Adult coach?

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

...but the FIRST tent should be big enough for both Karthik and me.

Live and let live is 100% my opinion on this.
I do not fault any team that uses student coaches, and I understand their justification for it.

I just grow irritated when people tell me that what our team does is "wrong" or that we're "depriving our students" somehow.

It is refreshing for me to see Rick's post.
I find it odd that most of the people on the "mentor side" of the mentor/student debate are of the "live and let live" mentality but most of the people on the "student side" of the mentor/student debate are of the "my way or the highway" mentality.

To the "my way or the highway" student coach zealots:
Is the fact that 148 uses a mentor coach really that egregious of an offense in your eyes? Why do you care how WE do things?

I always say find what works best for your team, for your given situation. Why should we rely on someone else to tell me what will work best for our situation?

-John

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by JVN

Live and let live is 100% my opinion on this.
I do not fault any team that uses student coaches, and I understand their justification for it.

I just grow irritated when people tell me that what our team does is "wrong" or that we're "depriving our students" somehow.

John,
After having more than a few intense discussions with adults involved in the student run/student driven side of things - I've decided it is somehow connected to fear. Fear that the student will lose out or be cheated out of experiencing whatever it is the adults want the student(s) to experience. It is sometimes (or often, it seems to me) a case where the adults and the students they impact, can't quite wrap their minds around what the FIRST mission is.

Those that get it, tend to be more of the 'live and let live' variety, understanding and respecting the various situations and what works well or best with the team(s) involved. They also tend to be the ones who have taken the time to learn about FIRST and to understand it.

[Chris Fultz]

Actually, i think 234 has solved the dilema -

i am considered an adult, but i usually act like a kid.

[Kate00]

I was the driver of my high school's FRC team for two years. We used a student coach.

At GTR in 2006, I had the chance to work with Ken Patton (65), and have had the chance to work with Derek Bessette (1114) and Shawn Lim (188) quite a few times. All of these mentors have won WFA's.

At the Canada's Wonderland offseason event in 2006, the current coach, operator, and myself (we were switching out human players as ours had graduated) decided to ask Karthik to coach for us in a few matches. Those were two of the best matches I've ever played as a driver. The other matches that I also played well in came as a direct result of the lessons I learned from his coaching. Our student coach became our human player, so that she could learn from Karthik.

One of the biggest differences for me in working with adult coach was how much better the communication was. I'm not trying to put down students (especially not my student coach) in any way, but adults simply have more experience at effective communication. Coaches who have coached for many years know what they have to do to get their point across to the drivers in a match. They have more confidence in directing people.

Adult coaches seem to be more comfortable with communication with other alliances as well. In every single one of the 84 matches I have driven in, the only coaches who I remember communicating with us in the box were adults. This contributed greatly to the cohesiveness of our alliances.

It was incredibly inspiring to have worked with Ken, Derek, Shawn, Karthik, et. al. Seeing adults handle themselves in high-pressure situations, learning for the experience those people have in pressured situations, how they react to things and how they keep their drivers calm. These people are truly the rock stars of FIRST - they're out there for all to see and admire. They are the people who other teams become familiar with, who are the most approachable for help in the pits, who help us work under pressure, and who help to mentor us at the events. As a driver, they inspired me.

One of my clearest memories of being a driver is after one of the matches in which Karthik coached us, having my drive team (including the student coach) talking together, about how much better of a learning experience it was working with him, having him work with us to improve our strategies and our match execution, as opposed to having to try and muddle through on our own. In my opinion, that is what makes FIRST great - students working alongside mentors to solve problems.

As a student driver, I feel like I was deprived in that I only had a small taste of it was like to work with an adult coach. The operator on my team felt the same way, as did the student coach.

[dtengineering]

In many school projects students are expected to do the majority of the design/build/leadership work. FRC, intentionally, takes a slightly different approach, that was perhaps best expressed by Tom who described it as the difference between being adults being role models vs. being teachers. It assumes that students can learn by watching, as well as by doing. This is a different approach from many other high school projects and it does take a while for those of us used to the "learn by doing" approach to appreciate the significance. So it is, perhaps, not surprising that some people will tend to have a philosophical bias in favour of advocating for student coaches simply because that is the model to which they are accustomed.

I recall in my first trip to a regional that I was shocked by the number of "bearded, beer-bellied, bifocaled" students working on robots that "could never have been designed by students". In my previous experience with student competitions adult involvement on the machines was frowned upon, and I carried some of that bias over to what I observed at the GTR.

So while it may be difficult for mentors who have been primarily involved with FIRST for many years to appreciate why some people bring a "students gotta DO it" attitude to FRC, it is just that that attitude is prevalent in many, many other competitions. Many people new to first arrive with that bias.

It doesn't mean it is right, but it is, I think, understandable. Patient, calm, explanations of the FIRST approach such as we have seen here are necessary to help newcomers to FIRST understand that this is an intentional difference and the reasons for it. Unlike many competitions (some of which specifically ban adults from the pits) FIRST welcomes a very broad spectrum of student/adult involvement. Obviously the extreme ends ("adults do it all, show robot to kids Feb. 22nd" and "kids and KOP thrown in room without supervision or guidance") are to be frowned upon as they fail to generate adult/student interaction, but aside from that... "live and let live"! And yes, we will have to make that explanation every year. Well... so long as the program keeps attracting new members, that is!

Jason

P.S. An interesting example of the exact opposite situation occurred recently when an FRC team entered a non-FRC competition that was specifically student-build oriented. I am told that the skills that the students had learned through working with their adult mentors in FRC led them to design and build a robot for that competition that was so far ahead of their competitors that there were mutterings of "they cheated... the teachers did it". The students were simultaneously offended, flattered, and somewhat shocked, I think, to discover that they had advanced so far, so quickly through their FRC involvement. Oh, yeah... they won handily, too, and their machine IS really cool. (Patrick, if you're reading this... post a photo and show that puppy off, man!)

[Madison]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

P.S. An interesting example of the exact opposite situation occurred recently when an FRC team entered a non-FRC competition that was specifically student-build oriented. I am told that the skills that the students had learned through working with their adult mentors in FRC led them to design and build a robot for that competition that was so far ahead of their competitors that there were mutterings of "they cheated... the teachers did it". The students were simultaneously offended, flattered, and somewhat shocked, I think, to discover that they had advanced so far, so quickly through their FRC involvement. Oh, yeah... they won handily, too, and their machine IS really cool. (Patrick, if you're reading this... post a photo and show that puppy off, man!)

Our students are in the midst of participating in a non-FRC competition and we have had experiences exactly like those you're talking about. I wasn't able to attend last year, but my understanding was that our team was booed and jeered because of the considerable advantage they displayed over their competitors. It was a remarkably different experience for them compared to what they've come to know from FIRST events, I'm sure.