I feel this needs to be said...(Grades & FIRST Dedication)

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Our team has no grade policy.
100% of our robot is built by students and parents.
100% of our past and present graduates have gone on to higher education.

Yes, grades are important. Are they the end all, be all to who you are as a person: NO!

I believe this topic raises a larger issue than what is currently at hand. Which is more important: The school or the student?

The goal of public education (I am not familiar with the inner workings of private institutions, so I cannot speak my opinions of them) is to provide each and every student with the skills and knowledge they need to live life to the fullest. Elementary education is rather straightforward, and provides students with the foundation they need to learn at a higher level. As schooling continues to the secondary level, the mission and outcome begins to become blurred. Ask any high school student "What is the point of school?" and you will receive a few different answers. Of these answers, most will hold the general idea of "To learn."

This is the misdirection that plagues a majority of high school and college students. Students spend a majority of their adolescent life in school with no real goal beside "to get into a good college". Yes, this is a good goal to have, but where is the significance in this? College is not for everyone, and students need to be given the opportunity to find themselves before dedicating a large amount of time and money to this cause. FIRST is a tool students can use to in self-discovery in a world where society's aspirations are based around the near-impossible-to-achieve dreams of professional sports and stardom (Ahh, but that is for another discussion!)

So, where does your performance in high school factor in? The answer to that question is lodged in your perspective on education, and the point of its existence. While some may not agree with me, (based on opinions, fact, or blatant ignorance) the point of school is not to learn, but to learn how to learn. Your grades in school have close to no real meaning. They are simply a gauge in the effort to distinguish those who are able to comprehend the material from those who may need more help. Achieving high marks may mean you are truly comprehend the subject, but more often than not it simply shows that student is capable of memorizing some pages out of a book. This is a huge flaw in the modern education system, and something I hope will be addressed.

In a normal classroom environment, teachers give lessons over a set period of time to be followed with an examination. The goal for students is to receive a perfect score on this examination. This might possibly be the worst thing possible for the students. It becomes easy and practically accepted to have no real knowledge of the 'guts' of the subject, but simply to just know 'the right answer'. This fact has created millions of teenage zombies in America, who simply sit through the day, take word-for-word notes, memorize them, and regurgitate their memories on the test. All the while, they have no real idea of what they are doing.

Is this happening everywhere? No, not really. The AP environment solves most of the problems I have stated. The AP examination looks for overall understanding of the subject matter, and does not ask for perfection. 75% right on the AP exam will score you the highest marks possible. I wholeheartedly agree with this method, and hope it expands to encompass all classroom environments, not just high level.

Back to the subject at hand: Which is more important: The school or the student?

Without either, both are lost. If one fails, so does the other. In any one school there may be thousands of students. For the sake of the school's survival, it is much easier to force the students to conform than the school to reform. The educational ideals of public education and of (what has become of) FIRST are based on different foundations, which makes hard for many students to survive in both worlds. While a student in a school is just a number, FIRST provides an experience which would otherwise be unattainable at this time in someone's life. Please don't get me wrong, teachers and school faculty care about their students. Of course they do, or they wouldn't be there. But, in the end the experience you walk away with from high school alone does not really enrich your life.

I'm sorry Matt, but I cannot support your plea. I repeat, grades ARE important, but students need to realize the importance of them in THEIR life. Sure, it would be nice if everyone had 4.0 GPA's and went to Ivy League schools... but everyone is not the same, and each person needs to realize his/her potential and what they need to do to achieve greatness.

So, please do whatever it takes to make the most out of your high school years. Don't waste the best years of your life with your face in a book. For the team leaders reading this, realize the experience your students are getting from this program WILL change their lives. Please, do not discount this fact and give every student the chance they deserve.

[Not2B]

My parents told me...

School is your job. Sports, job, everything is just for fun.

I have no idea what grades the students have. I tell the parents at the parent meeting that school should come first, but it's up to them and their students to watch grades, because I can't.

Several students have told me that their grades go up during FIRST.

[Jeff Waegelin]

I would definitely agree with this. My first year of college, I was skipping classes all the time to drive home to Rochester for meetings with 201. It got to the point where I was skipping all my Friday classes, and some of my Thursday ones to get a jumpstart on the weekend. For one of my classes (which met three times a week), I was going maybe once a week. By the end of the semester, I'd skipped more Friday classes than I'd gone to, and I was lucky to scrape out a C in the class (the only C I've ever gotten). So, the moral of the story to all of you, especially current and prospective college FIRSTers: go to class! You may think it doesn't matter, since your professors don't take attendance every day, but it can hurt you. School is more important than FIRST, bar none.

[Donut]

It is constantly said by every mentor on our team that school is first, and they mean it. We've had a policy of wanting people to be doing good, but the team somehow always seemed to "forget" come regional time and the policy was never upkept. This year we actually chose to adhere to it (the requirement was just that you could not be failing any classes this semester, past semesters and GPA don't matter) and start enforcing it. We almost had one of our 5 club officers and our driver not attend the regional due to this, and were prepared to not let them go to show we meant what we were saying.

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by Not2B

My parents told me...

School is your job. ....job, everything is just for fun.

That shifts after HS and full time college status.. or.. during full time college status if you aren't a golden child and have a free ride.

Hooray for taking advantage of FIRST or any other scholarships if you can!
(Not for me personally though just as an fyi..never got any scholarships.)

Your job (or at least a means of making income) = more important than classes ~99% of the time after age 18.

Just keep that in mind.

And, I agree all teams should have a strict policy about grades on the team if they care about the student's success, which I'm sure we all should/do currently.

Sure, some people will miss out on the competitions, but that's not what it's all about.

It's ultimately about succeeding in life, and not even necessarily in only engineering based fields.

