Eagledad

Oh no not at all. Sometimes my black and white writing style comes off a bit emotional. LOL Actually the members of the board were good adults trying to do the right thing. We were in a stage of maturing. I took the situation personally because we didn't give the scout a good out. I could have forced my hand I guess, but it didn't seem appropriate at the time. A lot of scouts benefited from that experience because I learned more about the requirements of all the ranks as well as providing expectations and guiding scouts more consistently. That was only one of many many of our learning experiences toward growing into a functioning boy run program. LOL I was young and wiling to change, but I think the humility would kill me now. Barry

That was 20 years ago and our troop was only 3 years old still learning how to do this scouting stuff. As I said, the experience taught me how to be a better SM. Griffsmom, I am an engineer and a very black and white. Just ask my family and coworkers who are psychologist. Actually I think that makes for a better SM because most people are some shade of grey and that tends to intrude on the scouts decisions and challenge a boy run program. Where your SM might be going wrong is Pride. That gets in the way sometimes. Barry

We had a scout much like yours that even though he didn't have an official title of responsibility, he worked very hard in the background working with the troop in general. I would say he acted more like an ASM, which is they type of responsibility I encourage on all our older more experienced scouts perform, no matter their rank. This scout was working on his second palm. I gave him a good review and sent him on to the BOR thinking it was a no-brainer. However, the BOR happen to have some Eagles in it who felt that leadership should be more up front and obvious. Being the SM, I observed the scouts more and with a different objective in mind that most of the other adults. I don't think the other adults are doing it wrong because I do guide them in their responsibilties. But I just think Scoutmasters are around the program more often and have more intent on the vision of the program. That is my experience anyway. The BOR took a break and came to talk to me. I explained what I had observed and they didn't feel like it was enough to earn the award. He is an Eagle after all. We debated over it for probably and hour, but it was clear they were not going to sign off this scout. So I learned a lesson to communicate with the BOR better so as not to have surprises in the future. I had hoped the scout would take on a couple more responsibilities to earn the two more palms that was in his plan. But the experience soured him and he aged out without earning any more palms. I became a better SM as a result of the experience. I am a little surprised with your SM's response, but we are all different in how we guide the scouts toward the vision, whatever that may be. That is why I say it is best for the SM to relay his expectations so that everyone is on the same page. Barry

My other post kind of explains my opinion to your question. But sometimes the outcome of two different opinions isn't good. And the Bible refers to that situation for Christians. Goes something like this: 1. Believe in God 2. Never Sin 3. Respect other beliefs 4. You might be persecuted for your belief. Barry

Yes, this is where we differ. I believe that someone born and left in the wilderness without any human contact for 20 years would have a different understanding of empathy, compassion, caring and love for one another if they even have those understandings. And, I believe that if 10 people were left in 10 different wildernesses all over the world for 20 years without human contact, they would have 10 different understandings of those traits, if they even have any understanding. However, if all of them were left with one source of explanations, then they would not only have an understanding of all those traits, they would have a single general understanding. That is the point of using god as the source for the oath and law. Barry

Ahh, it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.

They should be pre-approved by the SM because the BOR will review the scout's performance as well and there could be some conflict if everyone is not on the same page. Ask me how I know. Barry

Hmm, without god, how does one know the right direction? Barry

Good post, and good question. The answer is complicated, but one small part of that answer for me is that most religions teach how their followers are to behave toward those with different beliefs. Exactly the same as the Scout Oath and Law guides scouts. Scouts may not respect what a person believes, but their actions show respect for the person. When you see disrespectful actions toward someone, likely someone is doing it wrong as directed by their God. Sadly we live in a time when many people of faith don't know their god because they don't take time to learn. Some of the most vicious and cruel comments at Christians on this forum during recent debates came from those who claim to be Christian. I know this has little to do with the discussion, but I personally wonder how anyone can be a model of the Scout Law when they can't model the very same actions directed by God. Barry

I disagree. Barry

That all being said CP, without a moral code, man fails because they become short sited and follow their emotions and instinct instead of the long term will of the moral code. Once the SM becomes the source of behavior within the oath and law, it is over because then the interpreters of right actions under the oath and law come down to just who is more intimating. To prevent chaos, new rules and laws will be required on the members for their safety. Gone is the freedom of doing right for the sake of doing right. Tracing the intent of our behavior to a higher power protects our intent and keeps us as moral and ethical decision makers. Lose the higher power and we loose our individual freedom to make ethical choices. The BSA becomes baby sitting camping club. Barry

