Mentor Roles

[Citrus Dad]

Lots of good discussion here, but I'll two points that I haven't seen yet:

1) Students on the team are by definition not yet adults. And in fact, they have not yet developed adult-level judgement. One of the roles for mentors is to be the adult in the room. Sometimes that means reminding students of the facts in the situation and potential consequences of their interpretation. It also means that mentors must make adult judgments on safety and the course of instruction.

2) Mentors generally represent the institutional memory of the team. No student is likely to be on a team longer than 4 years and probably less. If a mentor is not a member of the team, how is that institutional memory to be passed on. Students tend to underestimate the value of wisdom and experience (see (1) above!).

The bottom line is that I see the loss of a mentor from a team more consequential than the loss of a disgruntled student team member. Don't be afraid to assert your role and importance.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

The bottom line is that I see the loss of a mentor from a team more consequential than the loss of a disgruntled student team member. Don't be afraid to assert your role and importance.

that is a very slippery slope. Teams are there for the benefit of the students involved. Yes, that benefit is generally amplified for every mentor involved (decreasing the student:mentor ratio leads to more personalized attention, better knowledge transfer, and hopefully more inspiration). However, losing a student at the expensive of a mentor goes directly against what FIRST is all about. We're here to inspire students and make them excited about science and technology. A disgruntled student that leaves the team is the opposite of inspired. It may be more work, but I believe there is always a way for a mentor to figure out how to reach a student productively. Mentors are much more knowledgeable and experienced individuals... They should use that to bridge the gap towards working with students, not force one out that seems disgruntled.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

However, losing a student at the expensive of a mentor goes directly against what FIRST is all about.

I'm fairly confident this statement does not hold up.

Some students are bent against not working with mentors. Depending on the team's philosophy and what role mentors play, this may mean the student chooses to leave. I don't think that is "un-FIRST".

-Mike

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

I'm fairly confident this statement does not hold up.

Some students are bent against not working with mentors. Depending on the team's philosophy and what role mentors play, this may mean the student chooses to leave. I don't think that is "un-FIRST".

-Mike

As quoted earlier in the thread, the FIRST mission statement says:

The mission of FIRST is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting Mentor-based programs that build science, engineering, and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

The mission is to inspire through a mentor based program. Forcing someone out because the mentors can't find a way to work with them does not fall anywhere near that mission. It means the mentors failed to engage with that student. They failed to inspire that student. In short, they failed the whole point of the program with regards to that student.

I've known students to discover, through the program, that their passion lies elsewhere and leave to follow that passion. There's nothing wrong with that. But to have them leave because a mentor can't get along with them? The should never happen.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

I've known students to discover, through the program, that their passion lies elsewhere and leave to follow that passion. There's nothing wrong with that. But to have them leave because a mentor can't get along with them? The should never happen.

Jon,

I think I agree with you here.

My observation has been more along the lines of "a student can't get along with a mentor", not "a mentor can't get along with a student".

I agree, mentors need to be adults and get along (as well as guide, inspire, etc) students.

However, if a student refuses to get along with mentor(s) on the team, despite mentors being adults and trying to work things out with said student, it seems like said student leaving is natural and not-so-terrible conclusion.

What do you think?

-Mike

[Jon Stratis]

Yes, it may be a natural conclusion, but when something like that happens, it should at the minimum cause the mentors for the team to reevaluate how they work with the students.

In my 10 years working with my team, we have never, not once, had a student leave because they couldn't find a way to work with the mentors or other team members - we always work at it until we find a way to make it work. We've had some leave because of conflicts with other activities (They prioritize theater or skiing or whatever over robotics and don't feel they can invest time in both), or because their parents had been forcing them to go and finally let the student make up their own mind (oddly enough, they usually come back after a year off in those situations!), and we've had plenty change how they work on the team by switching subteams/focus areas when they find the one they were in wasn't to their liking. But never has anyone left because of a conflict with a mentor or other student.

[hauki]

Thank you everyone who has replied. These comments should be bound and published as a mentor handbook!

Just to be clear, my idea of fail is to not field any sort of robot at a competition. At this point we don't have a moving chassis but are still spending too much brainstorming on how to climb the wall. I keep trying to redirect the team on getting the chassis built. It has just been challenging.

