This is only my second year being involved with First and overall my experience as a mentor has been great. But I would like to point out what I think could be the ugliest part of my experience.:mad: We competed in 2007 at Pittsburgh, Palmetto and the Championship. So far this season at Pittsburgh and will compete at Palmetto and the Championship. We have been very fortunate to have mostly females on our team and this is where the ugliness comes in, the language that I hear in the pits is unbelievable, I have went to team mentors and ask team to watch their teams language, I have went to the pit announcers and had them make announcements about watching language, but this weekend in Pittsburgh I noticed it is not just the young members but many of the mentors that are using bad language in the pits where not only female members are located and working but families with young children are walking and looking.
I strongly think that FIRST needs to address this issue and I wanted others opinions.
You make it sound as though females donāt swear. Iām not saying that swearing in the pits is right, or what have you, but FIRST events are high energy, fired up events. Tension is VERY high on many teams, especially when things donāt go according to plan.
Outlawing curse words from FIRST events is not going to work, people will still swear, and FIRST is about preparing people for the real world. People swear in the real world. Why should we play the protectionist role?
I donāt like your implication that girls donāt swear, and that its those filthy boys doing all the cussing. I know plenty of girls who swear.
There is no place at competition for swearing. I donāt care how pressure packed it is.
If I hear another team using inappropriate language I will speak to their mentor. If the universal adjective is being used I will not hesitate to speak directly to the perpetrator.
Hahahahaha! So true. Swearing is a human characteristic not limited to race, sex, or age.
What we have here is a balance between the GP world of FIRST, and the pit environment which is semi-rooted in a mechanical field of things not going perfect.
(The auto shop theory if you will).
Can you make a difference at the personal level and ask someone not to swear if you go up to them personally and ask them not to?
Probably.
Should FIRST be involved and ban swearing in the pits?
Maybe. But highly unlikely.
Overall swearing is not illegal and shouldnāt be considered that at FIRST events. Itās something that will happen.
Should it happen? No. But we donāt live in a perfect swear-free world.
If you are offended at swearing the move should be yours to remedy that in people around you and to not rely on FIRST to stop it.
If you really want to, make an announcement over the PA system in the pits with a friendly reminder that children and families and (non-swearing) girls are present at the event they are in and to keep it under wraps.
if you wanted to go the extra step, hang some signs up that say āEntering a swear-free environment. - Please abide by the request to ākeep it cleanā in everything you do todayā or something like that and throw your team number on that if your team is as adament* with this movement as you are.
Maybe itāll even win you an award or something doing thatā¦ who knows?
Thatās all you can do at this point in my opinion.
While I understand your concerns and problems, I do have to wonder how much of a sexist comment that is. Women canāt handle swear words and should be treated specially? Isnāt that just somewhat wrong?
I donāt have a problem with people doing this. This is the appropriate way to approach this problem, if it really offends you. I hate censorship with an undying passion, and think censorship in ANY media (print, audio, video, oral face-to-face communication, etc) is stupid. Self-censorship is better, but not by much. Its simple, if something offends you, donāt listen to it. Censorship in music is the one that really bugs me. By censoring the song, you remove the artists original intent from the song, instead of just not listening to it, if it offends you.
Will asking someone to stop swearing near you because it offends you help? Maybe. It canāt hurt. Will they be offended that youāre trying to tell them what to do? Maybe.
All I know is there are plenty of places in life where I see people swearing all the time. (Though admittedly, I do tend to attend places where this might be more common: racetracks, other competitive environments, etc)
You canāt protect people from it, and you canāt outlaw it, so I suggest learning to not let it offend you. Things like the ever-versatile F-word. Its a word, nothing more. Its offensive connotation is all in how one interprets it. Ones that really get me are words like A** and sht. These are words that have a real definition. An @#@#$@# is a donkey. This context is used in the BIBLE, and yet, some people are offended by this word. Same goes for sht. I donāt understand how it is any more offensive than poo, or feces.
In any case, the point Iām laboriously trying to get to is that it is highly unlikely you will eliminate swearing anywhere. You may however, be able to reduce it through making people aware that theyāre offending you.
Thatās fine, but I think the problem was more of protecting by censoring others than showing self restraint in a public environment where everyone isnāt familiar with eachother.
We are not at a racetrack or any other place where foul language is permitted. We are in what is supposed to be a profesional environment. (btw I have nicely asked people at a NASCAR race to please watch their language and they apologized).
We are teaching students to be professionals, if they use that language at any engineering/technical company I have been associated with they would be warned and then fired, period.
If FIRST is a āprofessionalā environment, then we should be having the refs make professional calls, but thats a whole other can of worms. Making calls that are explicitly wrong per the rules, and not an interpretation issue is unprofessional. Period. (See: SVR Finals)
EDIT: Also, how can you say foul language is not permitted at FIRST events. Nobody ever said that, and its not in any rulebooks that I can recall, correct me if Iām wrongā¦
EDIT2: And Iām fairly certain nobody explicitly PERMITS profanity anywhere.
