QotW 10-19-03: Purpose lost.

FIRST Rumor Mill
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Rather than further risk hijacking this thread, I thought this discussion might make a good question for this week.

(My apologies to the person who begged me to ask their question this week. I’ll post it next week.)

Actions often speak louder than words, and the actions taken by FIRST, its teams, mentors and students, are often more visible, powerful and influential than the statements they make.

So, we have actions – challenging conventional ideas about what a role model should be, teaching thousands of students invaluable lessons about science, engineering, management, and life, and empowering those students to go on and effect positive change elsewhere by further challenging conventional ideas of what’s valued, important, and necessary in our culture.

Then, we have words. The FIRST website reads, “FIRST inspires in young people, their schools, and communities, an appreciation of science and technology, and how mastering these skills can enrich the lives of all.”

Question of the Week 10-19-03: Which are more powerful, actions or words?

I would like to learn how the actions we’ve seen in FIRST and the things we’re told about FIRST impact our experiences. Why are we all here? If you’re participating in FIRST, but don’t singularly promote the written mission of FIRST, how do you reconcile that difference as you work with mentors, students and sponsors?

I’m trying purposefully to leave this question as open-ended as possible. I think we can each learn a lot from others’ explanations of why they participate, what they’re trying to accomplish, and how they feel about the goals of others.

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I’m going to step out of rank for a bit this week and answer my own question because I think it’s an important topic to examine and I tend to be better at doing that when I write things down.

Increasingly, it seems to me like a lot of participants in FIRST are intent on improving their position in society – that they’re less interested in raising engineers and scientists to the same level of appreciation as sports and rock stars than they are in replacing those stars with engineers and scientists. This is something I’ve written about before and it’s not an ideology I agree with as I don’t see benefit in placing any single profession, person or idea on an altar of cultural improtance. Homogenization is only good for dairy products, not people.

When I think about FIRST, I don’t immediately see it as an organization that champions the need, appreciation and achievements of engineers. That’s not why I’m here, but it’s not a bad side effect – in moderation. Similarly, I don’t appeciate Dean Kamen, foremost, as an engineer.

What drew me into this program and what keeps me around long after a saner person would’ve left are the actions that I’ve been witness to. FIRST, to me, is an organization that taught me to appreciate engineers, but it did something much greater than that. It taught me that it’s okay to challenge the conventional and to make people question why, when and how we value people in our society. It forced me to reexamine my own feelings about being a round peg in a square hole and helped me to harness those experiences and use them as a tool in teaching and inspiring others. Dean Kamen is a brilliant engineer, but at the same time, he has the confidence and scope of vision to go out and challenge people and their ideas.

My participation in FIRST has caused me to stray from engineering and to pursue other career paths. Am I failure? Do I impede the progress of those who’re following that written statement listed above because I don’t fit in the mold of what FIRST should be about? I don’t think I am.

In fact, for me, as someone who was inspired – not by the robots, or the corporations or the teachers – but by the willingness and confidence displayed by each and every person and team who challenges their ideas about convention and society, the idea of anyone impeding the progress of those who follow that written goal is terrifying. To me, to suggest that people who don’t know what FIRST is really about because they’re not involved for the same reasons you are – whether you follow the written doctrine or not – is a dangerously close approximation to the same ideas of “convention” and “acceptance” that FIRST challenges in so many other venues.

For me, FIRST’s actions have always influenced me much more than their words. I am thankful to have been shown that challenging assumptions and conventions and ideas can lead to a better world for everyone. I’m scared that I am among very few people who see that FIRST is quickly becoming stagnant and complacent in its mission and is falling to victim to the same expectations of conformity that it orginally challenged.

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*Originally posted by M. Krass *
**Rather than further risk hijacking this thread, I thought this discussion might make a good question for this week.

(My apologies to the person who begged me to ask their question this week. I’ll post it next week.)

Actions often speak louder than words, and the actions taken by FIRST, its teams, mentors and students, are often more visible, powerful and influential than the statements they make.

So, we have actions – challenging conventional ideas about what a role model should be, teaching thousands of students invaluable lessons about science, engineering, management, and life, and empowering those students to go on and effect positive change elsewhere by further challenging conventional ideas of what’s valued, important, and necessary in our culture.

Then, we have words. The FIRST website reads, “FIRST inspires in young people, their schools, and communities, an appreciation of science and technology, and how mastering these skills can enrich the lives of all.”

Question of the Week 10-19-03: Which are more powerful, actions or words?

I would like to learn how the actions we’ve seen in FIRST and the things we’re told about FIRST impact our experiences. Why are we all here? If you’re participating in FIRST, but don’t singularly promote the written mission of FIRST, how do you reconcile that difference as you work with mentors, students and sponsors?

I’m trying purposefully to leave this question as open-ended as possible. I think we can each learn a lot from others’ explanations of why they participate, what they’re trying to accomplish, and how they feel about the goals of others. **

And I’ll break my posting habits and actually not answer this one. On second thought, that is my answer. That was quick…

What’s sad is that there are a million more analogies I could use for this.

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its quite simple! actions are louder and more powerful than words. you can say something and not follow up. but if you do something it makes you seem bigger and more powerfull. more respectful

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I think that actions are often more powerful than words, but not always, especially when it comes to spoken words. A parent can tell their kids not to lie, not to cheat, not to smoke, etc… but if they themselves do not practice what they preach, their message is usually in vain. But when do words become action?

One of the things I remember most about the last (and only) Nationals I attended was a match I watched where an adult on one of the teams that lost yelled and cussed through the whole round, called the kids idiots and was generally a very nasty person lacking any gracious professionalism. His words crushed their spirits. I’ve seen things like this happen at other competitions, but luckily, there are more teams who aren’t like this. FIRST is more than just winning, but there are teams where winning is the only thing that matters. And there are adults involved with FIRST who push the message that if you lose, you are a failure. That is not my kind of a team.

I am not an engineer, I’m not even going to mention my track record in math and science… the reason I joined a team at all was because I told a certain someone that if he was doing another year of it, we were getting a cat. He countered with a deal, that if I attend some of the meetings and liked it enough to join the team, we remain cat free. So I did and I fell in love with it. I think what FIRST stands for is wonderful, but it is not what keeps me on the team. I don’t care that it’s science and technology that is inspiring them, I just care that they are inspired. That they know when they lose a match (which they do, quite a bit) they are still winners. I love watching the whole process of creation come together and seeing how students change from the beginning of the season to the end, and from year to year. Their energy and enthusiasm is contagious and I’ve found myself more appreciative of engineering than ever before. So it is the actions of the team rather than the words of FIRST that are more powerful to me.

And I can go on and on, but I really need to get back to work, so I won’t.

Heidi

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Like my grandmother always used to say “I can’t eat without my teeth…” uh, wait a minute, that’s not the right saying… er, never-mind…