How does one address these issues?

So where am I going? I'm asking for advice on how does one change. Change tensions, change hatred, change a person, change a team, change a nation, change the world - it doesn't matter, it's all the same answer. It's just not easy to describe a clear method to acheive that reform.