Re: Great Human Don't Always Get Eagle
Roman J. Smith (Roman.J.Smith.13@ND.EDU)
Mon, 3 May 1999 08:18:20 -0500
Jim Peterson responded to Calvin Gray:
>Are you actually suggesting that "be active in your patrol and troop" could
>possibly mean that we could have an Eagle who hasn't attended troop
>meetings and activities?
<snip>
>And Calvin, I think that is a wish for everything to be wrapped up all neat
>and tidy. The fact is (and most of us really know this down deep in our
>hearts) evaluating scout spirit and active service is a subjective
>evaluation that is done in concert by the Scoutmaster, the troop committee
>and the board of review members based on information that is provided by
>community members and parents through letters of recommendation but also
>through direct observation of the scout at scouting meetings and
>activities.
Among all of the other ideas that we throw around here, the old Scout
Spirit shows itself as the Ace in our back pocket. Yes, if the boy is
registered, he qualifies for the rank. If he was elected or appointed to a
position and remained in that position on paper for 6 months, he qualifies
for rank advancement.
But unless the boy shows up at scouting events, how do we evaluate the
requirement to show scout spirit in every day life? Lets realize that even
this requirement does not require a scouting context. We still must
evaluate him in a scouting context unless we follow him around all day for
six months. If we never see him, we can not evaluate him.
But we must be fair. If a scout is approaching the end of a service
project or just one or two merit badges away from finishing Eagle, or a few
months away from age 18 and we are not comfortable with his progress in
scout spirit, we should contact him and express our concern. I do not see
it as being fair to him to wait until he asks for the Scout Master's
conference and then tell him that we will not sign off on scout spirit.
On the other hand, if he has been working on his merit badges, and has
filed his paper work at the beginning and end of his project, we had to
have been in contact with him in some form. Those are the time that we
should have been letting him know what he needs to do to satisfy *all* of
the requirements. I have known SMs who added some hefty requirements not
in the book because they know that the scout would rise to the occasion and
benefit from the experience. But the expectations were communicated well
ahead of time to allow the scout time to meet those expectations.
So if the scout is not coming to the meetings, we should be calling and
finding our why. Those conversations may be enough to evaluate scout
spirit.
YiS
-----------------------------------
Roman J. Smith
University of Notre Dame
(219)631-4624 Fax: (219)631-8223
E-Mail: roman.j.smith.13@nd.edu
------------------------------------
Assistant Scoutmaster, Troop 505 / Committee Member, Ship 505
-I used to be an Owl
http://www.nd.edu/~rsmith1/RJSBSA.htm
