Eagledad

I don't doubt your troop is justified in helping the scouts, but can you describe to me what the EBOR did to make the scout's feel ambushed? I am (warning for moderators) ignorant of such experiences. And, what is 'gotcha' star chambers? Is that some video game? Boy I feel old. Barry

As I said, our Eagle candidates typically have the maturity to handle themselves with respect and dignity in a EBOR. Prepping our scouts would be like prepping a 45 year old ASM. Our district, as far as I know, has never caused any drama on their part. And around here, asking the SM to sit in the scout's EBOR is more a formality of tradition to show honor and respect to the leader of the program where the scout developed his Eagle qualities. Our scouts personally handle their Eagle paperwork and arrange their EBOR themselves and have to invite the SM to his EBOR. If the scout chooses to not invite the SM to his EBOR, the SM might not even know the Scout's EBOR took place until Council announced the Scout is officially an Eagle. That's never happened, but it shows how much responsibility the scout has in the process compared to the adult leaders. Until this discussion, I have never heard of troops sending the SM to EBORs to protect their scout.. So I'm curious to learn of the experiences that would cause concern for your scout at the EBOR. What does "EBOR is out of place" mean? Barry

That's a pretty good idea. Barry

We had several scouts close to Eagle transfer into the troop. All great scouts, but I learned to sit down and talk about expectations because scouts come from a different Troop, District, and Council cultures that did the Eagle process differently. Once everyone gets that all straitened out, it's not big deal. Barry

I do understand the reassurance part. But it is funny, I find the source of doubt in most cases to come from the parents. When a scout asked me for the Eagle Scoutmaster Conference, I always asked the scout to invite his parents if he doesn't mind. About 50% of the parents accept the invite, and it was usually those parents that had some concern about the EBOR. So I usually addressed the few example questions more for the parents benefit so that they could feel relaxed and allow their son to feel relaxed. But again, since we assume the scout is ready, our demeanor also reflects our confidence in him. Barry

Opportunity? What does a scout in your troop learn during your practice EBOR that he doesn't already know? I don't get it, but one thing I've learned on this forum lately is that troops have a culture of expectation and each troop is different. Our culture expects a scout to act with a minimum maturity the represents his rank. A life scout is expected to act with the same maturity of the adults in the troop. And they are held accountable when they don't live up to that expectation. That maturity includes the scout taking personal responsibility for his knowledge of skills and his character. I guess we just wouldn't see a point to a practice EBOR when our scouts are at their best. This is not to say our scouts are exceptional, I don't mean that at all. What I mean is we expect scouts going in an EBOR to already be ready by the fact they have reached that point in the program. What more does a Life Scout need to learn that he hasn't already learned and experienced? Seems like the troop is taking the scout's personal business a little too personally. Barry

Hmm, this is interesting. I've never heard of practice EBORs. Maybe our EBORs (done by District) are easy, or our scouts are just above average, but the BORs not challenging. I spent a little time explaining the EBOR format during my SM Conference with the scout by giving few general examples, but that was more to show him that nothing will be asked he doesn't know. Practice EBORs? What does your EBORs ask that typical Life scouts don't already know? Barry

I agree there should be more than IOLS for teaching the fundamentals, but when a focus is put on adults mimicking aspects of the program like patrol method, history has proven those adults go back to their units and force the boys to mimic their experience. Their personal ambitions get in the way of understanding scouts learning from THEIR choices. You wouldn't think that would be the way, but the adults use their one experience to run their troop everyday. But boys do patrol method different because there is a world of difference in their maturity from the adults. The adults get frustrated because the scouts aren't doing it like their WB experience, so they intervene to set the boys strait. This is why National killed the old course. From my experience of creating and directing a council level patrol method youth leadership course, I found teaching the ideals of patrol method was challenging for both the boys and adults. In my opinion, the best way to teach patrol method to the adults is have them observe a youth leadership patrol method course. Then they can see the dynamics of the boys in action without their personal biases or ambitions getting in the way. If they don't have any investment in the boys performance, they are more likely to see the bigger picture. Barry

One who has not participated in a course should not make comments in ignorance. The objective of building a functional team and program around goals are skills all adults leaders need to learn and practice. The course gets more specific to each participant responsibilities by directing them to design their Ticket Items to their individuals leadership responsibilities. The course curriculum and the objectives of the course were completely change from the old course, so how is that dumbing down? WB is not a scouts skills development course, it never has been. But course directors who didn't understand the purpose of the course tried to make it a skills course and forced National to start all over again. As for the patrol method part of the discussion, I would not use WB as a platform to teach patrol method. At best it's just a hint of patrol method. Barry

