FAHA: Adult Coach on Drive Team

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Molten

Ok, the two bold parts are the parts I want to reference. The first part suggests that teams choose to not have mentors participate. To this, I'd like to meet the team that doesn't allow their mentors to participate. From my experience, it seems like the teams that can get a mentor choose to use them. They might not allow to participate in the way that you mean, but they make use of them in some way. The teams I've been on avoid having mentors work on the parts, heading the design, or out on the field. Does this mean they aren't participating? I don't think so. I avoid doing work for the students. I help them figure out dimensions, I open their mind to new ideas, I am a resource of information, I am there for motivation if they need some confidence, I am a mentor(as dictionary.com describes it). I am not drafting up the bot for them, I am not going out on the field, I am not designing the robot, I am not building a part, I am not a student. But honestly, that whole debate doesn't bother me too much.

I think this paragraph highlights the disconnect in our viewpoints. As indicated (several times now), my kickoff presentation comments have centered on those teams that knowingly and intentionally eschew the meaningful participation of adult mentors on the team. Your post indicates that you do not believe such teams exist. I am certain beyond a reasonable doubt that they do.

My belief is based on information gathered from multiple data sets, including:
- review of the accumulated feedback provided to FIRST during the summer team forums (or whatever they are being called now) and similar sessions;
- review of 350-450 team-written self descriptions submitted each year as part of the NASA grant application process, in which teams describe their organization and mentoring structure;
- direct discussions with many teams over the years at the in-season and off-season competitions (current count is somewhere around 60 attended);
- review of the data gathered by the Brandeis University Study, and similar efforts, which examined the productivity, structure and throughput of FRC teams and their effectiveness at fulfilling the FIRST vision;
- and even the many, many posts that have accumulated here on CD from the many self-proclaimed "students only, they do everything, there are no adults involved" teams that decry contributions by any adults at all.

Based on the information gathered from these and other sources, many members of the senior ranks of FIRST have become concerned about the dilution of both the real and perceived role of mentors in the FIRST program. Teams that participate without meaningful adult mentoring exemplify the extreme case, and they exist as a large enough component of the total community to be considered representative of a real issue. The organization is focusing some real attention on how these divergent implementations affect the mission of FIRST.

If you truly believe that such teams do not actually exist, then please please provide me with some solid, concrete data to support that contention. Because if that is correct, then by extension we are wasting our time trying to address the issue of such teams and how they fit (or not) within FIRST. If that is indeed the case, then I think we will gladly welcome being corrected as we have many other things that we could be doing.

-dave


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