Jump to content

Making MBs Not "School"


Recommended Posts

 

In the parent thread, hotdesk and GW asked about some specific MBs and how to counsel them in ways that were more "natural" and in keeping with the Scouting Game motif, rather than makin' 'em like classes and school. Kid self-directed "play" as much as possible.

 

I couldn't answer them well because I don't counsel any of those badges, eh?! So I'm hopin' folks will jump in on badges they happen to counsel, and maybe we'll hit the ones they asked about along the way.

 

Beavah

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Well I don't know that I have the answers here but if people have thoughts on how to make the citizenship badges more exciting to some boys who are most likely only doing them because they're "required" and not out of a passion for developing civic skills, then I'd love to hear those thoughts.

Link to post
Share on other sites

This goes back a few years, like late October 2000. I was doing Citizenship in the Nation at a scout meeting. yes, I know but that was before I was much wiser as I am now.

 

I asked the scouts what type of government the United States had I had a chorus of, we live in a democracy. I smiled and said no, we live in a representative republic and explained the difference. Then we went on to the Electoral COllege and I explained how that worked. Remember, this is late October 2000. Then the November election occured. I guess in one of the Middle schools on the day after the presidential election, the 7th grade class had an impromtu Civics class. The teacher started by talking about how the country was a democracy, and was stopped by a student who said that was wrong, that the United States was a representative republic. She asked where did he learn that and he said Boy Scouts, Mr.GreyEagle said that. Then she asked if anyone could explain the Electoral College and the young lad did. He explained it quite well I understand and the class was amazed he learned this in boy scouts as all they did was play with fires and knives, leastwise thats what I was told.

 

When I do Citizenship in the Nation, I stress the FOunding Fathers, how absolutely radical it was to say that the English Monarchy was flawed and that they had a better system. That the founding fathers were truly radical, so radical they wanted to completely throw out all that was known to them in terms of civil organization and start anew. The youth understand about wanting to change things and I try to bring out just how different the founding Fathers ideas were to their contemporary society. The founding fathers were the "young turks" of their time, the punks who had a better idea and made it happen.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Yah, Lisa'bob, I think the citizenship badges and the other book-work required badges are the toughest, eh? Sometimes yeh gotta let 'em sit and percolate.

 

Citizenship in the World I've done with many lads. I always try to do it in the context of an international trip, small or large. Hey, Canada's close, eh? They even talk funny up der like me! ;) Other kinds of international trips and exchanges are even better. The youth plannin' for 'em are checking State Department stuff, getting passports, learning about the embassy's role for helpin' travelers, dealin' with foreign exchange rates, etc.

 

With only a wee bit of adult jiggerin' to arrange a visit here and there (from a local official, droppin' by a consulate, US-AID or RC office, etc.) , the natural course of their tour can really give them great experience with different international views. That can be really rich, eh? It's still a bit one-shot (unless yeh can get a lad to do 2-3 such trips), but it isn't bad. Of course, with older boys in the troop/crew and fellow international scouts contributing a lot to the younger ones' understanding, a lot of work gets done for yeh.

 

Let's see now... da best Cit. Comm. counselor I knew used to work with two different troops (his sons went to different units because that seemed best). In one of the troops, the kids were pretty involved in service projects, and those seemed to lead naturally to contacts and things where they got informed of or involved in some local issue and plugged right into Cit. Comm. without really thinkin' about it. The second troop, he used to keep an eye out for local news or controversies that appealed to kids - school boards/school issues were good ones, sometimes city council or such. Then he'd kinda interest a bunch of kids in that issue and they'd be off pursuin' it in some way or another (and along the way, without really thinkin' about it, they'd earn Cit. Comm.).

 

B

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

I try to steer the boys away from doing the 'classroom' badges at summer camp...with a counselor who is barely older or more knowledgeable than they are and who is likely to just joke his way through an hour and then sign off on some piece of paper...sorry for my raving and ranting.

