Eagledad

While I agree with your situation, a program that uses the enhanced power of a single gender environment to provide youth with quality character growth is not racist or bigoted. In fact, I believe a youth program that uses servant leadership principles and guidance leads the youth to develop habits away from that self serving perspective. Barry

That sounds pretty good to me. Fun. Usually camps do the swim test first. How good of a swimmer is he. I had several scouts scared of the idea of a test and it turned out they were good swimmers. I have also had scouts that learned a lot in instructional swim. Barry

Go ahead and start another subject. I enjoy these discussions and can talk hours about it in person. The whole idea of Patrol Method is to put scouts in situations where they have to make difficult decisions from the interactions with patrol mates. I learned that the preparing meals is the most intense patrol activity that exposes the scouts true character. And usually forces them to learn better habits of interacting with other people. We didn't always go to a camp where the patrol prepared the meals, but we made sure the patrols were independent so they would have to rely on each other to get through their day. I was told many many times by parents that you took our boy to summer camp and brought us back a man. What did you do? Wasn't me. It was him. Barry

There will be some exercises (Tickets) during and after the course designed to help you understand how to perform you responsibilities better with the intention of making your scouting experience easier and more enjoyable. Those exercises have the most impact if you know what is expected of you. I would sit down with your adult ream and have a discussion of their expectations for you. Then you can build your tickets around those expectations. Also, a lot of times the course and the exercises bring to view that to some folks that they may not be the right person for those units expectations. They choose to change positions and build yoeir exercises around the new position. I know of one Cubmaster who was also the Webelos leader and Tiger leader. The course showed her that she would have a lot more impact on the pack and also enjoy scouting more if she gave up Webelos Leader and Leader postions and instead focus on recruiting good adults for those positions. Another leader realized that his skill set would provide more impact at the District level instead of the unit level. Scouting should be as much fun for adults as the scouts. As for the rest of the course, "enjoy". Barry

My hope is National's motivation to appear progressive will be diluted by the common sense of the volunteers. Barry

Troop Guides are better than nothing, but nothing beats watching and experiencing the dynamics of mixed age group. Troop Guides still do a lot of teaching the skills, where the young scouts in a mixed age patrol learn simply by watching and participating with the experienced patrol mates. The other problem I have observed with same age patrols is they become cliquish and don't mix well at the older ages. The scouts in troops with same age patrols tend to merge into troop leadership with their patrol mates instead of scouts from all the patrols. Almost can't prevent it since the patrol ages up into the responsibilities. Saying all that, I know a troop may not have a choice and have to do the best they can. But, I'm not sure how to do a same age patrol without using older scouts because of abuse risk. It would be like running a new troop without older scouts every year. Barry

Yes, we worked with mixed age patrols and same age patrols and same age patrols don't work near as well for developing character growth. Age based patrols are basically setting the scouts up to fail because they don't have a good example for how to succeed. I did not know that mixed age patrols or older scouts are not recommended to prevent abuse. Is that local or national? Honestly, that kind of kills the patrol method objective. I will have to think about this one. Barry

Very profound. I’m wonder if the many want to be virtuous, but their genetics is incapable. The foundation of the Christian religion professes that all man fail. i used to say that virtue in a troop is defined by the least virtuous adult. But the truth is that for the scouts, virtue is defined by the scoutmaster. The only hope for those scouts is if the Scoutmaster is as humble as he is virtuous. Interesting thoughts. Thanks Barry

I'm all for all the other youth scout organizations providing their data so a baseline can be determined for the ranking of the stars. I also believe yearly total numbers are important so parent can compare the groups to measure risks. Barry

That's because we have presented our opinion several times and left ourselves to word games to try and get and advantage. I think each of us has made ourselves clear. And balanced. Barry

Do you work with any abused kids as a scout leader? Barry

Yes, experience as a scouter is very much learning from the test. And what is the lesson? Barry

I have experience as a scout leader working with abused scouts. How much experience as a Scout leader do you have working with abused scouts? I simply don't agree with the director and as someone who works in a data evaluation area, data doesn't tell a whole story. I have worked with many scouters across the country and I believe I have a good feel for the program. Scouts are very safe. Can improvements be made? Maybe, but I can't see anything making big changes. Scouting is a program that makes big positive differences to families with scouts. We need that. Anti scouting makes no sense. Barry

Sand? I am only adding balance to anti- BSA comments based from my experience. How much adult experience do you have in the program? Barry

I have experience with the system. I don't believe he does. Or he did it wrong. Scouts are very safe. It's not perfect, and never can be. No system is. There is always someone looking for cracks. Barry

Anti scouting makes no sense. Barry

😂, Yes, there are other aspects of public schools that bring pause. But, my words that anti scouting doesn't make sense is absolute. I feel it has to be absolute to balance what I feel are absolute anti scouting comments. For all its shortcomings, the BSA still offers our culture an alternative of hope and peace to counter negative cultural influences. I think it was Baden Powell who said he had a dream of scouting bringing world peace. That is quite a vision. But, those are the kinds of visions that create noble movements. Barry

