This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
That's fair, and it (along with the grant/scholarship ecosystem) are a serious frustration with these programs.
But there is a separation between the telos and the day-to-day work: even for students that are only getting involved to fill out their college resume, they at least have the opportunity to learn more. I've had students go into the program unfamiliar with the "plus" and "minus" screwdrivers, and come out knowing how to safely use a lathe; start without the ability to read basic Java assignment, and leave building a command scheduler library; to begin with a wire management scheme of 'rat's nest', and grow to something that's not horrifying; to start a stuttering mess and grow to actually give a confident presentation.
My bigger criticism of the programs are how poorly they play into some portions of that: the program designs make it very hard to justify teaching soldering, or electrical engineering, or good CAD principles, or serious ground-up manufacturing, even off-season. ((to be fair, because it's hard to find the mentor expertise. I can't CAD worth shit. Finding anyone who can run a hot air rework station and volunteer six hours a week is a pretty hefty lift.))
The Lego stuff has always been at the less productive end of that. You can teach basic programming with it even if the EV3 did a little better, and there is a public speaking and product development bit even if it's never been very realistic, but the design and problem-solving sides have always felt a little too much like encouraging students to solve by exhaustion rather than learning.
But it's noteworthy that Lego seems to be pulling toward the UMC strivers, that FIRST decided to nope out. It's even more noteworthy that result seems destructive toward FIRST, rather than anyone else, and will only become more so if FIRST doesn't shape up fast, and that they don't seem to have any route to do so in no small part because of the skills development segments that they've missed.
Sorry about all that, but I'd still rather see this buried. Maybe we can bring back shop class, or just return a few hours a week to the kids that they can use to go to a maker space rather than grinding legible college app activities.
I don't quite understand. Who is even doing this besides the strivers?
Is FIRST not basically the only game in town?
Anecdote, but there's a decent number who use it to see if their kid actually likes programming or STEM-adjacent stuff since the school programs are garbage and self-driven learning is very hit-or-miss, a smaller number who just insist their kid do something as an after school program to get them out of the house and FIRST is something that's still air-conditioned, and a lot of kids who get into it because it's an in-school program and less dumb than most of the other electives.
The dedicated strivers exist, and they're really obnoxious when you run into one that's made themselves a drive coach, but it's not the only entry point.
No, surprisingly. VEX V5 is the most comparable league to FTC, and it's technically a little larger in terms of just student count. The teams I mentor actually have pretty serious recruitment conflict because it's so much easier to run an 'award-winning' V5 team. FRC is pretty unique in scale, at least until you get into battle-bot style destructive stuff, but that doesn't really show up on the resumes. And there's a bunch of smaller programs like REFC Drone or the National Robotics Competition.
I'd just add that it's basically the sort of 'disguising good training / education as fun' pipeline that provides early exposure and participation to engineering design challenges in a way that most school curriculum aren't set up to do. Even when it's adult-led it's closer to apprenticeship than school work.
In most contexts or countries, a shop-class works on a 'teach how to use the tools and follow instructions' principles. Curriculum and grading standards are, well, standardized across iterations, oversight is high for safety reasons, and projects for personal design are typically bounded. You are typically doing a series of building steps to a pre-defined end, with an intent of teaching basic skills to demonstrate a culmination. It is usually very much start to finish.
The FIRST competition format is substantially different, since teams are attempting to design (and then implement) their own solution to a problem set that can be approached in significantly different ways. This means they have to work backwards starting with defining their end-state, identifying what they need to achieve to get there, and only then trying to figure out how to do it.
This isn't a natural skill set to many adults, let alone kids with even larger skill gaps and less training.
It also doesn't invalidate the benefits to participants. Bad coaches exist in practically any organized sport, but bad coaches don't negate the benefits of children having a hobby that gives them a peer group to bond with, structured competition to succeed and fail in, and clear demonstrations of inputs to results to build a sense of agency. Even if the child is only doing it because the parents want that resume padding, it is still good for the children, and the future adults those children grow up to be.
Nah. If you've met any of the people who used to do this stuff as kids, they just minimax it to get maximal reward for minimal effort, use their parents' volunteering as leverage to advance within the club, then become extruded homogenized IC drone product at FAANG.
Yah. Strivers who actually minmax have to know what to minmax, which is still preferable to would-be minmaxers who don't know how or what to minmax. Even if you cannot get someone to understand or appreciate why a habit is good, it is still better for them to develop the habit than to not. There is never going to be a shortage of ambitious / selfish / lazy people wanting good jobs; it is still better if their average baseline competance is higher than lower, if only so that don't get in the way of other people's good work.
And this holds true even for the insufferable strivers. For the non-insufferable sorts, and even the non-strivers, developing good habits and skill sets is even more valuable. It would be an incompetent education policy that disregards the people who can be taught because there are poor actors who won't internalize the lessons. The world, and a profession, doesn't get better the more less-capable people it inducts.
Rotely following Honorable Mother and Father's directions on minmaxing extracurriculars to get into Harvard may be less pedagogically useful than you believe.
Your mistake is confusing the result of Goodharting metrics to within an inch of their lives with actual development of skill and habits. Developing habits is a total waste of time when you can get good results by working the system and have more time left over to study for Bio Olympiad.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link