Ignored Students in FRC

FIRST General Forum
#1

I am aware of the rules against alternate accounts, and am regretful that I must use one, however, I feel that this message must be said.

Over the years that I have been a student in FRC, I have had the opportunity to talk to many fellow participants and mentors at many events and through online forums. Through talking to them, I have become aware of a disturbing trend: that of students being ignored, pushed aside, or even driven out by the very teams that are supposed to assist them, educate them, and provide them with the life-changing experience of being in FRC.

I myself am one of these students.

Through my years as a student, my team has constantly belittled me, ignored me, derided me, and pushed me to the side. Though I have always made my best effort to contribute to my team, it has continued to happen, even where I am now as a senior in a position of leadership. Yet I have never quit, but pushed on in an effort to be recognized and finally included. I have made my fair share of mistakes, but I have still tried to help everyone on the team where they have not been recieving help and contribute however I can. However, it has continued to happen, even to this day.

I am by no means the only such student this has happened to.

I have many friends and acquaintances who have suffered the same. Being ignored, shoved to the side, and made fun of simply because of who we are. Though a lot of us make useful contributions to our respective teams, we have consistently felt unwelcome and even hated in our own teams, which are supposed to be our family in FRC. I have even seen many a student be driven to another team or out of FRC entirely as a result of this. That should not be happening in the environments in which we are supposed to be welcomed and included.

It’s time to stop this. It’s time to stop the bullying, ignoring, leaving out, and belittling that is happening to all too many students. It’s time to make each and every single FRC student feel welcome, feel important, and feel included.

If there is any such student on your team, please take some time to include them, to make friends with them, and to listen to what they have to contribute to the team. Let them know where they are going wrong, and help them improve, as we do to each other through Coopertition and Gracious Professionalism. You won’t regret it a single bit. You’ll make a difference to someone, and that someone will appreciate it immensely.

Thank you for reading my ramblings; I hope this message gets heard and, even if only by a little bit, helps resolve this problem. It’s time to include everyone in the amazing experience that is being on an FRC Team.

1 Like
#2

I don’t know how other teams do this, but while there is a certain amount of responsibility that needs to be on the mentors and the team dynamic as a whole there is also a level of personal responsibility that needs to be addressed.

On my FTC team in particular (I am the head mentor on an FTC team and a regular mentor on FRC) the mentors would discuss each and every student, trying to get them involved, trying to make them feel included. Sometimes to the detriment to the other team members, sadly.

We had a student who no matter what we asked him to do, no matter what idea he had that we followed up on and he would always be good for a minute then wander off. He complained about not being “part” of the team and his father asked how his son could be part of the “clique” on the team. He did this, but then didn’t each lunch with the team at competitions, sat in a different part of the stands with his family. The list goes on.

My point is that, don’t automatically assume that your team and mentors don’t try. Look for the ways they do try and try and help reinforce that. FRC is a VERY fast paced program where unfortunately kids will be left behind. Not usually out of malice, but out of ignorance. You said you are a leader on your team? Now is your chance, fix the problem. Help the mentors reach out. Also recognize that sometimes the kids are left behind because they simply don’t want it as much as everyone else.

#3

I can agree that this issue is a serious issue. I myself have sometimes felt that way. A lot of the time, i have thought that its just do to some insecurity i have, but i have seen other students also get “pushed away”. let me be clear, i don’t wish to demote my team in any such fashion, i’m just saying this a common problem that has to be solved. I feel that apart of this issue is the fact the at least in my first team, each grade level is a bunch of friends, but when your not in that friend group, you are excluded.

       I really think this problem is a hard to solve one, but what can help is Strong mentoring. The mentors in teams have to be unbiased ad to who the students are, and they have to be supportive of all the students, not just some.

I would be sort of rambling if i extended this post any further, but tl:dr this is a serious problem that should be fixed.