 

Instead I try to steer them toward the mayor or one of the local political or social types who actually LIVE the badge. Those boys, on a more personal level, get to experience a lot of those things in a nearly hands-on manner. They come away with a much better knowledge base than being bored to tears sitting virtually idle for an hour after lunch at summer camp...oops, slipped up a little, sorry.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Packsaddle, you and I probably could rant for days. I do not like the way some summer camps do MB's. Some are OK. You KNOW it is bad when the kids complain about not learning anything!!

I was thinking a bit & seem to remembere an older brother (back in the early 60's) doing summer camps that were basically large scale service projects. I may be wrong . Can anyone verfy this? Brother did a large projct at a Natl park involving much hiking and camping just to gt to work site.

Before many summercamps became MB focused, what activities did they do?

Link to post
Share on other sites

FireKat, we can indeed probably compare a lot of notes. On those rare occasions when I am actually IN CHARGE of our summer camp experience, I try to get all the boys into activies that involve, well, physical activity. Waterfront stuff, pioneering, high adventure if they're old enough, archery, rifle range, etc. You get the idea. I'd even rather have them making baskets or carving neckerchief slides than sitting idly while they wait for a week to get a signature on a piece of paper.

 

A real merit badge program executed well will eliminate this problem of merit badge 'school'. Sadly, we don't have one either.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Summer camps have been in the MB business for as long as I've been in scouting and that goes back .... well before Nixon. However I remember MBs at camp to be more activity oriented, MBs that were not easy to get other places, i.e. canoeing, rowing, riflery, life saving, sailing, swimming, archery, etc. I remember them being challenging and completing a MB in a week was not a sure thing. I remember having to wait a year to complete a couple because I had not mastered skills to the satisfaction of the youth counselor. My son worked at summer camp the past two summers. Tried to give partials to a couple of scouts that just didn't do the work. SM complained to the Camp Director who basically signed off on the MBs overruling the youth counselor. Son learned how beauracracies work. Now it seems youth counselors are no better or worse than the adults that counsel MBs at the District MB University, which is MB school and is my real point in responding to this thread.

 

1st thing to do to not make MBs school like would be to outlaw MB Colleges and Universities which is just that, MBs presented as school. I've said before, our local District sponsors an MB University that runs 3 weekend in March. That ties up three weekends so many units don't do an outdoor activity that month. The end result is scouts taken out of the outdoors and plunked into classrooms. They hate it. The only ones that participate are the scouts really into advancement. They come kicking and screeming brought by parents who want those badges. The parents pay "tuition" i.e. $20 - $30 depending on the badges selected and heaven forbid young scout does not get the badge. Those that like scouting for the outdoors? Fuhgedaboudit!

 

I also counsel Cit. in the World. Would love to take scouts on an international trip, but not really much of a probability in my neck of the woods. What I have done, is limit the no. of scouts I'll counsel at any one time. No more than 4-5. I do my best to engage them in discussion. Ask questions about current events. I've travelled quite abit and bring in old passports, money, pictures etc. Stuff for them to touch, explore and ask questions about. But the big thing is I think limiting the number engaged at any one time. The MBU I mentioned frequently has 30 - 35 scouts in a classroom. I'm counselor non-grata within the unit because I don't volunteer to teach at the MBU.

 

SA

Link to post
Share on other sites

SA, in my first year as a MBC I agreed to help with a MB university, as a last minute favor to the organizer. I counsel communications. Our sessions had over 100 boys in attendance! And a good many of them did not want to be there, or simply wanted to get one of the "tedious" Eagle-required badges "out of the way." Grr. If I could have found the fellow in charge of organizing the day, I'd have throttled him I think. The only good thing I could say was that I have a lot of experience teaching large classes of college freshmen so I can do crowd control. But that's about all I can do with 100 bored pre-teens and teens who know they don't have to be there. I gave partials, along with my contact info for boys who wanted to follow up on the remaining requirements. A couple of SMs complained and I let them know they were free to help their boys find another counselor. Not one boy contacted me to finish the badge.

