2016 Championship Harassment Survey

FIRST General Forum
1

As I mentioned in a few threads, I’m interested in pushing FIRST to be more serious about addressing seating issues and harassment in general. The current policy is moderately vague and doesn’t mention any actions FIRST will take to actually address any harassment reports they get. Most cons manage this just fine, and we should be able to manage at least as well as a con.

With that in mind, I’ve made up a pretty simple Google Forms survey to collect reports of incidents people had at the 2016 Champs, for starters:
http://goo.gl/forms/ZwrptGK2jT

I’m hoping to have a stack of unaddressed issues to wave in people’s faces and make them take notice. Or maybe not. Maybe there weren’t that many problems and FIRST’s current system is fine. First step is gathering some (mildly unscientific) data. If you don’t want to bother with the form, feel free to post in here as well. Or comment if there’s something you feel I need to change on the form.

2

Will you be releasing the results publicly?

3

I don’t think we had to deal with any serious issues at Worlds. There were times people were in our way and we politely asked them to move and they did. Holding seats wasn’t a problem because there was an abudence of free seating at our divison. At MSC, that’s another story though. There were a few teams I remember that were very rude when it came to stuff.

4

I’ll release the anonymous info publicly. The Team Number and Years in FIRST fields are to give weight to any reports coming from veteran participants. Or rookies. Bad experience your first year at Champs is obviously a bad thing.

5

You should change the “What kind of harassment did you experience?” question to a checkbox format, so that people can pick multiple.

6

Should I modify this into a general purpose form? I can add a field for the competition you had a problem at. I’m mostly focusing on Champs because I want Houston Champs to run smoothly and not have these sorts of problems, and I should have some influence with a board member or two.

7

What specifically do you want to see happen? We aren’t supposed to save seats, but if a group of scouts is working and a few get up to go check out things, is it wrong to assume that your scouts should be able to be together so you can collect data conveniently?

We had a team whose mom’s kept scooting into our row or sending students to take the empty seat every time one of our scouts would leave for a break. That made it awkward upon their return. Finally, we just left and went somewhere that general spectators didn’t want to be. I think “civilians” don’t understand that there are people trying to do a job in the stands. They wouldn’t go in the pits and get in the way of other teams there, but they are perfectly willing to do it in the stands. I’m not sure there is a solution other than announcing that folks be aware of scouts in the stands and help them do their job by not standing in front of them or nudging them out.

8

I didn’t see it in St Louis but I had a long chat with our district director about the clothespin problem that I’ve seen happen at some events. Students will take to putting clothespins on other students in some sort of ritual tag game, which is fine if those students know each other. It’s when they don’t that I have a problem with it. Putting them on strangers is not acceptable and it’s going to lead to a more serious problem down the road if nothing is done about it.

It’s an issue and I’ve had more than one student feel harassed because of it. In all cases for my team it has been female students who felt harassed for having the clothespins placed on them by male students from other teams. I’m tired of dealing with it year after year personally and I plan on making a big point of it so it stops. It’s unacceptable.

9

I agree with the multiple-choice checkbox for ‘type of harassment’. I had to write ‘other’ and write in just about every option.

This is the second year in a row my kids have been screamed at and shoved around over seating. We travel with a group anywhere from 45-80 people, so we understand that we take up a lot of space, and try to be as thoughtful as possible in choosing where to sit and how we behave. Is everyone on our team perfect? Certainly not, but we dang sure try to keep it gracious and professional.

Each one of our students is well-versed in the rules, both from the manual and our team’s materials. For 1923’s travel meetings, we say this, though in a much longer-form discussion:

-If there’s someone in the seat, that is their seat. You have no right to ask them to move. (Yes, even if it’s a seat you got up from earlier. You don’t own it, and you left it empty. Tough luck.)
-If someone’s stuff is in a seat, don’t touch it - just leave it alone. If you really need somewhere to sit and that’s your only option, ask that seat’s neighbor if you may sit there until the other person returns.
-If there are no people or backpacks in a seat, you may sit there, as it’s open.
-If someone gets in your face about it, say the following. “I’m sorry sir/ma’am, but the manual actually prevents saving seats. May we sit here while the seat is empty?”
-If that person escalates, call one of your mentors over. You will not have to deal with harassment alone.

