One thing that children provide us all with is a second chance at seeing how things could be. The passion and focus, the pureness of feeling, uncluttered by bias can teach all of us lessons. Here’s an uplifting story of an elementary school robotics team of fourth graders working hard at what they love—robotics!
If practice makes perfect, then some students from Pleasant Run Elementary School have their sights set there. The Panther Bot, five 4th graders who make up the school’s robotics team, have had quite a meteoric rise this year, a rise that’s landed them on the world stage.
It all began with a starter kit to build a robot last September, but in the hands of the Panther Bots it became so much more.
As simple as this seems, these kids have faced racism on their way to winning an award at the Indiana championship recently.
“Go back to Mexico!” two or three kids screamed at their brown-skin peers and their parents, according to some who were there.
This verbal attack had spilled over from the gymnasium. While the children were competing, one or two parents disparaged the Pleasant Run kids with racist comments — and loud enough for the Pleasant Run families to hear.
“They were pointing at us and saying that ‘Oh my God, they are champions of the city all because they are Mexican. They are Mexican, and they are ruining our country,’ ” said Diocelina Herrera, the mother of PantherBot Angel Herrera-Sanchez.
Yes, children can be mean and even cruel at times but when you ask them why they can usually explain in the most simple and obvious terms the root causes (anger and fear and sadness). Adults on the other hand might tell you they are feeling anxious about our economy, and they probably are, but they’re also angry about it and angry about feeling betrayed by people in power. Unfortunately, most of that anger is cut with racism and the hypocritical propaganda of other angry and fearful folk. The Pleasant Run Elementary Students dusted off that weak sauce and persevered, winning a Create Award which qualified them for the Vex IQ World Championship next month in Louisville, Kentucky.
The Pleasant Run Elementary school robotics team has a GoFundMe page set up in order to afford some of their travel and entry expenses at all of these competitions because people without a lot of money have dreams just like everybody else, and they’ve surpassed their $8,000 goal by a lot in less than 20 days. Bigotry hurts everyone, even the bigot. Who’s to say that one of these kids won’t be the person who creates the robot that saves your crazy racist dad’s life one day when he needs surgery to get that angry dark spot from out of his soul.