#4

this is a tough topic to touch on, especially with my particular views, But i’m gonna give it a shot anyways… one of the reason first is created was to prepare student for careers. like most high school activites this is a common goal among them. But life also isn’t always a fair, uplifting and supporting, system. Many times you will be rejected, made fun of, laughed at, and ignored in the business world, this builds character and dealing with it and using it in a positive way is more valuable than anything. That why im 100% okay with teams that don’t accept all ideas as good ideas,because that simply isn’t true, and teams that hold tri-outs and dont accept everyone into the program because that is life. A prime example of this…I presented an idea on paper to my manager at work for an improved method of tooling, he rejected it outright, without really giving it to much thought. I didn’t complain about it or throw the idea away or leave the company, i knew the idea was good, so i took it further and on my own time i made a prototype and presented it to him completely functioning. Its know the primary tooling we use on a daily basis. What I have feared for the longest time and what i have feared First is trending towards in the everyone wins philosophy, and frankly it’s flawed greatly. if someone beat you cause there better or they built a better robot then you own it and use it to make a better robot next year…Don’t settle and don’t complain. Basically it seems your mentors, run a strict uptight team, which is how most businesses are run, if they think your idea is bad, or that a particular person isn’t going to help, in business there not gonna run with that idea and see if it pans out and end up wasting money, and there also not going to keep a bad employee working for them (not insinuating you are a bad member, i dont judge until i see people work myself), should a First team be any different? not in my opinion!

#5

This is also a exclusion story and request for aid in changing the team culture.

One of the thing’s our team is fond of is a tendency to put everything on the seniors, even if they are potentially under qualified for the position.This is coming from watching as two years in a row some of the sophomores and juniors go out of their way over the summer to prepare for a position, for that work to be seemingly ignored by the mentors in their choice for positions when it is between an underclassman who has put time into preparing and a senior who suddenly wants to take the position. Personally, this has led to much exclusion of me personally and many other eager sophomores and juniors (I myself am a junior), and the result is simply a lot of the team is thinking of leaving because of the exclusion. The team has about ten seniors leaving on a 40 person team, and about 15 of the remaining members are considering leaving due to the lack of involvement they feel/ being skipped over for the senior priority.

Is there anything that people would suggest to help change the culture? I have brought this up multiple times, the problem being the mentors don’t want change, and the seniors don’t want anything to change because there happy they have the positions they are in and don’t want risk to the position.

It’s not a sustainable culture, and would love to get help on how to approach a change to make it better for all.

1 Like
#6

i am going to be a little mean here, but simply put suck it up, and deal with it if you want to be apart of the team if not leave, the mentors have the right to run the team anyway they seem fit.

#7

“Suck it up and deal with it!”

That always works when a kid feels bullied!

:slight_smile:

#8

You want the mentors to notice you and give you more things to do. Sure fire way is to volunteer. Every team has a few people that always volunteer to help. The floor needs swept, they will volunteer first. The people who volunteer for duties tend to get rewarded more than those who don’t.

Now obviously this is NOT universal, but I do know that when something needs to get done a mentor will look for the kid who will help first rather than the ones who only want the fun stuff or have to be told to do it.

#9

I’d like to jump in here.

You can absolutely include everyone on a team without employing the “everyone wins” attitude. I’ve proposed plenty of awful ideas, and my mentors have shut me down. The key here is telling the student why their idea for a subsystem or strategy won’t work, and why the plan you choose to follow works better than theirs. Eventually, the student learns what works and what doesn’t.

Also, I’d like to address your comparison of FIRST to a real world career-oriented environment. All members of FIRST teams are students, and generally speaking, all are 18 or younger. There is absolutely no way that we should be as qualified as our mentors - that’s what mentors are for. We’re here to learn alongside other students; some of which will have no idea how to use power tools, and some of which will just have a knack for design. In a real world situation, everyone should be learning, but there are also hiring standards. Generally speaking, employees will have a relevant education, and depending on the position, a certain amount of prior experience in a relevant position. It would be absolutely ridiculous to hold tryouts for a team if there isn’t any way a student could have had prior experience.

#10

It is very tough to be on a team and feel like you are being excluded. I went through this growing up playing sports. It is this feeling that has caused me, as a mentor, to go to individuals and make sure they are ok if they are hanging back or not engaging with the team.

As for handling it, there are a number of ways.

  1. Have a meeting with the mentors and student leaders and let them know how you are feeling, but be prepared with specific examples. If you don’t have examples, they may not be able to comprehend what you are trying to say. Also, do not attack them, as in “You didn’t let me do X, Y, or Z.” Instead, approach it as, “I wanted to do X, Y, or Z, but wasn’t able to. What could I have done differently to be able to do these things?”

  2. Remember that everyone is an individual and take pride in your individuality. This sort of goes back to the “Suck it up” mentality.

  3. Talk to some of your friends not on the team and see if you can get them to join next year.

I’m sure there are other ways to handle this, but I recommend number 1 above.

#11

How is your leadership elections run? Is it a democratic vote? If so, don’t be afraid to try and take those roles. Let others know your intentions, and get support. Tell them the concerns you have, and what you plan to do to fix. Let them know how you want to make the team included all. If so many students are serious about quitting but really love the program, then they would be serious about trying to get other leadership voted in.