 

I gave it another chance the following year, when "classes" were limited to 25. It was better, but yes it was still "school." (It was even held at a school, and one I'm very familiar with too.) I wasn't happy with it. I gave more partials. SMs didn't complain but some boys did (and in very rude ways too - too bad for them that I know their SMs and am not shy about approaching them!). Two boys out of the ~100 I met that day did contact me and finished up their badges with me at a later date.

 

The directors of the MB university asked for input and I sent them an email outlining how they could provide opportunities for boys to try more hands-on badges, utilizing the facilities available at that school. For example, there's a big pottery program at the school and a few people who teach in that program for a living expressed interest in helping with the pottery MB. The campus has an ecology program and an area where soil and water conservation activities could be done. There's a world class athletics facility, including pool, where various physical activity MBs could be done. The school has an excellent astronomy lab that could be fun to work on the astronomy MB. This is a college campus so they could stage a mock emergency preparedness drill and have all sorts of willing "victims" played by college students who live in the dorms. (Acknowledging the enormous amount of bureaucratic hoopla that would go with staging that, it is still a cool idea though.)

 

I recently saw the schedule of MBs for this year. They're all set up as indoor classroom sessions again. Nothing hands on except for finger printing. The MB day is in mid March and counselors have not been contacted yet to see if we're willing to help. When I get that call at the last minute, I will decline to volunteer this year. If my son really wants to participate I will drive him - but I doubt he will. Last year, he started Citizenship in the Nation at the MBU. The "counselor" spent an hour literally reading the MB booklet to the boys, and then signed all their cards. That is WORSE than school! My son refused to turn his card in for advancement and started over on his own with a different counselor.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Ok, Devil's Advocate here....

 

The teaching/learning style these kids are used to in school is... well, like school.

 

Some teaching goes on with TV, Videos, and Computers...

 

Then there's MB's... let's make them like nothing that is being done anywhere else. They all have to be a game. Let's make CPR a game. Let's make Emergency Preparedness a game. Let's make it....

 

I'm not a traditionally trained teacher per se, but I have had lots of experience teaching. Not everything has to be a game, nor does it have to be fun. As long as it's interesting and/or relevant, students will accept it and learn. Teaching someone CPR isn't fun, but it's necessary the boys (well, anyone for that matter) have these skills. I have gotten the boys through a lot of MB's in a classroom type/style of teaching. It can be done, it can be interesting, it can be relevant and if every boy walks away with something of value to his life, one has accomplished the MB sucessfully. If one has to have games to keep it interesting, then there's something fundamentally wrong with the presentation in the first place.

 

Stosh

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Stosh, I am a teacher by training (though college, not K-12, but I also have a formal pedagogical background). I don't think any good teacher in the country would agree that it all needs to be fun and games. There are serious topics and serious work to be done and games per se do not always do justice to the material.

 

However, asking boys ages 10-17 to spend their Saturday sitting in rows in a classroom listening to someone read a merit badge book at them word for word (no discussion allowed, hold still, eyes up and stop slouching young man!) is not teaching either! Yet that happened to at least 100 boys who took Cit. in Nation with the fellow my son had at our council's MBU last year. Most of them probably learned nothing, except that guy was incompetent (or ill-prepared, or both) and the MB was boring...easy, but boring. Every single one of those boys got one of the most important Eagle-required MBs there is "completed" in that way on that day.

 

What I did with the communications MB last year was better than that. It included segments of information interspersed with opportunities for the scouts to contribute, to interact, and to do requirements rather than just listen to some boring adult blather for an hour! But they were still sitting in rows in a classroom (because the chairs were bolted to the floor). Most of them clearly wanted to be fed the info and get out of there as easily and quickly as possible. Some of them so clearly didn't want to be there that they became a behavior problem. And I don't blame them, because sitting in a school on a lovely Saturday morning listening to some adult they don't even know and will probably never see again talk about a topic for which their SM or their parent signed them up because it would be "good for them" is not something to which most boys aspire.

