Eagledad

Well that supports our experience of slower growth in same age patrols. However, we also learned that adding more than two new scouts at once disrupts the dynamics of the whole existing patrol, not just the new scouts. So, if we get more new scouts than two per patrol, we put them in a NSP until after summer camp (5 to 6 months). While the new scouts may still be struggling a bit, they have enough experience and maturity to not upset the dynamics of the existing patrol. All that being said, it's important to remember that accepting new members into a close bonded group is hard no matter how much experience the new guy has. Barry

Role models. Our natural human instinct in the process of learning is to mimic what we see. We develop habits by repeating (practicing) what we mimic. Role modeling takes away the need of class room type of instruction intended to start habits. It's a lot more fun learning skills by watching and mimicing those skills in everyday activities. You have to watch the process a couple years to see the effect of learning by role modeling, but once you see, you understand it's power. Now my observations from same age patrols compared to our mixed age patrols. When a patrol doesn't have experienced role models for younger scouts to learn from, growth has to come from outside the patrol. That tends to be instructional teaching. And, that tends to be adult based, even with the troop has Troop Guides. One of the first areas where I saw same age patrols performing slower was cooking. Same age patrols tend to cook the same food over and over again until somebody steps in to show them something different. I'm not a fond of the advice that boys can live off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because scouting isn't about getting along, it's about growing. The sandwich is only a starting place. Scouts need resources to continue their growth. Resources come much slower in same age patrols. We also found same age patrols to be more cliquish. That sounds funny in a program where all the patrols camp 100 years apart. To some degree, all patrols should be cliquish. But all the patrols are often together for one reason or another and the same age patrols didn't mix well with the rest of the scouts. They are snobs, they just seemed uncomfortable mixing in. I've heard a lot of Scoutmasters have this same observation. We found that scouts in same age patrols had less independent thought for planning and making decisions. They struggle to be creative. They tended to advance as a patrol, not as individuals. While we want patrols to bond and grow together as brothers, we also want our scouts to grow as individuals by set personal goals at their person ambitions based on their level of skills and maturity. Where I saw this becoming a problem was taking on troop leadership positions. Same age patrols tended see Troop responsibilities as taking turns. They felt that the patrol as a whole should be the troop leadership when it was their turn instead of individual scouts being setting out for a responsibility. I don't know if this is because they don't have the confidence to act individually or they rely too much on each other. But as same age patrols matured, the scouts struggle to act and grow as individuals. It was obvious as older scouts. Growth and maturity are how we measure our program performance and the same age patrols lagged in those areas. Barry

Hmm, that's a little concerning. I've never heard my name and the words "pop-culture" used in the same sentence before. Barry