Just succeeding in general.

How you succeed is up to you all as individuals.

Yes, it's corny.. but..your future really is in your hands when you are in HS. So, if missing one competition because you need to catch up with school work, and be prepared for life, is going to make you miserable, cause you can't be with your team and your friends, then you really need to check your priorities.

Sure, it's fun doing FIRST and there are a lot of benefits, but in the end, depending on how your school is setup for most of you, it is ONLY an extracurricular activity.

Have fun with it, enjoy some benefits, but keep your school work in check.

Take it from someone who has been there, and let activities take more importance over school..

Being in college on and off for 8 years and not having even an AS yet is not fun.

And that my friends is the harsh reality of life.

[the_short1]

our team also has a education contract, you cant be failing/near failing any classes, otherwise you will be suspended/booted from the team. as well we have a study room in the hotel, and on the bus we have manditory 1hour study session. I missed 8 days of school due to robotics (2 regionals, 2 extra build days), and my math mark kinda got hit, but FIRST helped me realize how much i enjoy engineering, so that i NEED to do well in my classes if i want to reach my goals.

-kevin

[arabsponsor]

Team 538 has the "C" or better in every class to be able to travel. We had a number that couldn't travel to Nationals (because they chose not to make up work they missed when we went to regionals). As a teacher sponsor I check each members grades at least once a week to stay on top of it. Some of the members were shocked when they couldn't travel but next year I bet they will make sure to do all make-up work.

[Gabe]

Originally Posted by Matt Krass

Folks, honestly, FIRST is great, but your education is more important.

604 has made sure that grades and schoolwork are first. If grades begin falling, then a person simply is not allowed to participate in robotics events, including regionals and Nationals. This has been a great motivator to raise grades.

[MattD]

I have to agree with Tom here. During the six week build season in FIRST I have learned more than I have all year in both my English and history classes combined. What I have learned from being in FIRST is going to be a lot more useful in my life than being able to spit out seemingly random dates of events and describe the personality of a fictional character in a novel (unless of course I end up on a show like Jeopardy and a question like that comes up). I would also like to mention that my grades actually went up during build season, and have since dropped down again.

[Psychoflood]

Although grades don't always accurately display what a person actually takes away from schoo,l or FIRST for that matter, they are still important because they are one of the key elements to your future. Even if you learn tons of information about life and school subjects through FIRST, if your grades are low it will severly affect what colleges want to accept you and/or keep you. Our team also has a grades policy, and i think it's a good thing that we do. I know that i've made extra sure i stay on top of my game so that i can stay on our team, and i'm sure FIRST inspired other students on teams with these policies in a similar way.

[Mike Martus]

Chief Delphi has always had standards when it comes to grades. As stated in our team handbook, all students are required to maintain and improve on a min. 2.5 GPA. It is also stated that any student that gets an "E" grade in any class is placed on plan a of assistance or dropped from the team.

Every day of "away" activity includes formal study time for all students to work on classroom assignments or generally read ahead on materials. Our mentors and teachers facilitate study groups whenever possible. We schedule after school tutorials and work with teaching staff to make sure all team members are working to their best ability.

Most, if not all of our students are on the National Honor Society, and rank very high in class ranking - not an accident - just very hard work and constant attention from the team coaches.

Ahhh... but yes, some students loose focus on what this is all about and suffer as a result.

[Robocat1]

As "head coach" and a teacher, I regularly send emails to all faculty with team members names and ask them to let me know if any student has attendance or grade "issues." I get several responses every time. This is taken into consideration when determining who travels and who doesn't. But, we've also taken into consideration the student, the class, and the effort being put forth. Sometimes a student is just "in over his/her head" in a class that's too difficult for their ability and as long as they are putting forth an effort they MAY still be able to travel. Some miss a regional or two (or nationals).

This year we started "study table" in the hotel, but not until Nationals and not until several members were behind in getting makeup work done. We ask soooo much of our school and faculty and staff that we were not about to tolerate students being behind in work because of FIRST. We need all the positive image PR we can get!

I thought the team would really "rebel" about the study tables, but it was amazing to see them all working on something and even helping each other out (teaching is the best way to master a concept). While not everyone "needed" the study time, everyone used it in some way and I think it was a good team bonding experience.

Next season we'll incorporate "study table time" into the build season at school. I'm thinking an hour of study table 2-3 days a week and then work sessions (some of our mentors can't be there when school gets out anyway).

I hope next year that no one on our school staff has the need to respond to my emails!

[JaneYoung]

The photo in this link is a picture I took the eve of Kick Off this year. One of our alum's grandparents have graciously hosted the team in Houston for the past few years. This year almost every single team member pulled out their calculators and homework for Physics while they were waiting for us to figure out the Charades categories. When Charades was over they went back to Physics. There is an equal set of calculators and books on the floor next to the table. They did this on their own, the rest of us ate cookies.

http://www.lasarobotics.org/gallery/...Kick_Of f0049

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Jane

The photo in this link is a picture I took the eve of Kick Off this year. One of our alum's grandparents have graciously hosted the team in Houston for the past few years. This year almost every single team member pulled out their calculators and homework for Physics while they were waiting for us to figure out the Charades categories. When Charades was over they went back to Physics. There is an equal set of calculators and books on the floor next to the table. They did this on their own, the rest of us ate cookies.

http://www.lasarobotics.org/gallery/...Kick_Of f0049

Charades ... Physics ... Cookies ...Grandma's house..., sounds like paradise to me!

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Richard

Charades ... Physics ... Cookies ...Grandma's house..., sounds like paradise to me!

come join us -

after the first round of Charades, the team wanted a second round and one of the categories they wanted clues for was - are you ready - TOOLS - yupyupyup - I laughed way too hard.