Re: retest at SM conf

I don't know what the pro's are gonna say, but in my rather brief
experience, the Scouts have been living in the same world at Scouts that
they do at School...learn to pass the test and then forget this 'useless'
stuff. (I recall being the only person on a construction site with the
solution to how to hoist a beam by hand onto a house rooftop....the bowline
is rather handy at times <grin>.)

I think constant review and practice is what keeps it in mind. The boys who
passed their requirements should be teaching the younger ones and they
should rotate enough so that they have to practice many of their basic
scoutcraft skills frequently. I learned more about Scoutcraft as a new ASM
(Assistant Scout Master) by teaching the boys then I did in training at
Outdoor fundamentals!

If a boy reaches Eagle and hasn't been practicing the less-than-often used
skills (hurry cases, by the way should be reviewed as a skills instruction
rather frequently just because it should be instinct by the time it becomes
needed -- i.e. the Red Cross Certification requirements do have a lesson to
teach...) he is going to naturally be rusty. I think there should be more
"primitive camping" outing where the gas/propane etc. are left home and the
local camping skills are taught (I doubt a desert campsite looks like a
forest one) so that instead of setting up the metal camping tables the boys
are lashing equipment (O.K., bring the ax, that flint is too clumsy anyway).

It's a lot of work...maybe more than some of us can pull off due to having a
life outside the khaki's (gasp!). But keeping the idea of immersing the boys
in Scoutcraft and Campcraft seems far superior to "retesting" on things that
could have been forgotten.

The up side of "retesting", though, is that we all have a body of knowledge
in our life that is seldom actually called upon to use but which we need to
know in case they are -- like bomb scare procedures at my job (I learned the
hard way not to transmit on the radio...well, not the HARD way but I did get
an explosion of my own personal type!) and it often becomes our
responsibility to know them without someone constantly dragging us into the
conference room and retraining us all the time. So, perhaps some things
should be left intentionally in the hands of the individual boy to take
responsibility for himself to know and keep sharp on just so he learns to do
that.

I don't have an answer to the question directly, but that's where I start to
seek one. In the end, were I the SM (Scout Master) I'd want my ASM's to be
of the trustworthy kind that I could ask the one responsible for the boy's
patrol what the boy's weaknesses and strengths are and get a reliable answer
with insight so that no one would have to retest formally. I know through
years of experience that if you interact with your charges on a close basis
and pay attention to what's going on carefully and keep dialogue going with
the boys, you become familiar with what they know and what they need to bone
up on and you gently move them to the need to use the skills they're weaker
on so that they strengthen them.

YIS

George Hamilton
gham@telplus.net

It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one
trifling exception, is composed of others.
--John Andrew Holmes

-----Original Message-----
From: gnach <gnach@ISAT.COM>
To: Multiple recipients of list SCOUTS-L <SCOUTS-L@TCUBVM.IS.TCU.EDU>
Date: Monday, September 28, 1998 09:46 AM
Subject: retest at SM conf


>What is the collective wisdom about retesting a boy on RA requirements
>at a later SM conference? Or maybe more clearly, is it appropriate to
>expect and Eagle candidate (or Star & Life) to demonstrate a tautline,
>clove or bowline (don't call it a rescue knot anymore) hitch? or to
>explain the Heimlich manuver and "hurry cases

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