The DC regional did something I haven’t seen before: they displayed and read the names of all of the regional Woodie Flowers Awards candidates before announcing the winner. I thought this was a great idea, as they all definitely deserve a shout out.
But I personally found it extremely disheartening that out of 65 teams, only 13 of them thought enough of their mentors to take a little time to write and submit a nomination essay for one of them.
What’s up with that??? Is this normal?
Did *your *team write and submit an essay for the Woodie Flowers Award this year?
We did; however, we could only submit to one of the regionals we are attending, so we didn’t submit to this weekend’s regional. This is our first year to submit one b/c, as a 3rd year team, we never had time in our first 2 years and we realized this year we had to change that. To write an essay that was good enough to actually portray our mentor was the biggest challenge that took a lot of time. I think the biggest constraint for most teams is the time and resources, we simply don’t have enough students that have the extra time to write it…
ps - i’m glad some regionals showed all of the nominations, I think that is really cool!
slowly climbing up on that soap box with creaky knees and a fear of heights…
Several years ago when I first found out about the Woodie Flowers Award, I went through a series of feelings and thoughts: awe, wonder, surprise, it’s about time an organization came up with something like this, quiet humility for those quiet mentors who do so much, joy, and back to awe. I then learned that convincing a team or teams to allow themselves to feel the pride, joy, and celebration of submitting a Woodie Flowers Award entry, is something that can be very difficult to do. For one thing, the mentors can be stubborn as mules. Bull-headed. Too busy to pay attention to that stuff. They can set up a road block and without meaning to, send signals to the students that the WFA is no biggie. Some teams don’t even know about it, if the students, mentors, parents don’t take the time to read the manual - the whole manual - and nothing but the manual. The WFA submission can fly below the radar and get pushed away because of the time crunch. If teams haven’t organized themselves into sub-teams that address the different aspects of the competition, they may falter when it comes to deadlines for the submissions. In the case of the WFA and the Chairman’s Award, it is my opinion that even if the deadline is missed, the team should finish them anyway and keep them in a scrapbook for the team the next year, saying, ‘this is what we did this year, now it’s your turn. Do it better.’ For teams who have submitted and their mentor has won the WFFA or the WFA, don’t let that stop you or prevent your team from continuing to submit. There are many many valuable mentors who donate blood, sweat, and tears to your team year after year. These same valuable devoted mentors are often the same ones who are stubborn as mules or bull-headed. That is when it time for the team to become clever and write the submission about them. They are so busy sticking their heads in the drivetrains or staring dazedly at the computer screen that they won’t notice that a student or two has teamed up with a parent or another mentor and beautifully crafted an essay that celebrates what this mentor has meant to the team. I’m a very crafty person, if you have any questions about how to do this in a sneaky fashion, I’m your man…I mean woman. Send me a pm. It may be too late to submit an essay for an award this year but it isn’t too late to recognize your beloved mentors. And there is always next year. Do it better.
It is a huge honor for the students to think of one mentor each year as a WFFA. It’s amazing to read the entry to the team before the season ends, at the competition, or even after that individual has won the award. All of my years on 1126, 229, 1930, and 2228 have shown me a different aspect of how mentors can shape and build a team. When I was back in high school (oh so many years ago too Jane!) on team 1126, we as students near the middle of the season would have student only meetings. We would discuss how each of the mentors have touched our lives and which one we would nominate. It was always a hard battle to choose the right mentor. They all have given so much to the team. I would always be happy and have a smile when I was near the mentor that we would nominate and hope that they would win. If I recall correctly, we did not have a WFFA come from 1126 in my three years of being on the team. I have heard the essay for the mentor they choose this year and I hope that will change. It’s an honor, so please show your respects for the people who make it all possible for you students.
We submitted at DC also. I was thinking that myself, but then I remebered how many rookies we have. A lot of them are still struggling to get a moving bot. I don’t think they were to worried about WF or any other awards. I doubt that most teams even really know what goes into a submission or how to enter. I know it is all in the manual and online, but I’m sure they had other things going on.
Congratulations to all the mentors who were honored today. You make this whole program run and influence every young mind around you. Thank you for all that you do.
Our team has limited resources on our team so I went to a freind of mine that’s not on our team (hopefully that will change) and had him revise and shorten ours because he actually loves to do that stuff. He’s an english guru and he saved me b/c I gave it to him on the night of the submission.
(not yet anyway, i hope he doesn’t read this)