 

My biggest beef (other than poor organization) with our MBU was its heavy focus on eagle-required MBs that are better done one-on-one or in very small groups, instead of on MBs that boys might not have a chance to do elsewhere, and which made better use of the facilities available on campus. That might even have been worthwhile.

 

In contrast, our council runs a HAM radio day every year that is well attended because it is really good and the boys love it. Boys who have finished the MB go back anyway just because it is so cool. Why a MBU couldn't be more like that, I'm not sure. (cynical answer: because the MBU is not run by council, but instead is run, with council's blessings, by a college service organization as a fundraiser. Really good events take too much time and effort to set up to make it worth their while to bother, and if they made it more challenging, perhaps all those people who attend just to get those pesky MBs out of the way, would not attend anymore.)

 

 

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

I realize there are some elements of the MB process for some badges are going to be school like. Some require readings, and written reports, etc.

 

My biggest beef with the MBU type events is they go out of their way to make the MB process not just school like, but school! They completely destroy the intent of the MB advancement process.

 

SA

Link to post
Share on other sites

If one has to have games to keep it interesting, then there's something fundamentally wrong with the presentation in the first place.

 

Yah, I agree with this, eh? A good presentation doesn't need games.

 

But IMHO, thinkin' about MB's or T-2-1 as a "presentation" ain't the right way to be thinkin'. It's an easy thought pattern to fall into, I'll grant. Have to cover the material, have to make a presentation, etc.

 

Better to think about MB's as apprenticeship, perhaps, and learning within Scouting as not "instruction delivered" but "challenge engaged in".

 

Lisa'bob gives a fun example with Amateur Radio, eh? Have an enthusiastic HAM just come and show kids about radio. Make contacts, have 'em tune antennas, have fun just playing with gear and learning about radio. Never pick up a Radio MB requirement list. Be interested in radio for its own sake. Learn to proficiency because being proficient at something is fun.

 

Along da way, they'll meet all the requirements for Radio MB, eh? But they'll learn a lot more, and it'll be fun and interesting because it's a challenge they engaged with - a mentorship and apprenticeship, not a class.

 

MB Requirements and rank requirements are part of the second step of advancement - Testing. That's down the road a piece, and teaching to the test is a silly thing anyway. The first and most important step in Advancement is A Scout Learns. Really learns - to proficiency. And learns as a natural outcome of his activities, eh?

 

Only after the scout has really learned does testing requirements come in.

 

Beavah

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 months later...

WOW. This thread is a real eye opener. 100 kids in a communications MB class!?!? My gosh.

 

I speak alot in my job so this is right up my alley...but I was wondering how to do this effectively with the 8 boys in the Patrol I advise over the course of a few weeks.

 

For Citizenship in the Community I passed out the worksheet and told them to read the MB badge book and to write their thoughts down. After that as they complete a section to contact me and we would "discuss" it as called for in the badge.

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

A great way for a merit badge "group" to learn is have them make a home video. It works for all kinds of merit badges.

 

Citizenship in the Nation (Req #4) - Put on a founding fathers skit talking about the making of the Constitution and/or Declaration.

 

Citizenship in the World (Req #3) - Film the guys having a discussion about a current world event or have them do a video presentation on their chosen foreign country.

 

Public Speaking (All reqs) - Film their speeches.

 

Pioneering (All reqs) - Make a training film for younger guys to learn lashings while filming building a tower.

 

Camping (Req #5) - Create an introduction video for the new troop members outlining the different kinds of clothing, footwear bedding etc.

 

It really works for most merit badges. The boys really add extra effort to learn the material so they look good on camera! Show them to the troop every now and then. The boys really like seeing themselves on film and dredging up memories. Finally, makes for a great presentation of clips at an Eagle Court of Honor!

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...