Well I don't know how WB should be classified, but I think the curriculum is one of the more important adult curriculums for providing a successful program. Its realistic to assume that at least 75% of adults joining today don't have any scouting experience. As a result the adults don't understand the goals of program, nor do they understand how the many parts play together for the big picture goal. I know this because I used to counsel struggling units. And typically the problems started with not understanding how each adults roll fit in their team, and not having any goals to point them in a general direction. I was teaching those WB basics years before they were introduced in the new WB syllabus. I Understand the importance of knowing the scout skills so that we can teach them. But, the BSA learned that even when units know the skills, the program can still go off in the weeds if the adults don't work well as a team or know how all the parts in their program work together toward a bigger purpose. In fact, WB was changed because the old course was found tobe contributing to units going off in the weeds. Maybe the problem is that this course shouldn't be called WB. WB originated for showing "experienced" Scoutmasters advanced teaching skills. It was never intended to teach basic scout skills or even the patrol method. Maybe what needs to be done is rename the course and retire the Woodbadge title all together. Barry

I think the main difference is that the rowboat is heavier and requires a little more muscle to go the same distance. I took the rowboat MB my first summer camp and canoeing the next year. The rowing MB was more fun for me. Barry

Patrol Method is not the WB objective, building a working adult team that understands the BSA objectives is. Whether the adult takes WB a week before or a week after their specific training really doesn't matter much because they are still working in the dark. Ideally we would like the participant to have some experience in the position they use for planning their ticket. But when adults of all scout ages are invited, we just have to hope they stay in for the long haul. Some adults do change their minds about their future positions in the program after they are counseled in their ticket, but I still don't think specific training would have much effect with that choice. Barry

OK, I admit I haven't participated in WB for 10 years now. But Pack leaders were encouraged to participate also. Has that changed? If not, don't they suffer from the same ignorance? Barry

I'm sure you mean it was an option for that SM. It was not a National policy that I can remember. Certainly not for TF. Barry

We introduce most of our skills through program theme activities instead of MB or advancement classes. Many times the MB pamphlets are the curriculum guide, but the instruction is not intended as MB class. Not much instruction is required for a patrol to enjoy a day of canoeing on the lake. Actually swimming skills are more of a concern than perfection of the "J" stroke. For those going on a canoeing trek, they get more instruction. Same goes with knots, lashing or even first-aid. Create theme activities and let the scouts learn the skills for the theme. Interestingly we point out they can get a lot of requirements signed off if they talk to their Patrol Leader or MB Councilor, but you would be surprised how many scouts don't take advantage of that guidance. Fun was enough reward for them at that time in their life. Barry

I'm with Beav on approaching the SM. One of the considerations of just you approaching the SM or all the ASMs approaching the SM is how much influence each method has toward showing the SM the concerns. I learned as one member of our church committee that I didn't have much sway with our minister. But when the committee approached him with the same ideas, he understood better the importance of the idea to the whole group. You need to consider what is the better approach. If you decide to approach the SM as a group (I did this was a back yard barbecue), then you need to discuss a strategy among the ASMs to have mainly one person presenting the concerns with the others only shaking their heads in support. And, you all need to discuss and agree on what exactly are the concerns the group wants expressed so that debates don't start among the ASMs in front of the SM. Nothing kills a meeting like this more than everyone talking in different directions. In truth, the ASM and SM need to have these kinds of discussions often so that everyone is comfortable discussing their opinions. The SM needs to get in the habit of asking, "What do you think?" with his ASMs. From my personal experience, that takes a lot of humility. But it also forced me to have sound logical reasoning for my approach to the program. Good communication is healthy, especially in a boy run program. Barry

I understand what you are saying, I've talked to a lot of scouters on the subject. But we will just have to agree to disagree with the myth. I have too much experience with older scouts working with younger scouts to say otherwise. Of course there are times when scouts of a different maturity or interest don't want to be together in some situations, but that is different from the generalization of older scouts not wanting to be with younger scouts. And when I say the generalization (myth, theory) is the driving force for how the adults steer the troop program, I'm not necessarily suggesting intentional laziness on their part. Rather, its more of doing the best they can with what they know. I have advised several troops on this subject and they are quite frankly stumped with their older scout program when they approach me. They find that dividing the older scouts into separate adventure patrols hasn't help retain the older scouts, so they are perplexed. It really comes down to not understanding patrol method and how to apply it, or rather how to let the boys apply it. Barry