A little backgound. This is the teams 5th year. We are a small team with 4 mentors (1 engineering, 3 business) and 9 students. All this years mentors are new. We have 2 students that have been with the program and the rest are new 9th graders. I really have no idea why the former mentors dropped out but it has left a big gap.

From my conversations and observation of the team I believe the focus in the past has has had too much emphais on getting a robot built at all costs and not enough about team and individual building.

The students lack many of the hard and soft skills needed to get though a build season. If you dump some people into a high pressure situation where they don't have all the technical, analysis, planning, stress management, negotiation, leadership, ownership, etc skills needed, then there are going to be issues. I have come to realize I can't resolve these issues during build season. I can only triage the situation and do my best to keep the team moving forward. Work needs to be done off season to build a team and prepare them for the season.

It is what it is.


"We struck down evil with the mighty sword of teamwork and the hammer of not-bickering." Mystery Men

[VacioArconte]

It sounds like your team is fairly young (student-wise, at least), so letting them fail wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, since they'll always have future years to improve. In my experience, the most effective mentoring has been the question-asking type - why are you doing this? Why did you decide not to do this? Teach them to think for themselves by asking them the questions they should have already asked themselves. If they've fallen in love with their designs and won't listen to anything negative about them (trust me, it definitely happens), then at least encourage them to test their design early so that they can fix it.

As someone on the other side of the mentor/student partnership, I can safely say that mentoring is a very tough job. Walking the line of helping too much and helping too little must be a huge challenge, and your students (even if they don't right now) will come to appreciate your efforts.

Good luck!

[indieFan]

Originally Posted by hauki

At this point we don't have a moving chassis but are still spending too much brainstorming on how to climb the wall. I keep trying to redirect the team on getting the chassis built. It has just been challenging.

This is where you have to use guided logic with the students.

On a board (preferably White Board), write down:
Chassis Build Climb Wall Brainstorm/Build
Pros Cons Pros Cons

Hopefully they can come to the realization that climbing the wall won't mean much if they don't have a moving chassis. The hard part as a mentor is getting the students to understand that the chassis takes more than an hour to build and code. (Yes, it can and has been done in a day.) Or, if they think that is the case, tell them to give you that hour for the chassis and then they can go back to the Climb Wall Brainstorm.

The other thing to guide them to as a pro for Chassis Build is they can learn how to build other mechanisms and use tools, thus speeding up the Climb Wall Brainstorm.

Keep us posted on how things are going,
indieFan

[philso]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

Jon,

I think I agree with you here.

My observation has been more along the lines of "a student can't get along with a mentor", not "a mentor can't get along with a student".

I agree, mentors need to be adults and get along (as well as guide, inspire, etc) students.

However, if a student refuses to get along with mentor(s) on the team, despite mentors being adults and trying to work things out with said student, it seems like said student leaving is natural and not-so-terrible conclusion.

What do you think?

-Mike

With the number of people involved in this program, there will be a few students who just won't work with the mentors, no matter what the mentors do.

The first team I worked with had two such students. Not only did they drive away all the previous mentors, they ruined the experience for all the other team members who were pushed aside by their actions. Unfortunately, speaking with their parents would not have improved anything since they were indulgent up to the point where they broke holes in the walls of their house while driving the robot inside. That team no longer exists. The sponsoring teacher retired and those two students graduated. None of the other students were inspired enough by their experience to try to keep the team going.

I know Jon advocates doing everything to work with such students so they can have a positive experience but at what cost?

[Racer26]

I agree with many of the above posters, but also have this to say:

In 12 years of FRC competition, I don't recall ever seeing a team that simply could not compete at all.

Saw plenty of teams whose robots were not working as intended, and plenty more relegated to 'easier' roles such as defensive positions (though you'll never hear me say defense is easy. Effective defence is anything but.)

I've even seen on a couple of occasions a team who arrived to an event to find that their robot had not arrived due to some shipping SNAFU, and managed to cobble together a functional-enough robot from the help of other team's spare parts on thursday, that I don't think they missed even one match of that event, and they even made Eliminations.

Basically: Its much too early to resign yourself to the belief that they won't even have a functional robot, as it can be done in under 24 hours if you're motivated.

This year, a box on wheels of sufficient type can traverse one or more types of DEFENSEs and contribute to their ALLIANCE in a meaningful way.