Mira-Mini | Jake Simons, Wa-Nee Community Schools: Tech Education Award

Gerry Dick: Well, the Tech Education Award winner this year, Jake Simons, fifth grade teacher from Wa- Nee Community Schools in Nappanee, Northern Indiana. And Jake, congratulations. This is one of my favorite stories of the evening. I think it's very interesting. But you started a robotics program. Again, you're a fifth grade teacher in Nappanee, started a robotics program, one team, a handful, 10 kids, and now you've grown to 15 teams. It's really exploded. Talk about, first of all, how you started.

Jake Simons: I took over the high ability class at our school and the first thing someone told me was to start a robotics team. And I had no idea what that even meant. I had no idea how to program, how to code, how to design, anything, build, nothing. But I went through some training, thought it was going to be a short two- month season, and told the kids, " Hey, we're going to fall, but we're going to fall forward and we're going to fall together." And that first year we actually qualified for the World Championship somehow. We were just kind of sold from that moment on, and what we thought was going to be a two- month season turned into a six, seven month season with a trip to Louisville, Kentucky. And the rest is history.

Gerry Dick: And you won the World Championship.

Jake Simons: So then in three years, our third season, we went to Louisville, Kentucky once again for the World Championship. 6, 000 teams across the planet from 40 different countries, and then only 400 make it to Worlds, and then from there, only 12 make it to the World Championship finals. And nine of them were from China, one was from Hong Kong, which is a territory of China, and then two were from Nappanee, Indiana.

Gerry Dick: Indiana, Indiana. That is a phenomenal story. How did it happen? I mean, you started it, as you say, you thought it was going to be a brief little stint, turned into something more. But what led to the success and the momentum behind the program?

Jake Simons: After that first year, I became hooked. I use the word passionate, my wife uses the word obsessed. But after that season, I decided I needed to dive into every single possible resource, reach out to every single coach that I could, talked to George Giltner from TechPoint Foundation for Youth, and just really dove in. And we decided that we needed some strong structure if we were going to be successful, and so we created some sub- teams and selection process and application process. And then, of course, we needed a community support, so it was a lot of sales pitches to the community and fundraising.

Gerry Dick: You're not in an urban area, you're in a really pretty part of the state, Nappanee, Amish Country, and obviously the community bought in.

Jake Simons: Oh, they've truly bought in. It's ironic. We talk about how our town motto is embrace the pace. You get stuck behind a horse and buggy on your way to work, don't get mad about it, just embrace the pace. And it's been pretty incredible to see our community has respectfully challenged that pace by adopting this. And we just actually one week ago had a community celebration, dinner, drinks, trivia, and we ended up raising$34, 000 to help pay for our trip to Worlds. We're taking 10 teams to the World Championship in Dallas, Texas this year. That's more than any other district in Indiana. The curse of that is that it's expensive. We have to get charter buses, we had to pay for registration fees, and our community supported us and came out just in a huge, huge way.

Gerry Dick: The awards are great, the notoriety is great, but how about the impact on kids? Can you describe it or put it into words what it's meant to the kids?

Jake Simons: I would say the biggest impact that I see firsthand is confidence building. Because when it comes to robotics... Let me just say this, our society and our culture is constantly saying failure is not an option, but when it comes to robotics, failure is an option. It's part of the process. You fail, you make mistakes, but you get up and you learn from those mistakes and then you become better. We use those failures as stepping stones for our next success. And so through that process, kids gain so much confidence. I've seen that firsthand. That's the first word that comes out of every kid's mouth. That's the first word that comes out of every parent's mouth. " My kid is just confident now." And think about the long- lasting effects of that. Just have a generation of confident people who are going to become our next world leaders and problem solvers.

Gerry Dick: Jake Simons, fifth grade teacher from Nappanee, Indiana, the Tech Education Award winner. Jake, it's a great story. Congratulations to you and to all the teams in Nappanee as well.

Jake Simons: Thank you.

Gerry Dick: Thanks very much.

Jake Simons: Thank you very much.

Gerry Dick: All right.