Wow, stosh and I don't agree much on styles of pushing a boy run program, but this post is pretty good. My experience is different with stosh's last his last point, the boys don't typically know what they want and that is why adults struggle with older scout programs. Typically boys today aren't given enough independence to know what they are missing. Like stosh said, they are searching for an identity which motivates them to push boundaries. But I found their search tends to be varied because they don't really know where they want to go. It's true, the younger a boy is given independence to explore his interests, the sooner he finds himself and finds a direction. But our culture doesn't like young people venturing out very far because it is dangerous. Truth is most young adults today don't get much world experience to find themselves until they graduate high school. That's too late for troop programs. As I said, earlier in the discussion, I found in our troop that only 25% of our older scouts wanted more adventure. Why do we adults keep thinking adventure? I guess it is automatic that when scouters talk about adventure, they usually mean backwoods type adventure. But believe it or not, scouts have done a lot of adventure by age 14 just in camping. More adventure seem like more camping to most older scouts. They aren't looking for adventure, they are looking ways to prove their physical and mental maturity. They are looking for the adult in themselves. That is something very different. Also, I found young adult scouts want is to be respected as adults by adults. It's hard to define adults respecting young adults, what does that really mean? Let's try this; imagine how each of us greet and talk to adult leaders as they enter a troop meeting. Do we greet and talk to the scouts the same? Trust me, it's a lot harder than it sounds. If the adult didn't wear the uniform to a meeting, do you say something? What about the scout? How are the responses to adults late to the meeting compared to the scouts? We scouting adults are just parents that over the years have been programmed to see youths as empty minds needing experienced instructions to survive. Without even consideration, our brains automatically think of youths as mindless kids who can't get through the day without some kind of adult guidance. As a result, we speak down in a condescending tone to their ignorance of life's experience. Now don't feel bad, just about all adults do it. The more we experience life, the more our maturity builds up our stature as supreme vessels of life's knowledge. Hey, raising kids builds a lot of stature. And that stature demands some respect, you know what I mean. Our parent egos are so pumped in a room of kids, we probably glow in the dark. But we adults aren't bad for holding scouts down as snotty nose kids, we just haven't learned how to equalize ourselves to these young adults. Giving scouts the respect as an adult takes forethought and practice. Lots of practice. We have to practice not giving suggestions as older scouts struggle through their dilemmas. Kind of funny, at first we are proud of ourselves for not saying anything while this scouts are rattling through their issues. But a funny thing happened, they actually came up with a really good idea through all that rattling nonsense. I mean really, their idea was better than I could come up with. I remember that first experience very well. And that wouldn't have happened with the old parent me, but the adult to adult me let nature take it's course and we both grew a little that day. But, confidence is fragile. Our troop developed a Troop JLT that became so popular that other troops were sending their scouts. Our older scouts were so excited that they were coming up with new ideas. One of those idea was some kind of badge or uniform display they could give scouts who graduated the course. They got the idea from the beads of Wood Badge, but they wanted something different. I was standing back enjoying the ideas being passed around when another adult nearby jumped in and took over the discussion. I saw the color of their excitement drain from the scouts in matter seconds. And nothing ever came of the idea. Confidence needs to repeated actions to be reinforced. All the adults need to get on board or it will be a struggle for the program as a whole to step up to the next level of maturity. I guess my point in all this is that older scouts aren't necessarily looking to tell adults what they really want because most of the time they don't have enough experience to know. We haven't given them enough independence to figure it out.The adults have to push scouts to find themselves in the scout program by letting them experience the program as adults. The younger, the better. I found that scouts learning to initiate pushing their imagination in the scout program is just as hard as it is for the adults to initiate respecting the scouts as adults. But once both the scouts and the adults learn and practice their roles, watch out because the program will take off. The scouts will push the program out of the adults comfort zone, and that is when we adults found out just how serious we were about developing men of character. Barry

The assumption was the gay issue was driving membership away. Folks always think the world rotates around them. It's Human nature. I presented facts many times to show that it wasn't the gay issue hurting membership, it was, and still is, the program. Great things? Maybe! But all the U.K. can say is that they recovered back to 30 year old numbers (i think that's right). It is very possible they might have been twice the size had they left things alone. We've had many discussions. Most of us who have a grasp of reality know the program is the problem. Of coarse the gay issue took a huge hit. Even if the BSA accepts girls to slow down the loses, it still has the program issues that are still causing the present loses. If you want to start a sobering discussion, ask how many boy loses are acceptable for "doing the right thing"? Barry

History also favored the Patriots before the game started. Barry

This was said many many times just on this forum about the gays and that didn't happen. I can only suggest a look at the history of youth scouting organizations in North America that made significant membership policy changes. None have recovered to the numbers they had before the changes. Last I heard a couple years ago, the Canadian scouts was still around 60% after 20 years. If folks are going to argue for adding girls, they might be better off arguing the addition of girls would improve the quality of the program. At least then no hard data could be found to prove the theory wrong. Barry

Good for you. I relish the glass half full. Reading data and applying it is what I do for a living. And I'm pretty good at it. Still, once in a while incomprehensive optimism balances historical evidence. Barry

