Kids these days.....

[Mcgyver]

The popular refrain. No doubt social media, connectivity, everyone gets a trophy and helicopter parents have made for a different crop of kids. But its also a bit of BS in that the afflictions are not homogeneous (for that matter, as group, they are more on the ball than my late 70's/early '80's class of addled reprobates lol).

I sponsor a robotics team (high school level) which is a great way to increase interest in STEM subjects with youth. Fortunately, there are lots and lots of kids into this. Its great area in that it exposes them to mechanical design and engineering, electronics and software to say nothing of team work and commitment. These kids are at it every night and a lot of weekends.

I headed off a week ago to see the first of this year's competitions. Its a three day event. The competition involved picking up and stacking traffic cones in a spot offset from the floor (i.e. requiring a cantilevered arm), stacking inflated cubes and then finishing by balancing on a teeter totter ramp thing. Despite just getting it going after a few missed years because of Covid, 30 teams competed here. Our team made it to the finals and got a silver medal (way to go 2852!) but win or lose, its great thing to be participating in something that is getting youth into designing, building and making things.

If you can, get out and help a team!

 

[DavidR8]

That is so fantastic. I would have been all over that had it been a thing when I was in school.

 

[phaxtris]

I did that in highschool, late 90's,,.......I'll say this, the robots the kids build now are a lot more advanced than what we did, the most advanced thing was autonomously picking up ping pong balls and depositing them in a goal,......it didn't work out for most

 

[Dan Dubeau]

Fantasic job. I'd love to be involved in something like that around here, but last I checked there wasn't a group. There's a lot of press around the local highschool lately, and the talk of building a new one, and with the recent push to re introduce compulsory tech courses, I'm hoping that something like this comes out of it. If not I'll try and get involved in starting one.

 

[slow-poke]

Just fantastic, so many learned useful skills. Teamwork is huge, I think most work places would benefit from having more employees that played some form of half serious team sport hockey, soccer whatever when they were kids. I met a few too many people in the workforce that did not seem to truly grasp the team work concept.

I get the sense that the younger generation is almost split in two, the go getters and the future unemployed. I think the divide is growing quickly and you don't want to be behind that curve.

 

[Susquatch]

I get the sense that the younger generation is almost split in two, the go getters and the future unemployed. I think the divide is growing quickly and you don't want to be behind that curve.

That's a terrific observation.

A question for you: How do you motivate those who have the horsepower but are not old enough to realize how important it is to get in front of that curve?

 

[slow-poke]

That's a terrific observation.

A question for you: How do you motivate those who have the horsepower but are not old enough to realize how important it is to get in front of that curve?

I think the trick is to start when they are young and emphasize the fun aspect. The original post describes the enthusiasm the kids show, they are having so much fun they barely realize their working their butts off learning. I get the sense that what was perceived as nerdy decades ago is now somewhat cool.

My daughter played elite soccer when she was younger and along that path we heard about a particular "soccer school" that was rumoured to be really rigorous but excellent. Parents that had already taken their kids were really divided some saying best school ever, while others stated my kid came away crying after an hour. They were both telling the truth. There was zero room for attitude or laziness, if a kid showed that in any way they were quickly thrown out never to return. The coaches were all very skilled players, they would demonstrate a particular skill and then the kids would try to emulate what they just observed. They would do this intensely for an hour, during that hour they would "touch" the ball thousands of times And the coaches would divide the kids in groups according to their skill level. Age and gender were irrelevant there were six year old girls in the same group as 10 year old boys if you were good you progressed to the next group. The second hour was for small sided games with one of the coaches being a neutral player. If your team scores you play another game if the other team scores your team goes off. The games would last about five minutes and were very intense.

During the winter the sessions were indoor and in summer they would go from 6?- 9 pm the kids loved it so much the sun would be going down to the point you could no longer see the ball and the kids just didn't want to stop. My daughter just loved it.

Thank you Woody Bailey soccer school