FAHA: Pretending to Mentor a Team

[Ken Leung]

I remember when the Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers grants for mentoring rookie teams first came out, a lot of teams signed up to help mentor rookie teams. There was limited success, until KPCB clearly defined the what the mentoring teams' responsibilities are, and teams started to take mentoring seriously. Is awards and grants good motivation to get teams to help out others? It depends, if the teams are willing to take their responsibilies seriously, then yes. Otherwise, the grants/awards aren't working the way they should. Let's take a look at this story from a rookie team member who believe their "mentoring team" didn't do as much as they should've:


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I was on a FIRST team in high school and decided to found another team when I went to college. When I met my old team leader for the kickoff in New Hampshire he offered to have phone conversations every now and then during the build season. He'd help my team out with the types of things he had experience with and we'd help him out with the types of things we were good at (strategy, electronics, programming, etc) I was very grateful for the offer and we talked about 3 times over the six weeks. Usually our calls were brief and very friendly. Today I got a copy of his teams chairman's award entry and noticed that in the entry they had claimed to be mentoring us. My team felt a little taken advantage of because we had never agreed, or been asked to be mentored. Yes, I had a couple of informal phone conversations with their teams leader and I asked him for advice on a few issues, but I was the only person on my team that talked to anyone on their team and we also asked advice of several different team leaders on various occasions.

We feel a little taken advantage of because this team used us to further their chairmans award prospects without talking to us first. If they had asked I'm sure we would have said "OK" but we were never asked. I'm beginning to suspect that this guy only talked to me in order to put our teams name down on their chairmans application and I think thats pretty sleazy. Obviously I can't prove that (which is why I'm posting anonymously and not mentioning the team name) but I wonder - are there teams out there that pretend to be mentoring other teams in order to boost their chairmans award applications? Does three phone calls count as mentoring even if we didn't know we were being "mentored?" I've emailed the team member who put together the award for clarification.

[generalbrando]

I don't see that as sleezy simply because the purpose of the chairman's award is to motivate teams to help each other out and spread the message of FIRST. However, I share your feelings. 1020 had great mentorships last year which involved 447 giving us use of their field, engineering tips, fund raising tips, etc. We almost got a bus together with them to go down to St. Louis. This year I have met with a local teacher looking to start a team. He has already stopped by and made use of our press for the independent robot projects his students are working on.

I could see how phone conversations could be mentorship. However, I agree that there should be some agreement in them saying they were your mentor. On the flip side, I also have witnesses a problem where teams agree to mentor/be mentored without any mentorship taking place for the same purpose - to beef up that chairman's submission. I think that's an even worse situation.

I don't think this is a situation we want FIRST to attempt to intervene. Any policy or procedure on mentorship would probably just discourage teams from trying to actually mentor. I believe the solution to this problem lies in the wisdom of the individuals involved in each situation. Don't be afraid to approach them and ask them about it. Be polite and remember gracious professionalism. Gradcious professionalism does not say that you can't confront someone .

[Lisa Rodriguez]

Pretending to Mentor a team is a serious issue. I have seen it happen in the past. Rage as a team, has never offcially started a team, but taken under its wings, what other teams abandon. If you notice, (and it is blatently obvious on these boards) we have very close relationship with Paragon 571. To my knowledge, they were started by another team, and once the team wrote them a letter of recomend for the chairmen's award, were left in the dust. Paragon is now doing find and surviving, but they had a point where times were tough, and pretending to mentor a team helps no one but yourself, but that doesn't even help you much. We currently mentor team 1373 EO Smith, however they have asked for little help, but we do whatever asked whenever asked. And that's different, they seem to want to do it on there own, and we're here to basically be a shoulder to lean on when things get tough, we call it mentoring, because that's what we want to do, we we are, when THEY want us to, but we won't force ourselves onto them. We have also mentored 809 Cheney, and continue to have a good relationship with them, and anyone else who wants t obe friends is welcome!!

Anyway, that's my take, but mentoring can be either good or go sour, hopes is all goes well

[jparkteach]

On the other hand, this year we volunteered to mentor a rookie team. Their advisor had indeed asked us to help them at the kickoff. Then when we tried to help them, they refused to tell us what they were working on. They refused to tell us where they needed our help claiming they didn't want to disclose their ideas to us. And when we invited them to come over and practice on our field, they never showed up after accepting the invitation and saying they would show up. The other side of this discussion is also that rookie teams must also understand the spirit of FIRST and gracious professionalism. We didn't use them on our chairman's award submission, but we honestly wanted to help them.