After working this general area of scouting for so many years, I learned that experience (good or bad) has the most impact for how adults run a unit. It's nice that National supports Patrol Method, but as simple as the method appears in print, in reality requires a great deal of discipline to direct. Those who have the experience jump into patrol method without much thought. Those who don't have the experience require proof to even trust it. And they typically don't have the patience to wait for the proof. I have watched this over and over through the years, even on the forums. Today is as good as patrol method boy run scouting will ever get. Barry

Correct, but it more than doubled the number of scouters without experience which almost overnight dramatically affected the dynamics of the troop program. So much so that new adult training courses replaced the old courses in 2000. I admit, I found it ironic that one of the main pro patrol method forum members here also used the women leaders introduction as an example that not much of the program was affected. Truth is that adding women (non-experienced adults leaders) had a huge negative affect on patrol method. And as you pointed out (as I have for several years), it will never get better. I guess we could look at admitting any and all youth as acceptable because the program will never get back to what it was, but I'm an idealist. I will hold out to the end. It does seem we are getting close. But adding girls will be the last straw for me. Barry

We are supposed to question God. God creates all of us to glorify Him. God creates us with strengths and weaknesses to guide us as we grow toward Him. Our weaknesses challenge us to grow in Gods light, and clear our vision toward our strengths. Now that we got that out of the way, I personally don't feel that scripture is the higher issue here except that some are motivated by ideals instead of consideration of the youth. I feel the intellectual challenges are pragmatic in the applications and results of both the scout and volunteers. My concerns in the order of priority: 1. Health of the scout. Mental stability of children and young teens varies a lot from their environment and capacity. Many youth have taken a path of sexuality because they didn't feel that had a choice at the time. As I said earlier, the BSA has chosen to put volunteers in a situation where they may be encouraging the scout toward more instability, not less. 2. The BSA Mission and Vision. I have been doing this scouting stuff long enough to know that changes such as these rarely help the volunteers ability to develop a program that helps boys grow toward being better ethical and moral decision makers. Someone even mentioned the addition of adding women leaders. The history of changes in the troop program and adult training pretty clearly show how adding women leaders has made reaching the Mission and Vision more challenging. And for those who like to turn words around to distract discussions, it has little to do with the gender, but more to do with the lack of experience. 3. Adding procedures that require additional volunteers and special accommodations usually restricts patrol method. I have worked with a lot of different types of mental challenges and they do take away from the overall advantages of a patrol method program. For me, the troop program is about guiding boys to develop habits of making decisions based from the virtues of the Oath and Law. Any changes that take away from that goal should not be considered. Barry

Yep, this exactly the problem. Barry

This equates morality to nothing. It's anti God and is more destructive to the culture than any other attack because society looses all baseline of moral integrity. When man starts basing good and evil from the fickle policies of popularity of the moment, the culture can't servive because the demographic with the least voice loose faith in its leaders. This really hit home for me as I read about the organizers of the women's march. The organizers drew a line that feminism is based (yes based) on the liberation that mothers can kill their preborn sons and daughters without fear of government retribution. Imagine a political party hinging its success of power of mothers killing their children as being on the "right" side. The Democratic Party accepted the feminist leaders throwing out the pro-life feminist and that was than. No debate, no "let's think this out", the party accepted the switch from pro choice to pro abortion. Our culture has come to embrace the acceptable idea of moms against their children. I guess to some the trans gender thing is obvious when scaling it down to a personal issue of what is best for that one youth. But to discount all other opinions on an egotistical idea that I'm right and your wrong places man against man without any consideration of an agreement. Ego against ego only forces a following of the guy with the biggest stick. As we have watched our leaders over the past 10 years, picking the stick that will beat our neighbor down in submission isn't working. Barry

No, some readers just might not have thought in that direction. Barry

I think the local option will always have some risk for law suits. Scouting is becoming a hassle for COs. Barry

