Re: Cub Rank Advancement

Dave,

Sometimes seasoned Scouters wince at seeing a Cub get an advancement
award at the first Pack meeting because it may signal that the Pack or
some of the parents are looking at the program as a badge factory. And
of course that isn't the idea. After all advancement is a method of
Scouting and not a goal
by itself.

Equally dangerous is a tendancy to want to keep all the boys on the same
schedule and stretch out advancement so that they all get their badges
at the same Blue and Gold banquet. This may serve the adults, but for
the boys that got their work done earlier, they will have forgotten why
they are even getting the badge by then. Hence, awarding the badge does
little to reinforce achievement.

For boys of Cub Scout ages rewards need to follow pretty closely on the
heels of successes to have much impact. For that very reason BSA came
up with the instant recognition beads for Den Leaders to use to reward
progress towards ranks. This reinforcement generally helps encourage
more effort.

For that reason it is important that a Pack conduct award ceremonies at
each meeting to recognize rank advancement as it happens. These
ceremonies can be simple but impressive. They also have a wonderful
effect on the other boys watching, because they can't wait for their
turn to be called up and presented with a badge too.

As a Cubmaster for a few years not so long ago, I made it a practice to
have a ceremony for each Pack meeting. Our advancement person always
had a few extra badges and pins just in case of a late notice of a
success. Somehow we always managed to have a meeting that was under an
hour and fifteen minutes and still have lots of fun along with
recognizing achievement.

Because the Cub Scout program is intended to be family centered, most of
the work on Wolf and Bear include requirements that are best completed
at home with the Cub's parent(s). Sometimes a den meeting can be used
to help with a difficult requirement or one that lends itself to a group
effort, but that isn't the real purpose of a Den Meeting.

So if a Den Meeting isn't about advancement every week, what's it for?
First of all it needs to be FUN! Remember KISMIF? Keep It Simple, Make
It Fun. Fun is the key word, but that still doesn't answer the mail.

Den Meetings are an opportunity to use all of the methods of Cub
Scouting - advancement being only one of them - to create an environment
to meet the aims of Scouting (citizenship, character, & fitness). The
methods of Cub Scouting are:

Home and Neighborhood Centered
Parent Involvement
Advancement Plan
The Den
Ideals
Uniform
Activity Program

A good Den program will include lots of fun activities like tours of
neighborhood places of interest (at age 9 a pizza parlor and how pizza
is made is way cool), games (sports beltloops), some discussions of
ideals (ethics in action stuff), parents sharing (like a parent showing
an old Cub uniform or telling a tall tale for a requirement), some
advancement work, uniforming, and more. Sometimes the Den will work
together on a Pack skit, learning a song, making costumes, doing a
service project, or just going to a home to have a big treat after a
long stretch of other fun meetings where they did well (and the conduct
candle finally burned down to the end). :-)

Again Den meetings need to be fun and not centered on advancement. Why?
How many boys want to come back, if it isn't fun? Going to a badge
factory can be okay for awhile, but it gets deadly boring. The key
thing is to have a wide variety of fun activities where you can use all
the methods of Cub Scouting to help these boys grow in citizenship,
character, and fitness. As they grow, have fun and enjoy what they are
doing, they'll also be more likely to want to get the rewards too and if
the rewards are directly linked in time to what they've done, they want
to do it again.

Mike



__________________________________________________
Michael F. Bowman --- Professor Beaver NE-CS-41
Speaking only for myself in the Scouting Spirit
from Alexandria, Virginia - mfbowman@usscouts.org
Webmaster: http://members.aol.com/netcommish
http://usscouts.org/
http://usscouts.org/profbvr

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