As a senior last year, I could not have asked for better VP’s, and they both ran as Sophomores. There was a lot of learning and a few mistakes, but their passion for their work was astounding. One of them took over as President this year, and I am super proud of both of them. They are an amazing examples of leadership of non-senior leaders.

If you don’t vote in leadership, let me know, and I might be able to help you consider options. Also, if mentors are not aware that so much of the team could be leaving, I definitely would gather a couple others and talk to them about it.

#12

this i disagree, there is plenty of ways for a student to have prior experience. and those who don’t but have a natural talent that is shown through there tryout attempt is perfectly valid as-well. If and when i ever decide to start a team, I will restrict member through tryouts, even if it leaves me with 4 members. I did this on a lego team I use to run, it was restricted by rules to 10 so i picked the best 10 not necessarily the first 10 to sign up.

#13

Self Advocacy. It’s important to be your own best advocate, to push yourself forward. Mentors and student leaders have so much going on, it’s incredibly easy for someone that’s not present, volunteering, and working hard to slip through the cracks. My team has an off-season training session for girls on other teams called GRIP, and one of the items we cover there is self advocacy. While the presentation is much better in person, you can go through the slides here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NjT6jcfY6HzhRJ0yCMYiwiOT6OMuwKEy/view?usp=sharing

#14

I hate agreeing with you but this really is an important and noteworthy addition to this thread.

That being said, it’s not easy to become an advocate for yourself. Like most things, it takes practice and patience.

From a mentor standpoint, we try (but are not always good at) reducing the number of social cliques on our team when we see them forming or starting to form. We try to encourage our leadership students to get those who might need a helping hand up and running and prevent them from slipping through the cracks.

#15

I guess it depends on your definition of experience. If you could find a readily accessible system to train students in mill/lathe/cnc utilization, time programming with FRC-specific libraries and control systems, and attacking a game and designing a robot that can meet specific criteria in such a short period of time, then I’d be all ears. The closest program I can think of is FTC, and then FLL, and if you allow a culture of “experienced applicants only” to permeate FRC, it’ll quickly spread to the lower levels, invalidating that option.

#16

Yeah, the world isn’t perfect. However, FIRST is about helping students. I realize it’s not going to be a complete utopia, and it shouldn’t be one. However, each student at least deserves basic respect, even if they don’t have the best ideas. You can’t just push students aside for arbitrary reasons like the OP seems to have been.

#17

You say you are now in a position of leadership. Unless your team automatically puts seniors in leadership roles, it sounds like your work/dedication/skills are being recognized, if not specifically called out. I ask you to consider whether you are expecting more/different than the mentors are going to give.

Also, while who716 said it rather callously and hypberbolically, there’s a bit of truth there at the end.

FIRST mentors are mostly volunteers, and the vast majority of those paid are paid by schools and sponsors, not FIRST. Apart from the YPP, FIRST has no real indoctrination program for mentors, and most mentors only meet people associated with other teams at competitions, where they are often more involved in running the team than in sharing best practices with other mentors. Every team will be run differently according to the personalities involved. If you want to change your team, you can do it from within, or by reaching to the primary sponsor of your team (school, 4-H, whatever) if it has one. FIRST has (apparently intentionally) not created much leverage over the team structure, and Chief Delphi has none at all.

#18

I really like this piece of advice. When I was team captain in high school we literally had 75+ grade 9 students at the start of the year. Delegating was a lot of work and unfortunately we lacked the mentor pool to really get everyone involved. We’d try to have everyone on the team no matter their experience clean up. The grade 9’s we always paid the most attention to were the ones who were happy to join us. In fact I don’t think we had a single student who helped clean up not become fully involved and integrated into the team.

While obviously no one joins a FRC team just to clean, volunteering to do these things can show a lot of maturity and respect for the team as a whole.

Specifically to OP, your problem sounds like a team culture problem more than anything. Unfortunately team culture is one of the hardest things to change. I commemorate your ability to stick through it. Continue to stand up for yourself and try to use your role to change things for the better.

#19

Team culture (or rather, mentor-to-student relations), was primarily the reason why I left my team on a sour note. 5 years of losing because myself and the other students on my team were never given positions that had any real impact on the team’s performance. Only the mentors had true control.

(I could go in-depth about my personal FRC experience, but I’d probably end up writing a small novel)

#20

Hi Jon-

I’d be interested in seeing/hearing that full presentation. I hope you’d consider recording it the next time it’s presented.