The Patrol Method
Lessons and questions of Scout leadership and operating troop program
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LATEST POSTS
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I'm doing my best to exert influence to get us to being patrol based. Tuesday night was supposed to be planning menus for the campout and a troop-level first aid class. Neither went as they should. They got the menus planned, but it took longer than needed. I was unable to identify any sort of first aid training that was taking place. The troop had the opportunity to elect a 16 y/o SPL but instead decided to simply swap around the last SPL and ASPL. So, another 6 months of no progress is almost assured. It's going to take the PLs standing up at the PLC and demanding that the meetings focus on patrol-level activities. A troop-level game, sure, but the rest of the meeting should belong to the patrols. The problem is, our PLCs are held at a local Zaxby's where discussion is impossible. Half the PLs aren't paying attention. -
By Eagle94-A1 · Posted
One reason why Scouting America doesn't cut off Scouting at 13 or 14, and makes Venturing the next stage, (emphasis) if you look at older, pre 1989 BSA literature. The middle schoolers look up to, and learn from the highschoolers. They will usually be the ones elected into leadership roles. Traditional, aka Mixed Age Patrols, were the standard. Unless you were LDS which used aged based patrols. Patrols could actually do things on their own without adults, including camping. Older members mentored and worked with younger members. Nowadays the lack of Scouter manpower, forces troops to focus on the Troop Method, and not the Patrol Method. IMHO, Scouting America has lost its way. Instead of focusing on adventure and fun to promote individual growth, the focus is now on MBs and getting Eagle. Instead of hiring and listening to folks with outdoor experience, Scouting America is hiring "Educational Leadership" experts with no idea how Scouting is suppose to work, but a ton of theories on how to develop youth. The one I met had no outdoors experience whatsoever, no jobs outside of academia, and was appalled when I said they needed to spend time at a summer camp. Even then summer camp is turning into outdoor school. And do not get me started on aged based patrols. I was one of the guinea pigs when it was beta tested, and shocked when it became the recommendation. -
By AwakeEnergyScouter · Posted
I've wondered about this, because while there are some ways in which Cub Scouts and Scouts BSA is set up to motivate youth better than Scouterna (at least when I was a youth, I see they've re-done the program), I suspect that one way in which Scouterna is more realistically structured is that the switch from mostly adult-led to mostly youth-led is more gradual. We don't expect middle schoolers en masse to be ready to chart their own path. (Some are, but most aren't.) The lanes get wider and wider until you barely notice the Scoutmaster. But the Scoutmaster absolutely pushed us to do things we didn't want to all the time, and it was clearly their job to do so in our eyes. That was part of how they showed confidence in us. The harder they pushed us, the more secretly flattered we were, and more determined not to let them or the rest of the patrol down. (Nobody wants to be the weakling...) Their demands showed us that we could do more than we thought. We were just whiney kids. We didn't expect them to actually listen to our complaining, then we'd never have done any fun adventures! And we knew it. The adults chose things like camps and hike lengths/places for many years because they knew better. It wasn't until high school when the Scoutmaster asked us if we wanted to participate in large camp X or hike Y and told us to plan a hike for weekend XYZ. Before Senior rank, they didn't ask, they told. And by the time they started asking, we'd accumulated enough personal experience to have qualified opinions so we felt ready. Also, frankly, we were much more mature! Scout-led always has an asterisk on it - *age-appropriately. It's just that we Scouters usually don't know exactly what is age-appropriate at whatever age so it can be tricky to ask just the right amount for growth. But the advancement in Scouts BSA is well-structured, I think, certainly compared to what we had as Senior Scouts back in the day. Hopefully Scouterna has improved that part of the program. -
We're moving ahead with girls-only for now, we have 2 boy troops in town already, and we are already moving along with the AOL boys preparing them to select one of those troops to join at crossover. I could be convinced to change that at some point, but that's not the plan for starting out next year regardless of what we find out in February. -
It may be kind of dated, but the original Fieldbook (from late 1940s-50s) is basically a step-by-step manual of activities (called pow-wows) for a fledgling patrol (or troop of patrols). Table of Contents page 1 One could easily modify it with more modern equipment and skills. I bet a good prompt into ChatGPT while uploading a PowWow would be an easy way to do this. Then hand the newer version to the PLs.
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