Ironically many scoutmasters use the same sort of older scouts don't like younger scouts myth to justify splitting the troop program. Of course experience proves otherwise, but such theories can make running a troop program easier for the adults. The Cub program is too long, but it's not so much the scouts who grow tired of the program, it is the adults. We like to say the program is for the boys, but a closer look will show that the most successful packs are run by adults having the most fun. If the adults are happy, their sons will be happy and they will stay in the program. However, running a program that keeps adults happy doing the same thing for five years is a challenge. Cubs is way too long. Barry

My son broke his leg a week before summer camp. The camp loaned him their golf cart and my son had a great week. Barry

Well there is a lot of darts being thrown in the dark here. Not bad advice, but it's different strokes for different programs. I'm still not sure what falling through the cracks means, but I'm curious, shouldn't the SM be catching any of this stuff with conferences? Shouldn't he have a clue when he looks through the scout's handbook? This is where the SM can learn about scouts who are shy and too immature to ask for guidance. Looking at your list hedgehog, I don't see how going to NSPs helps your Problem. It only justifies you trying to fix the problem by your assigning PORs. Not the NSPs wouldn't help, but your justification doesn't make sense to me. Scouts are responsible for the balancing the Eight Methods, not the adults. I think the trainers idea is a good approach. We sort of do the same thing, but we don't always have designated trainers. More often we have older scouts asked by the SPL to teach a skills when other scouts make a request. Sometimes the SPL will ask for a skills teaching saturday where any scout can request training for a skill. And our troop usually has a couple hours of free time on camp outs where the scouts are encouraged to ask the SPL for some skills training. Some skills like orienteering require a few hour advance notice. Now I say SPL, those are typically requested when several patrols need the same skills or the patrol doesn't have the resources. Most skills teaching eventually is done at the patrol level. The adults don't even know when it happens. Taking care of your scouts is developed in the patrol, but the habit continues at all levels. By the way, you mention the PLs being too busy to deal with advancement. From my experience, the two hardest skills to teach youth leaders are patience and delegation. I feel like your trying hard to fix one problem by hand selecting PORs. But at some point the "taking care of the scouts" has to kick in and the job gets done because someone just steps up. I kind of feel that in the big picture, your patrols haven't really bonded to the habit of taking care of each other yet. Maybe they haven't really bonded as a patrol either. If I were to guess (and it really is purely a guess on the limited information), the adults are still a little too intrusive on the patrol method. Not that some intrusion isn't necessary because boys have to be reminded now and then to take care of each other using the scout law. But eventually that practice should go into autopilot and the needs of a scout will be filled by the will of their brother scout taking care of his boys. Just as Beavera hinted, it does work that way. The scouts just need a few nudges towards the beginging to keep them on course. My first suggestion would be to give the adults and the scouts 300 feet separation during their activities and see what happens. That doesn't really require any policy or program changes and it gives the scouts a more breathing room. Then hopefully any interaction by the SM is reactionary instead of proactive. AS they say, you don't really know what you don't know. 300 feet will help both the scouts and adults learn what they don't know. Then you, the adult, can guide the scouts in how they initiate fixing their problem instead of you handing them your fixes to their problems. Of course habits take time and experience requires some tuning, but maybe it's time to let the scouts fail on their own instead of failing with the adults. As a result, the patrols may bond closer and that is a good start. Barry

I always look a the bigger picture and it seems you are looking for problem to fixed. The only struggle that really seems to stand out is in your last post mentioning "advancement". Are the new scouts not advancing? Are you trying to fix that because the PLs aren't doing a good job helping the new scouts advance? Why is there a concern on advancement? Who is complaining? Am I completely missing your concern here? Barry

I agree with the whole post, but I really like what jjlash said about the staff. Just like in a troop, the staff of a WB will take on the personality of the director. Every WB staff I participated on had a different personality and a different perspective on what the participants should get from the course. I became picky about the directors I worked under. The Troop Guides do work very hard, but most of the staff are there to support them, so it's generally a very rewarding experience. Barry

