Eagledad

Adults restricting the scouts program by their fears is such a pervasive problem that I added a section in my Scoutmaster Specific class syllabus of how to recognize it and prevent it. Even in this discussion there is a hinting of immorality for using a toy weapon in a youth program ceremony. No wonder our children grow up confused to how they should respond to their fears. Their parents don't know the difference between fun play and aggressive hostility. Even worse, parents don't know how to teach the differences to their kids. I can't count the number of times the arrow was used in our cub ceremonies. I will never forget a few of the parents reaction on our first Webelos campout. One boy ran strait for a tree to climb, three others ran for a stream. Other boys were doing boy stuff. I admit I was caught off guard when the moms (I know I know, but it really was three moms) ran up to basically ask me to stop their sons from the dangers of the camp site. I was so struck by their concern for their son that I had to think a minute for the right reaction. I politely asked them to relax, all was ok. I learned over the years that every Webelos campout was more about working with the parents than their sons. Barry

I'm not sure exactly what answer everyone is looking for, but Philmont training is typically developed for the volunteers, and they used to encourage the whole family to go as a vacation. I had a friend who grew up going to Philmont every summer with her whole family while dad trained and instructed. Imagine a camp where the family camped in tents and played boy scout in the outdoors for a week or two. It's really a great family vacation. Plenty to do in the outdoors and I think she said they also have planned programs for the kids and spouses as well. I was asked to teach a course once, but I couldn't make it work in my schedule. Barry

Yes, when I was a scout in 60s-70s, most scouts held Arrowmen with a higher respect of stature than the Eagle. During the five years I was in the troop of 80 scouts, we had two Eagles. A lot has changed with both programs. However, when I started back again 1992, there was a big marketing push to use Eagle as a big reason for joining Cub Scouts, not to mention boy scouts. I was so taken by the heavy push that I asked our district representative to tone it down on Cub recruitment night. I'm not sure why I was offended with the heavy Eagle marketing , but I was. Working with curves and data is part of my job. The trend change in 1992 is more sudden than a reflection of a gradual culture shift. My opinion is the change reflects a planned intentional effort to set a specific expectation at the parents for our sons. Parents who eventually become unit leaders. That is not to say that setting an expectation of Eagle is a bad thing. High goals don't mean bad programs. And I'm not sure the Eagle requirements changes really had that much affect on the increase of Eagles. My observation is that adults are more tuned toward an Eagle program than in the past as a result of the marketing effort. I never heard of an Eagle counselor, guide, ASM, or whatever the troop calls them when I was a scout. But today many troops and districts have them to help scouts on their path toward Eagle. It makes more sense to me that the rise in Eagle numbers is more a rise in adult interest than the change in requirements. I am not criticising one way or the other, just an observation. My only concern with the higher emphasis of Eagles is that it has overshadowed the traditional priorities of the values and outdoors. I am a patrol method character developing zealot and national has made that more challenging in my opinion. My problem with the criticism I hear of Eagles today is the admitted lack of respect for todays recipients. Disrespecting today's Eagle with terms like pencil whipping dilutes the overall reputation of the award for all Eagles, including my dad who earned his Eagle in 1944. I understand a discussion of the differences, but some folks seem to want to punish today's recipients for not working toward yesterdays expectations. I don't think that is fair Barry

Well said. This also applies with Scoutmasters who are often confronted by parents with questions and opinions. Most of the time parents just need a little education to understand the bigger picture. Once in a while they make a point worth pondering. Barry

This has turned into a funny thread. It's well known that National wanted more Eagles and structured the Eagle program toward that goal. But the discussion should not be limited to easier Eagle requirements because the plan for more Eagles was "A Lot" more in depth than that. New Scout Patrols, troop guides, First Class in First Year, and Venture Patrols were all part of the overall design toward more Eagles. The BSA wasn't looking at more Eagles as the ultimate goal; more Eagles is an indicator of success of the program design changes. So when we have these NSP, aged base patrols, FCFY and other recent program change discussions, likely some of the Eagle bashers here are in a since supporting the new Eagle program. Barry

Or it depends on who they talk to. During the mid 1990's, we polled a lot of Tiger parents about the Tiger program trying to understand the high drop out rate. One thing we learned was that 80 percent of parents liked the Tiger T-shirt because of the low entry cost into the program. To our surprise, the Blue Cub shirt became part of the Tiger uniform in 2000. The only reason I could see National making the change was because most of the new leaders in the pack came from that 20 percent of Tiger parents.They certainly didn't represent the average parent, at least by our own polling. I don't know how National polled their data, but I believe most of it came from den leaders rather the parents. Barry

