From: Donald R Izard (dizard@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU)
Date: Tue Feb 29 2000 - 15:54:41 CST
The list is looping arround to an OLD topic again on
the merit badge issue. And recent comments bring up
the same questions again concerning contacting the
counselor - BEFORE YOU BEGIN! What does that mean?
What about the scout that is already on the varsity swim team
and KNOWS how to swim - before he starts swimming MB?
"learning" is not "demonstrating the skill" to the counselor.
Or if a scout already has a COIN and/ Stamp collections?
You think that the councilor says - go start a NEW ONE?
NO - the scouts should not START working on the specific or unique
projects or tasks in the requirements until he has talked to
the councilor - but NOTHING prohibits a scout from LEARNING
the skills or doing some research before he talks to a councilor!
And MUCH of what is expected - can be done over the phone!
The major reason to talk to the counselor is to make sure
YOU agree on what is expected to be "demonstrated" to
measure "completion". So that the scout does NOT interpret
the requirements to mean one thing - and go do it - and find
out the counselor expects/requires something else.
heck - we already have that on the list - with disagreements
about HOW a badge MUST be completed, or MUST be completed
within a year etc.
Some of these kids that I counsel for Computers aleady
have a better web page that I do . . and are programming
with Java and perl or cgi etc. Do I tell them - NO - they
already KNOW too much to earn the MB? I wish I could hire
some of them!
Scouter Don
still counseling merit badges - since 1970