I disagree there is two sides of the fence for an organization that offers so much good for the community. Are public schools bad? There is a story on the news every week of students becoming victims in a public school. Yet, closing all public schools would make no sense. As you said, you can find faults in any organization. Barry

There are two sides of the fence? I have seen so many lives changed, or even saved by scouting. There is the scout who used the skills learned from the program to save a victim in a car wreck until help came. The the scout who took a drowned baby and resuscitated him back to life. There are the words of a mother who suffered as she watched kids and school teachers bully her extremely awkward son praising the scout program that welcomed her son as he is was and he flourished into a confident adult who became an officer in a submarine. Then there is the rescue of a scout who grew up in an abused home. The troop was his his sanctuary, his life of freedom and the only place he felt safe. You can only imagine the complex feeling after call by the police in the middle of the night explaining that a boy of parents arrested for abusing asked for help from his scout leader. Scout Leaders don't sign on for that. Or, maybe some do. But, God's grace seems to find those adults. I could go on and on and on because I have many such personal stories. Many. But, imagine, if these are the stories of just one scout leader, how many more from all the other millions of scout leaders over the past 110 years. That is the side of the fence I stand on. It's the side of hope and trust. It is the side of the noble program that has changed the lives of millions of people for the better. Scouting is a place where young people can practice making decisions about other people and learn from the results or consequence. It's and environment where fairness is learned through the guidance of an oath and law. Scouting is where the meek learn to stand up and make a difference. Scouting encourages dreaming and making the world a better place. Scouting saves lives and makes communities better. Scouting is a source for the kind of peace the world is looking for today. I have witnessed and experienced the power of scouting and I imagine the best world is one where every person was a scout in their youth. Anti-scouting makes no sense. Barry

Correct. The program does so much good for youth and community, being anti BSA doesn't make sense. Of course we all have aspects of the program we don't like, but to come to all discussions as anti BSA doesn't make sense to me. Barry

Even worse is using another organization to inflate the reputation well above the truth of the issue. There are folks on this forum that have proven their integrity through posts over several topics. And there are others who are obviously anti BSA. Which just makes no sense to me. Barry

Where in West Oklahoma? I was active in the Last Frontier Council from 1967 to 2005. I now live in Edmond. I kind of like to know my scouting neighbors. Howdy neighbor, Barry

I don't know why they would have watered the program back down except they found that Bear leaders weren't crossing over to Webelos because they didn't want to do that outdoor part of the program. Cooking and sleeping in the heat or cold doesn't appeal to a lot of adults. We saw this problem at the council level. Units were forced to find new Webelos leaders and those leaders tended to lack the enthusiasm for planning and leading a fun program. Most of them only did minimal training. We tried several approaches including asking troops to help with the Dens. But, that was an extra responsibility that many troops were reluctant to take on. And, there was no planned program for it, which made it more problematic. Barry

Personally I don' think graduating early or late makes much difference. Our data shows that Webelos in a fun program will join a troop whenever their crossover comes. Scouts who are in a boring den with a burned out leader are likely to quit after webelos no matter what. Webelos pretty much know what they are going to do by the Fall of their last year. As I said, nationally less than 50 percent of Webelos IIs actively join a troop. That high rate is the result of a demanding 5 year program on the adults. A little more perspective is that in most cases, scouts go where their parents encourage them to go. So, the issue isn't burned out or bored scouts. The issue is burned out parents. As has been said, 5 years is way to long for a cub program. It's harder on the adults than the scouts. This sounds off balanced, but if the pack changed its activities to make it enjoyable for parents, the crossover numbers would increase dramatically at all ages. I know this because we did it. If the BSA wants to make a dramatic jump in membership at ALL ages, National needs to trim the Cub program to 3.5 years. Barry

I approached expectations and maturity by teaching the scout to set his own goals. I started by teaching his first skill, maybe the square knot. After he mastered the knot, I asked him if he would like to learn more? Which knots? And set a goal to when. It's easy with something like the knots because he can pick any knot and learn it immediately. But, as the scouts works toward higher level skills that take more time, I encouraged him to set a date and write in his book. There is no penalty for not meeting the date, it's not a test, I'm just getting him in the habit of setting goals, no matter how small. I want our scouts to be dreamers and creators. By the time they get to a leadership age, they have practiced and developed some level of skills for setting goals and timelines. And, it is the scouts initiative to pick the goal and create the timeline. I taught in the adult leadership classes that the scouts should be dreaming of their scouting future and build goals and timelines, especially in advancement. In fact, advancement is perfect for scouts envisioning themselves in their future of the program. We don't want a scout to follow the adults dream of being the ideal scout, We want them to dream of the ideal scout they want to be, and to initiate setting goals toward their dream, at their pace. The average age of scouts were awarded Eagle in our troop was 16. That is because they weren't really all that interested getting the eagle until 14 or 15 years old. They were having too much fun camping, hiking, canoeing, and so on. And then when they had the maturity to see themselves on top of that mountain, they had the skills to plan their goals and timeline. Which in reality, is the adult skill we want them to have anyways. Barry