While I was a Cub Master and Scoutmaster, National added the AOL requirements to visit a troop, talk to a SM and fill out the Troop Membership application. I was disappointed with National because being a Scout purist, advancement should be for boy growth, not clever attempts to improve membership. I will admit that National has challenges with membership as the culture changes. But I still don't feel they talk to enough leaders to understand the depth of the challneges. I can see teaching the Webelos leaders the 4 Steps of Boy Scout Advancement for the reason qwaze described. But I would really like to thin out the Webelos handbook for the boys so that it is more adventure and less promotion. Barry

At the adult level, sure. But what was National thinking would be gained by teaching it to Cub Scouts. It's not very fun. Barry

That only makes sense at a political correctness level. Lets keep the discussion pragmatic if we could please. After working with youth of both sexes for 30 years, mixing the genders at this age group is definitely a distraction. You only have to ask them how much of a distraction they are at school. Now you can argue that the distraction isn't a deal breaker in mixing the groups, but the distraction is there. My two issues are: first, I believe young teenagers need gender role models to observe the behavior of the adult gender. As I said, the Girl Scouts strongly believe in adult gender role modeling, so it's not like it is only a man hangup. Second is that admitting girls will further increase the number of adults leaders who have no experience as boy scouts. I believe the quality of any youth organization is dependent on the quality of the adults who administer it. Adults who don't have any experience as a youth struggle to perform at the level of adults who do have that experience. There is a lot of whining in this forum about the BSA getting away from the good-ol-days of outdoors and patrol method focus. I believe that is a direct result of the increase of inexperienced adult leaders since female adult leaders were allowed in the troop program as leaders. I know that sounds sexist or gender biased, but I'm more mature and pragmatic than that. The only reason I could see a national youth program make dramatic membership changes would be to increase the membership. First off that is a huge risk, Canadian Scouts and Campfire have never had the numbers they had before their membership changes. But lets just assume for a second that the BSA numbers would improve, then we should discussion how much increase is worth the loss of quality. Is it really worth the risk? What are the possible gains? From my perspective, why take the risk. I know what the program does for boys now. For that matter, I know what the program has done for boys for over 80 years. Why risk a good thing. Barry

As I said before, admitting women into the troops has diluted the out door boy run program. Adding girls will dilute it that much more because experienced adult leadership will be even more diluted. Parents have to eventually decide if they character development program for their sons or camping entertainment. That is exactly what happened to both YMCA and the Canadian Scouts. Lucky for us, the Girls Scouts are firmer in their belief that gender role modeling is important for proper growth and will likely never merge with the BSA. Barry

Why does the BSA think this is important for 10 year old scouts to learn? Barry

BSHB, PLHB and SPLHB are required for our trainings because they set the baseline for expectations. The materials may or may not get referenced by the instructors (all scouts), but many of the answers to questions are. I also required reference materials at district and council training as well. I learned a long time ago that training is where the minimum level of expectation is set for all the participants. Many of the bad habits that units and districts develop are a result of ignorance of what is provided in the materials. The patrol method discussion in the Patrol Method forum is a good example of minimum expectations. Patrol Method is not being taught much today because there is very little BSA material on the subject. And as a result, less troops are using patrol method properly. Barry

I can believe this. I met one of the three authors of the 1999 Scoutmaster Specific Course syllabus and he said all three authors sent their completed sections to National without comparing each others work. National combined the sections and published the material without any help from the authors. I can see the three assuming Patrol method was explained or highlighted somewhere else, and leaving it out. And it would be an example of how small mistakes can have huge unexpected consequences. Barry

Then the SM is doing it wrong. Older scouts are the refection of the quality of the whole troop. If the SM is truly teaching "take care of your boys", then most, if not all, the scouts will display the same quality; not just within certain ages, ranks or leadership positions. As was said in a different discussion, why would a SPL who learned and practiced "take of your boys" in the patrol behave any different in the SPL position? Barry

I also spent some time on patrol method in my course. It's kind of interesting to see several of the forum members who are obviously passionate about patrol method are, or were, teachers in the Scoutmaster Specific Course. I don't know if that says more about active members of forums or the impact on the experience of using patrol method. I practiced explaining patrol method a lot to develop the right words and phrases that had the most impact in the least time to the listener. I talked to a lot of visiting Webelos parents about the differences of troop programs in the area and I found myself talking a lot about patrol method. Barry

Times don't change. We had a young ASM in our troop during the late 60s who 4-wheeled a lot in a CJ5 before 4-wheeling was a thing to do. He would find a few trails on our campouts to challenge his Jeep, but the SM never let scouts ride with him. A few older scouts got to ride to the store with him now and then. We always wondered which road the ASM took to the store. Barry

