From: Jason Cruse (jcruse@SOCKET.NET)
Date: Tue Feb 29 2000 - 11:29:43 CST
> So far you are the ONLY one that had ANY agreement
> with my idea that we should be teaching scouts to
> learn SOME of the material on thier own.
> All the rest think we have to spoon feed the scouts,
> and provide effective "entertainment" to keep them.
>
We see this in our troop and district often. Our troop program is based
around working on merit badges in troop meetings and campouts. Some we are
able to complete as a troop, all together, over the course of 4 or 5
meetings and a campout. Others require homework; indeed, many of the ones
we are able to accomplish require work outside from the boys. Predictably,
few of these badges are ever presented as "complete."
After studying our program for the past several years, we have noticed the
following: if a young man participates fully in our program, he should be
able to earn his Life rank after two or three years. This means, of course,
that the young man must attend a couple years of scout camp, and so forth.
I'd like to think that we don't "coddle" our scouts for them to get to that
point; indeed, we are very sink or swim: you don't show up when we complete
the knot-tying for emergency prep, you don't get credit and you have to
finish on your own, or wait until the next time it comes up on troop
meetings (usually about a year). It is interesting to see what happens when
boys earn their Life: several have stepped up and completed Family Life,
Personal Management and others that require "personal" work and gone on to
earn their Eagle. Others have walked away.
Are boys more willing to do things that are handed to them? Yes....aren't
we all? But if pressed, will they respond? I believe they will--the ones
that are really ready to live up to, at present and in the future, what we
and everyone expects from "an Eagle Scout."
Jason Cruse
Hannibal, MO