I would like to say that keeping older scouts is a complicated problem, but part of the complexity is what the adults presume Scouts of this age want or need from the program. At the time I was a leader in our troop, it grew to 100 scouts strong with almost 50% of them 14 and older. Of those 50 scouts, only about 15 of them would tell you they wanted more adventure. And while a few of the scouts might say they didn't enjoy teaching, it wasn't about teaching the younger scouts they didn't like, it was just teaching in general. And I'm sure older scouts as well as adults don't like baby sitting younger scouts. But they very much enjoy being role models to the younger scouts. They are great at it. What attracted older scouts to our troop is that the program respected their maturity as adults. They we allowed, actually expected, to make decisions that determined how the unit should be run. They we given the respect of adults. It is as simple as that. The struggle in our program is the adults learning how to mold the program up to that mature level. It's not easy and the adults will make a lot, A LOT of mistakes getting there. But if the adults embrace the older scouts as part of the troop team in developing that program, the program will grow and the scouts will stay as long as they can because they like the kind of person they have become with they go there. The quality of a Troop as a whole is reflective of the older scouts (role models). If the adults want a quality young scout program, they have to start with the oldest scouts first. Just ask the scouters in this discussion who say their older scouts are staying and aging out of their program. I'm sure they will pretty much agree. Barry

Mmmm, that is a bit one sided, isn't it. We already know from members on this forum that families have left the BSA as a result of this decision. If going back meant gaining more members than it looses, then it's worth considering. Of course membership is not my reasoning for being against the decision. I think the BSA is asking unit members to risk pushing these youth further into mental illness. Barry

No, what I meant was that I have been scolded by the moderators for using "ignorance" in another discussions because it was misinterpreted as unscout like. Barry

I already had this discussion with the mods and they won't buy it. Barry

There is plenty of evidence that shows that genders at this age learn better in a single gender atmosphere. We've all heard, so I won't go into details. As I said, the liberal reasoning is equality through mediocrity. I don't do mediocrity or political correctness. You should be honest with us as well as yourself, either you want to really develop character, or you want a camping program. Barry

Get real! When I was a scout and a Scoutmaster, patrols could camp without adults. They can't anymore. That is huge! Watching the Canadian Scouts go through their changes and listening and participating in discussions on scouting forums the past years, I am convinced that liberals view scouting as nothing more than a "camping club". The mission and vision statement are just noble words of distant dreams. Liberals believe in equality over personal ambition through the path of mediocrity. Changing the program so that boys can no longer have the independence to experiment with their decisions takes away the advantage that Boy Scouting has over all other youth programs. I kind of saw it when I joined as a scouter in the early 90s. New Scout Patrols (NSP) and First Class in the First Year (FCFY) forces scouts through a process of growth controlled outside of the their patrol. I can't think National did it intentionally (maybe they did, mediocrity), but they turned the growth process 180 degrees. Instead pushing scouts to act out toward their ambitions using the tools of leadership, patrol method, adventure and advancement, they are now expected to react to the tasks given them. The process of growing by making decisions was taken away. The more National makes little changes that force boys out of the arena of making personal decisions, the more the process of growth is reduced. As a result, after school camping clubs. My passion for the program is guiding boys to become citizens of character and leaders of integrity. Those aren't just words to me, I live it. I'll not waste my time just teaching kids how to set up a tent. Barry

No, it's just indicative of the way the program is ran. The troop I was speaking about has averaged between 150 to 180 scouts ever since I can remember. Barry

Only once. Barry

Rare! Do you not understand female biology? I wasn't even thinking a long these lines, but TT's post reminded me of a discussion I had with my wife. She had her first period during her first (and last) Girl Scout summer camp. She was very embarrassed and remembers that camp being the worst week of her life. She quit scouts as soon as she got home. And that was at a camp with just girls and women. Imagine that same experience at a BOY Scout camp. She'd kill me if she knew I........ Barry

Somebody or somebodies sued. He didn't say who.