If the scouts weren't using XYZ, then the adults already took the 1st and 2nd adult run step in the program the scouts are using. And if the program is running smoothly, why would the adults force XYZ? You complain of catching flack for promoting stosh scouts over the Boy Scouts. But that isn't true, the flack is the result of belittling adults who use the BSA program. You once admitted coming around that different adults use different styles that fit best for their personality. But you still insult those same adults to defend stosh scouts. As I said, if you were really that confident in stosh scouts, then why the condescending tone? What do you care if we use SPLs? In the big picture, how a scout gets picked for a POR or the hierarchy of the leadership structure is trivial compared to the much bigger goal of scouts practicing the character habit of taking care of your boys. If the first year scout buys into the importance of taking care of your boys attitude, then the senior scouts are certainly showing it in all their actions. Everything else is just small potatoes. Barry

Why would the boys think the SPL is not necessary when their handbooks explain the SPLs responsibilties in the process. They wouldn't unless someone outside the process convinced them. Which shows why a patrol not using BSA guidelines is more adult run. And it is not fair for the boys who thought they were joining the Boy Scouts to get pulled into the adults vision of scouting. Boys typically leave these programs because they are frustrated from not being allowed to make their own independent decisions. Manipulating the scouts' decisions is a risk for all of us and we have done it to some degree, but giving the scouts a basic set of published guidelines to use minimizes that risk and leaves the adults to focus on growth of character, fitness and citizenship learned from using the oath and law. In other words, adults leave the process of the patrol method up to the scouts and focus more on encouraging "taking care of your boys". Barry

This straw man ignores the primary foundational call for a scouts duty of helping others by living the Scout Law; or as some say "take care of your boys". It doesn't matter what patrol process the patrol members use, independent decisions in the process is always challenging. If the scouts are given the freedom to make independent decisions and guided to use the scout oath and law in their decisions, the one constant that keeps them coming back is the the satisfaction from helping others (taking care of your boys). Not whether the SPL gets a vote or note.

Please help me here stosh, since the SPL and PL handbooks guide the scouts in a process for picking their PORs, the Scouts require "zero" help, guidance or intervention from the adults. Your style, while it also works, requires quite a bit of adult coaching because it is a process unfamiliar to the scouts. I'm familiar with the stosh scouts leaders selection process and I have no trouble with it, but the troops that I watched use it took some time helping the scouts understand it because it is a totally new idea. Once the scouts get used to the stosh scout process, neither system requires adults and the scouts do nicely all by themselves with both systems. Really stosh, just give them the books and leave them alone. You will see that they will do nicely by themselves. And you can drink more coffee with the ASMs. Barry

If one were confident in their advice, there would be no need for a condescending tone. Scouting is about developing character and integrity. If the Scoutmaster is accomplishing that goal, it doesn't matter how a scout becomes the leader because all the members in the process know and understand the expectations. If the scouts use the BSA manuals for their patrol method, they have all the guidelines needed for placing scouts into PORs without any adult guidance. Barry

That is an even more interesting, the IOLS syllabus is, or was, a two day course requiring several instructors. I can see the Council struggling with that. Insuring that each unit instructor is delivering the material properly would take some thought. While I still would consider the idea, I can certainly understand the reluctance from those who are responsible for training quality. Barry

Have you actually heard this being proposed at a district or council level. To be fair, district and council get a lot of blame for things they never heard. You present a good idea, but has that idea actually been seriously proposed. You know, IOLS instructors (I was one) have personal lives also. Training a different troop each weekend is not really good for family time either. I like the idea, just need to figure out how to give it a try. My experience is Council it open to new ideas, but rarely do new ideas go very far because they have unforeseen challenges of their own. Barry

We arrange CPR and Safety Afloat refresher training at our district adult leadership training weekends three times a year. Barry

So with that in mind, what I advised troops to do is sit down and identify (with your SPL) key problems with the leadership and management of the patrols. Then, pick the three worst problems. Only three because the troop is fairly new in this business of stepping past the bounds of the BSA material. So start slow and see what kind of impact you can have on the three problem areas. Be creative in your training, but the best rule of thumb for any kind of training is "Less is more" and "make it fun". A couple of other points I like to explain to troop leaders is that scouts should learn "Everything" by watching the other scouts. The perfect troop program is the one without any training because the scouts learn it all in the activities of the program. That should be the goal. Of course there are no perfect troops, so some training is required to grow toward that perfect troop. The other point is that generalized training has a low effect rate of growth because the participants aren't struggling or suffering enough to be motivated to learn. But spot training (training to fix specific problems) is very effective because there is high motivation to make their life easier. So if you can get your program moving toward learning from doing and observing and then only fixing the hot areas with spot training, you will find that the scouts will grow to take the initiative for fixing their problems with quick creative spot training. They will learn to measure their performance and apply any help where needed. Measuring and improving their performance will become second nature. It takes a little while to get there, but trust me that it works. We set a goal for the normal activities in the troop to be the main teachers. And where performance was sub par, we applied some training that usually only takes a few minutes. That is why our troop qot away from the grand two and three day JLT type of trainings and move to quick one training sessions intended for specific areas of need. Hope this wasn't confusing. Barry