I had written out a whole thing about our last two years of experiences, but I honestly get exhausted all over again thinking about it. It boils down to the following; My kids have been screamed at, called ungracious, pushed, shoved, and even kicked - over asking to sit down in empty seats.

**Every single one of our incidents has involved an adult from another team, not a kid. **

Overzealous adults are a good chunk of the problem with seating. I’ve very rarely seen students be rude about it. Teams need to make ‘don’t be a jerk’ a part of their culture, and that culture needs to be explained to the parents who travel with you.

Volunteer harassment is a whole separate issue I don’t want to get into on this already-ranty-post. I could write a book. Maybe more than one.

10

The kids usually look really embarrassed by the adults in their team shirt making a total @#@#$@# of themselves.

11

It was late and I was quite certain I’m not informed enough to cover anything. I’m just motivated and think I might improve things for Houston Champs if nothing else.

This has been my observation as well. And I don’t think it’s because the students feel intimidated or unable to protest. They just don’t seem to feel nearly as protective as adults.

12

Can the folks suggesting a checkbox format just PM Kevin with a list of suggested Checkboxes? That might help him out more.

Thanks for putting this together, I feel this is a great step in the right direction.

Also, I agree with marshall on this clothespin tag game.

  1. I don’t get it, am I out of touch with the youth already?
  2. I do see kids targeting girls a lot and I find it rather annoying knowing that a student of mine may be attracting unwanted physical interaction
  3. The fact that they usually sneak up on other students just seems creepy to me.

Mentors - if you see your kids doing this, kindly ask them to stop tagging strangers. If not, I will gladly break their clothespins in front of them.

Thanks,
Akash

13

I had never heard of the game until you posted this, but I did see students throwing clothespins into other teams pits when they weren’t around. Seemed odd to me.

-Mike

14

It was certainly a thing people were doing at Champs. Teams would leave clothespins in our pit or attach them to our students.

15

2481 has a standard practice with the students that any clothespins they find are taken to the pit crew for distruction/disposal. Should any other teams participating at the same event wish to drop clothespins off at the 2481 pit I’m sure the pit captain would be happy to oblige

16

It’s not just pinning students, but Rick Snyder’s Security(?) got tagged too. Additionally, there’s a weirdly defensive justification over the practice. I never understood it as a student, and I still don’t understand it as a mentor. Perhaps there’s only a short period before people start putting clothes pins on paper airplanes :rolleyes:

17

Not only does this happen among students, but several volunteers including myself end up getting tagged. Personally, I’m never thrilled when I get tagged. It’s a little creepy, and I don’t want the tags on me.

So mentors, let’s please STOP this behavior from happening.

18

Thanks for tracking this. I would love to see the results with team number/identifying information removed.

19

Lots of students enjoy the clothespin tagging game, on both the tagger and taggee sides. I don’t want to participate, but I also don’t want to ruin the game for the willing participants. Asking for consent spoils the fun. So how about explicitly identifying the tag targets? People who are happy to get pins clipped to them could wear a distinctive sash or wristband. Anyone not displaying the “target consent” item would be out of bounds.

20

Some of our students did that one year at some event… I feel like it just brought more of them out though.

[rant]
I am just sick of dealing with this though. I have to take time away from my own students and go track down the other team involved, find a reasonably astute student or an adult, explain to them that they need to stop it while holding some level of self-control so I don’t scream at them to stop perpetuating a culture of invading the personal space of others. Meanwhile my students felt threatened, intimidated, and I’m sure a little embarrassed that they have a mentor having these conversations. And then after I’ve done it, I have to deal with the eye rolling… yeah, I’m the guy in zebra-striped pajama pants and grease covered hands who just told your team to stop harassing my students!!! It irritates the crap out of me!!! #TSINMFD
[/rant]

If I had to guess it started because some team brought in clothespins as their team giveaway/button substitute and then boredom took over and now we have a lame tradition that shows no respect for personal space.