It's not easy finding the real causes for scouts dropping out. I remember when our Council made an effort to call each Webelos who dropped, sports and karate were the number one reasons. After I got finished with my research, sports wasn't even on the radar. Kids will do what is fun and rewarding no matter how busy their schedule. 2/3s of the scouts in our pack and troop are in sports, so I know that isn't a cause. Scout age boys don't like to be cold called for answers to why they quit. First off most don't really know the exact answer, they just don't want to continue scouting. Second, adults asking scouts why they don't like something is intimidating for boys this age because they think somebody is going to be in trouble. Sports, Karate, music, and etc. is easy because nobody is in trouble. Parents may not know exactly why their son doesn't like scouts, but they do know when that started happening because their son started whining about going to meetings. Parents being parents want their son to finish what they started, so they push their son to the meetings. Many scouts quit after Webelos because that is the end their parent are willing to concede. Going to a troop is like starting a whole new program and that is just the break the family is looking for to get out of scouting. The problem that for us is we really don't know when the Cub Scout started disliking scouting. It could have been at the Wolf age, but since most parents push their sons to finish what they started, or they feel the scouting is a good program for their son, they stick it out until the end of Cubs. I was surprise to learn that Bear and 1st year Webelos drop increased around 2005. The only reason I could find for that was families were frustrated with all the national gay publicity and just wanted to get away from it. But I couldn't find enough data points to verify that. And that was a national trend, it wasn't a trend locally. So it still a mystery. Finding the truth is a lot of work and most people aren't willing to put out the effort. But it does paint a picture of the problem. Scoutmasters are in the the best position to learn because they get to talk with the scouts, parents and cub leaders. They just need to learn now to ask the right questions and listen carefully to the accumulated answers. Attacking the problem is a whole different discussion. Barry

Contacting the scouts isn't enough. If you really want an true assessment, talk to the parents and leaders. That is what I did and they fill in the picture much better. Example: The Scout says that he is more interested in sports. The parent says the son felt the boring meetings were a waste of time. The Leader says she/he didn't want to be a den leader, but only took the responsibility because nobody else would. Sports? Barry

Same age patrols require as much massaging as mixed age patrols. If one were unwilling to admit that, they are only fooling themselves that it is different. My experience of mixed age patrols along with our success as adults is very successful. End of story. LOL Mixing scouting into mixed age patrols is irrelevant in the big picture of the program. The new scouts join right in and make friends immediately. In fact they make friends in mixed age patrols faster than they do in a patrol of same age strangers. The older experienced scouts know how the patrols should function and get the new scouts involved immediately. Same age patrols have to wait for the TG to get the ball rolling and even then it's not like the mixed age patrols that move on as they have been doing. It appears by how hard one has to defend same age patrols that they are a lot of work. AND THEY ARE. They require a lot of adult observation and a somewhat skilled TG. And our extensive experience in both patrols haw shown over and over that new scouts in mixed age patrols mature and grow faster from and environment of older scout role models than the same age scouts who struggle from day to day to just do boy scouting stuff. Now working at the district and council level, not all adults are adapt to running mixed age patrols. First off some adults just don't like the idea of older and younger scouts mixed. Some adults don't know how to not intrude on the patrol method and same age patrols work better for them. In most cases, Eagle mills and mega troops are aged based because they are easier for adults to manage. Pure patrol method requires giving the patrol full independence and many, if not most, adults really struggle giving boys that. As for our troop, independent growth is the most important objective in the program. Independence requires an environment of not making scouts feel guilty for being different of having different goals. That includes not having goals or not advancing or taking on leadership responsibilities. That is very hard in a same age patrol because the pressure for all scouts to grow at the same rate is very strong. A scout should develop confidence to grow and that usually comes from someone of experience that the scout respects. Our observation is that the NSP rely heavily on the TG for that respect and honor. Which is fine, but the respect of the TG who acts as the Patrol Leader is different from the respect of patrol mates who just living the normal life of a patrol mate. Of course the new scouts can be leaders too, but they don't have the experience for ideas and the confidence to work through struggles, so they usually fall back on the troop guide of adults. As a result growth in the same age patrols is slower. One keeps suggesting new scouts can move out of their same age patrol if they don't like it. But that is true of all patrols including. The difference we saw is a new scout feels too intimidated to speak up about leaving his patrol. I found it was usually the parents that came to us with relationship problems. That can happen in mixed age patrols, but it is less likely because mixed age patrols sense when part of their team isn't happy and they will accommodate whatever change is required. Scouts in same age patrols just feel stuck and frustrated until someone, usually an adult, pries and ask questions. There is that adult thing again. We have theme in our troop that says "the adults job is to put themselves out of business". We want the program to mature so that if the adults didn't show up, nothing would change in the scouts behavior. We found that maturity struggled in same age patrols because they were always looking outside of their patrol for ideas of adventure. They struggled with their own independence. Now as I said, we are very good with using mixed age patrols and we understand the dynamics of mixing boys into patrols. Some adults can build a good program around same age patrols and the boys are completely satisfied. I'm not about to go and tell adults of a same age patrol mega troop they are doing it wrong. They have literally hundreds of families that are totally satisfied with that program. But it is a different kind of program and it's not for adults who know how to be build a successful program around mixed age patrols. In the end, it is the adults who decide what is success in their program and they dictate how to point their program in a successful direction, whether that program is mixed age, same age, boy run, or patrol method. Gotta run, Barry