In previous posts, I have mentioned that I am extra busy this year with Robotics. Well, our first Robotics competitions have already started this week. For our team's first competition we have to make a robot that can collect certain items off a field. The purpose is to collect these items to make 'fuel'. The more fuel we can make, the higher our score. The game is surprisingly complex, as there are several things we have to interact with on the field to get the items to appear. It should be a lot of fun, and I think I am a little jealous that I am not the student participating in the competition.
However, the purpose of this post was not to comment about Robotics. When we had our first meetings with the students the past two weeks I have had an interesting observation about some of the students. When put in situations of leadership, they behave almost exactly like their adult counterparts.
Some of the students have been given roles of authority in the group, because it is supposed to be a student ran competition. As we, the adults, have stepped back and given the students control of the robot build process I have noticed that the students are acting less like teenagers, and more like responsible parties that really care about the success of their work. And the way they are going about doing it is almost exactly the same as the adult leaders were acting earlier on. It is a little creepy really. Almost all of the mannerisms, word choices, and attitudes of their adult counterparts are copied- even the negative ones.
So, I guess the moral of the story for the teacher today is that the students are learning from us, even if they look like and say that they aren't. Because when the time comes that they need to step up, they will do it the only way they know how- the way we have been demonstrating before them. And with all the imperfections that I still have as a young teacher, I hope I haven't passed on any negative attributes to my students.
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