I am the student coach for our drive team and have always wondered why adults are also allowed to fill the position.
In my opinion when an adult is on the drive team he or she is taking away from a student’s opportunity to have a tremendously fun and rewarding experience.
Also, during strategy meetings with alliance members I see students routinely yield to the adult and not participate as actively in the conversation. The adult often seem to dominate the discussion because they are an authority figure.
What is the reasoning behind allowing adults to be coaches?
I’m not saying this is a topic that’s not worthy of bringing up again. Plenty of opinions change over time. But it’s probably worth getting some of the wisdom of these past posts.
Okay, guys. I know the Chief Delphi reflex is to dog pile on the person who starts the thread. Here’s the thing: Most of these threads turn in to heated wars about whether or not mentor coaches should be allowed. I think this is a genuine question as to why? Personally, I think a mentor or student coach fits fine into the scope of FIRST.
If it’s a student; well, FIRST is about the students. Students taking control and driving their own future. So yes, a student coach fits perfectly for FIRST. The students drive, the students strategize, the students compete.
Conversely, a mentor coach is a good fit as well. Because, yes, FIRST is about the students driving their own future; though they are under the direction of professional, experienced mentors. A drive team with a mentor coach has the student driving, competing, being part of the action, while the mentor (who is absolutely forbidden from touching controls) is hanging back, supervising, providing insight and instruction.
As to why adults can’t drive, well, I don’t feel like that is a good fit in FIRST. As I’ve said and we should all know, FIRST is an organization centered around students. It doesn’t seem right then for adults to take control of the teams creation if we’re trying to develop and inspire students.
Because that would blur an already hazy line of what is the student’s role and what is the mentor’s role. IMHO, the mentor should be there to guide the student and not do it for them. The way each team inspires is entirely up to them. The role of driver is the only limitation that FIRST gives to a team about who does what. I think it should stay that way to allow each team the flexibility they need.
If you want a student only activity, there are many STEM programs that do that. None as well as FIRST does in my estimation.
Nope. FIRST is about culture change. It’s about changing perceptions that STEM isn’t “hip”. It’s not about education or students exactly. It’s about showing them that STEM is as cool as playing in the NFL.
The drivers/human players are equivalent to athletes and the coach is there to give them guidance. Would you say that since a high school football team is for high school students, they shouldn’t have an adult be making plays for them?
11 uses student coaches because that is our preference, but we recognize that as long as a team’s goal is roughly in the neighborhood of inspiring students/teaching engineering, it’s up to them to decide how they want to achieve those goals.
Think about the role of coaches in typical sports, whether its football, baseball, basketball, an Olympic sports team, etc.
Who are they? What role do they fulfill? What roles don’t they fulfill? What do they bring to the position that makes them beneficial to the team? Why not have one of the current players be the coach?
Not trying to start an argument or nitpick semantics here… But what exactly would the point of such a culture change be if not for students? The culture change is to encourage the next generation to pick up STEM. The next generation is the current students. If FIRST is about the culture change…
Reasoning seems to change between different teams, depending on how education is passed down from mentors to students.
I know teams that have adults be the drive coach, so the students who are on the drive team are directly working with their mentors on the field.
I know teams (when I was on the drive team for my team) who have a student be the drive coach. After the match, the drive team sit down with the adults and discuss how the match went, pros/cons, etc.
Both of the reasons stated above have their benefits and their downfalls, it is just a matter of opinion. I am personally a fan of having a student be the drive coach for a few reasons.
It gives students an excellent opportunity to be on the field.
Important and on-the-spot decision making is a very handy ability to learn.
Adults can still be a part of the drive team, you just meet for 10 minutes outside the pits and discuss.
Once again, I would say it is up to how the team runs at competition. If you think an adult drive coach is a better way to teach students, go for it. If you think a student drive coach is better, go for it.
Ah, I started out nitpicking. Your assertion that students need to be a focus is accurate. I’m merely asserting that they aren’t THE focus implication being that there are other things that also must be focused on as well if we are to attain our goals.
Apart from parts of your post that people have already answered, I think this one is the most important.
It is important to select a coach, whether student or adult, who can be assertive in decision making situations. On the other hand, the coach also needs to be able to take orders and cooperate with alliance captains, or the team that is best at strategy. I’ve seen plenty of student coaches who can give out orders to adult coaches, and the exact opposite.
If teams have an issue in which their student or adult coach is not assertive during a match, it might be a good idea to set up some sort of training exercise with good coaches and various scenarios they might have to deal with. Most times, student and adult coaches will concede control in a match to a coach on another team that is more highly regarded on the field. This is usually a good call for most teams. Another scenario is that coaches will concede control to the team who is the best scorer. Kids may see adult coaches as authority figures, but that might mean you need to select a student coach that knows when to be quiet and learn, and when to speak up. They must be confident in themselves, but should not have a false sense of confidence if they are inexperienced.
I think both adult and student coaches are necessary in FRC so that kids learn how to communicate with people in the real world who they see as authority figures. This is extremely important in the workplace because you will always run into superiors with whom you disagree. If kids learn how to deal with a situation like this through FRC, then they’ll be better off in the long run.
Just my opinion on the matter. In the end, do what you feel is the best option for your team.
I have done both on my teams and I think it depends on your team’s culture. Now, I think 766 went back to students but 3309 will continue to use an adult (um me). I was originally used to streamline the drive team process hence I was made the coach. I see my role as:
-to keep my students focused
-to calm my students
-to shield my students from blame
-to negotiate the match strategy on the behalf of my students
In the past, I had to comfort my students after a loss, I also had to tell some to cool off. Sometimes these tense moments its better for an adult to be there to help make it better so we can all move on happier.
The past two years, I have had made the previous year’s drivers coach the new drivers at an off season event. The old drivers are now college mentors so they are still adults. I just coach a few matchs to make sure everything is ok. I hope this remains a tradition for 3309.
The same reasons that the coaches don’t play football or baseball or basketball against the students. The competion isn’t really for us. We are already inspired and part of the STEM professional world.
This is for the students students. They are the ones who need the experience. The adult mentors are there to guide them with experience as needed to try and prevent the competition from being an exercise in frustration.
Why don’t coaches drive the bots? The same reason why coaches don’t play on their own baseball or football teams. The coaches are there to guide the students. The best way for a driver to learn to think on their feet is to have someone who has experience walking them through the process. You have to put a little faith in the mentors that they’ll know where the line is and not be too overbearing. Keep in mind we trust mentors to know the line with every other aspect of FRC teams. If you can trust mentors to not build and design entire robots for the students, then I think you can trust them to know how to coach drivers.