Guy and Sam,
I agree with you. Sensitivity for language in front of females is something I was brought up on. If we are truly changing the world, why not try to initiate some change in language. We already make participants use technical jargon when describing their robot or software. I think we can all agree that even the pits are a semi-family environment. No need for rules from First, letās lead by example.
Iām totally for leading by example, and not swearing at events. But Iām just playing devils advocate, and pointing out that in the heat of the moment, people often forget things like this.
Heck, Iāll admit to swearing during the Detroit Competition. Iām not particularly proud of it, but my work environment (shop floor and machine shop) is one where itās a normal part of everyday speech.
Had someone pointed it out to me, I would have hastily apologized to them!
Thatās the right track to take. Letās face it - kids are going to hear this stuff well before high school and FIRST. Having them see someone politely address it is the best way to handle it. Trying to somehow ban or penalize people for it? That would be yet another rule that FIRST couldnāt enforce.
Iād much rather have them cancel the contract of the DJās who play the profanity-ridden rap at several of the events. Hearing it in the pits is one thing - broadcasting it to the world is quite another!
Tom, theres a whole other discussion on the questionable music played at some eventsā¦ Songs like āSave a horse, ride a cowboyā. While not ACTUALLY having any profanityā¦ the lyrics pose a questionable situation, and implicate things which are inappropriate. Iām sure a quick search would bring up that thread.
first off, girls do swear.
secondly, FIRST is very largely about replicating the real world. we do things now that we may be doing after college.
now please, show me an engineering firm that has a no swearing policy that is actually enforced. before I decided to become a teacher, I was an assistant technical director at a number of theatres. while back stage theatre is a bit dispaportionant with swearing to the rest of the world, when I would visit companies who make theatre equipment, who have a number of engineers working to create a better light, or a move efficiant tool, the amount of swearing I would hear from them would make me think they were a group of dockworkers(as the saying goes)
now Iām not saying lets just swear whenever we want. when Iām at the school, unless things are going really really bad(dewalt transmissions anyone?), Iāll try not to swear infront of the students. and if the students swear for no reason, I will call them on it. and if they swear to another student, boy, they better hope Iām not in earshot. but at competition, unless a little kid is standing in our pit, I dont care if we swear when the bot is doing poorly, I dont care if we swear if it has reason. some times all someone needs in rough times is the satisfaction of yelling out a curse word. now if I were next to you, and swore, and you asked me to stop, yea, I would, but to make a rule about it, when its so increadibly different from the real world, would just be in my opinion stupid. I feel that if you have a problem with someone cursing, tell them, but unless theres a kid around us or something, dont expect everyone to change something that happens in the real world.
Well, I was raised to treat women as equals. I know quite a few females who would be offended by the comments quoted here. (See? Just because something offends you doesnāt mean it offends others, and conversely, just because something makes perfect sense to you it can still be considered offensive by others. Thereās no possible way weāll remove everything that is considered offensive to someone from a FIRST event.)
If you all want to avoid using foul language, thatās a great idea, but do it out of respect for the men AND women around you. If you all think women would be offended by it, then why wouldnāt you think men would be too? K-Dawg, Sam, and Al, can I take your comments to mean that you would find no problem with swearing in the pits if there were only men around?
No, I was just giving the context in which I was raised. I donāt think swearing should be used at all.
Look I live in the real world most of the time and I understand that swearing is a part of it. I will most of the time overlook the occasional swear word but I have been in the pits next to a team who constantly used foul language and I had to have a talk with the students when it was apparent that their mentor didnāt care. They apologized and stopped.
I just object to the train of thought that seems to say that cursing is part of the work environment so itās OK to let the kids swear away.
Itās not censorship itās teaching the right thing.
Bzzzt! Wrong answer. FIRST is very largely about changing the world. We do expect people to act in a ābetterā way, and thus to improve the real world.
For those who find nothing wrong with swearing at FIRST events, try slipping a few expletives into your Chairmanās presentation and see the reaction you get. Then have the students use the same words in the classrooms they return to on Monday morning.
Itās not simply a case of inappropriate words in places where women (*) and children might hear them. Itās a case of using inappropriate words in inappropriate places. A quick slip in the heat of the moment is one thing, but if you canāt string three sentences together without using a dozen swear words, you need to re-evaluate your speech patterns.
(*) - by the way, in a case that went all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court a few years ago, a law was invalidated regarding swearing in front of women. A guy was tipped out of his canoe and let out a string that could be heard half a mile away. He was brought up on charges, but eventually the conviction was overturned and the case dismissed because the law specified it applied in the presence of women.
But I would like to point out what I think could be the ugliest part of my experience.:mad: We competed in 2007 at Pittsburgh, Palmetto and the Championship. So far this season at Pittsburgh and will compete at Palmetto and the Championship. We have been very fortunate to have mostly females on our team and this is where the ugliness comes in, the language that I hear in the pits is unbelievable, I have went to team mentors and ask team to watch their teams language, I have went to the pit announcers and had them make announcements about watching language, but this weekend in Pittsburgh I noticed it is not just the young members but many of the mentors that are using bad language in the pits where not only female members are located and working but families with young children are walking and looking.