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#13
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Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
Let's start by setting the scene, shall we?
Avon is a small suburb outside of Hartford, Connecticut. A nice, fairly conservative town where most parents work for the big insurance firms in Hartford or other like companies. 60%+ students take part in athletics, and they always make the front page of local papers. Great start so far. Avon High School and 1124 often times have...differences. We get the old shop from back when we had wood shop. This contains a drill press, a band saw, a chop saw, some tables, and a white board. That's all the school gave us. Everything and anything else in there, we had to get (except for maybe some other tools). Even so, the drama department shares the space with us, and many a times ends up going through our tools and misplacing them. We also use the adjacent CAD room, but the teacher really doesn't like us in there as much as we need to be. Lastly, we get a trophy case in the main hallway in between these two rooms. It's actually a really nice display- enough for three banners, two monitor screens and a slew of trophies on a nice little table we built. The problem is, the school's always trying to take it from us. We really have to fight for it. What's more, when we win anything, we only get a mention on the announcements if we write it ourselves. They don't take note to keep track of how we did. And it's read by a student who doesn't really understand the program, so it doesn't always make sense when they announce it. Also, may of the administrators have some issues with some our mentors and the way we organize events. Now, the students. I think we can all guess where I'm going with this one. It's "that robotics thing." No, we don't kill each other with robots and no, it's not a science fair. It's even gotten to a point where most of our own students don't wear our team shirt to school unless they have to, and in most cases they stuff it in their bag to change into. They claim it's weird or stupid and they don't like getting picked on by others. Here's an example. A few months back our town had this HUGE rally to support to school budge. I along with a few other team members decided to wear my team shirt, seeing as it's an Avon High School team. Other team members said they were gonna wear them, but once again didn't want to stand out. It started with a march from the middle school to the high school (same street). When I finally got to the high school after marching, I had to fight my way through the crowd to get inside quick because the jazz band was playing. But, to the others, it just kind of looked like I wanted to be in front, yeah I can see that. That's not what got to me. What got to me were the kids yelling "Oh don't worry if they cut sports we'll still have UberBots!" "Okay our nerd club is safe!" I was aware that, because we're fully funded by outside sources, we weren't in danger with the budget. But I mean...really? Really guys? Many, if not all of our members, have other connections with programs that were getting cut. I myself am involved in music and my sister does sports. Was I asked this? No, I was in the nerd club. And when we win something, any kind of competition, we normally wear our shirts the following Monday. But even then many of our members don't feel comfortable wearing it...even our president this year. It's easier to blend in than to show your smart, I suppose. So when we do win, I often times find myself explaining what we won to my friends or classmates. That's fine, I don't expect them to understand. But, even if they ask, you can tell that they think it's stupid. It starts young around here too. We do demos every year for the 8th graders so they can get an idea of what we're about. Many of them just see a robot and go "oh...nerds." Yes, I am well aware that middle schoolers are a lot less mature than high school kids (except any middle schoolers that may be on CD. You're in FIRST...consider yourself above and beyond what's normal), but still. It's the culture around here. Now, I know I sound really cynical here, and maybe that's because it's also 1 AM, but it really annoys me. So many kids in Avon dream of becoming sports stars, or just go to parties and not even think about their future, or just brush FIRST off as stupid and don't bother to look more into it. It's so angering. However, I am not really really upset about this. I can't say I'm surprised. FIRST is about changing cultures. My culture may appear hard to change, but I think it can be done. I feel it's gonna have to start with our school staff getting along better with the team, and then afterwards it'll be easier for the student body to follow. FIRST works to inspire others, and I work for FIRST. Therefore, I want to show my school just what FIRST can really do. I think we'll start with a clear presentation outlining the differences between us and Battle Bots... |
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