People judge the moral actions of others by their own moral measuring stick. I have a feeling your comment is less about morality of others and more about your personal biases. This discussion went way off track. The point I was making is that in the BSA, it doesn't matter where one gets their morals so long as they can eventually track it back to a higher power. Once atheist (man) becomes the root source of the BSA values of behavior, it can no longer be a values program because man doesn't have a behavior source of reference. Not one that doesn't change from minute to minute anyway. It will just depend on the adult at the time and what mood they are in to how they feel a scout is behaving. Without the values part of the program, the BSA becomes just a after school and weekend camping program like the Canadian Scouts. It literally looses it's soul. Barry

This is exactly how a scout acts using the Scout Oath and Law. This is also why the suggestion that it is unscout-like to turn away people with certain behaviors and beliefs doesn't hold water. Scout-like actions are respecting others without having to respect their beliefs or actions. Barry

This is where I was eventually going. As long as scouting is held accountable to a higher power, then man cannot be the final definition of scout like behavior. Humans sadly are fickle in justifying their behavior and when we submit to man being the final definition of scout like behavior, then scouting looses integrity because there is no higher belief that all can agree on. Scouting becomes just a weekend camping club. Barry

As represented by the atheist reply, humans without some kind of theist direction don't play well together. Barry

How would he know? What is he measuring morality against? When an atheist says he is moral, what standards is he comparing himself against? Barry

Without theism, what are scouting's values? My religion guides the actions of friendly, courteous, and kind. I imagine most do. Barry

The problem could very well be with the troop leaders. I try to use these situations as opportunities to improve myself for the next time. Obviously this parent doesn't have quite the understanding of the program that she should have. What can I do better to help her, and parents like her, have a better understanding of the program, and what can I do to prevent this situation with new parents in the future? Then I make some changes. These situations helped me grow into a better scouter. Barry

This is exactly how I did it many times. The tone of the discussion is coming off a little hostile, but it's really about teaching the parents about the troop vision for the scouts and how the program works toward that vision. I can remember one family that chose to join another troop because they realize their vision and ours were different. Barry

It is interesting how this discussion has gone full circle with using girls to add membership to the BSA. If that is what it takes the save the BSA, then the program is doomed anyway. Yes, the Canadian Scouts were hit hard by a lot of issues, mostly from national politics. But my point is that adding girls did not enhance their numbers. And if it did, can you imagine how badly the program was for addition of girls to hold the number at 40 percent. Sadly the BSA is going through its own cultural dilution. Before the admission of gays, I had a pretty good knowledge and understanding of where the BSA membership was going. Admission of gays changed the dynamics so much that I don't think anybody including National knows were the membership is going now, except down. As for comparing against European Scouts, that is a wrong comparison because our cultures are so different. We can't begin to use them as a model for how it would work in North America. And, are they really growing? Who knows. Bringing in girls basically to raise the membership is the wrong motivation because it will change the program a lot and not likely for the better. As I said, if bringing in girls to the troop program reduces the quality of the program for boys at all, it's not worth it. It's not like we don't have scouting programs for girls. The Campfire Kids is also a very nice program with a lot of outdoor program. I think we should focus on giving our sons the best program we possibly can and I haven't seen anything convincing that adding girls would give us the present level of performance we have to today. Barry

As I said before, this is the same justification that was being use by many for allowing gays in scouts. Many of us knew that changing the policy to accepting gays was not the solution for increasing membership because we only had to look at the history of the Girl Scouts, Campfire Kids and Canadian Scouts to see how it effected their program. So by using history as an example in this case, we can look at the Campfire Kids and Canadian Scouts for peek into the future. I'm not exactly sure where the Campfire Kids number are at now, but I know they are well below what membership was before the accepted boys. And the Canadian Scouts is but a shell of what the numbers where in 1990 (I think around 40%) before they started admitting, well just about everybody. So I think we can conclude that simply inviting everybody and their pet in the program does not mean numbers will increase. In fact, history shows the opposite. So whats at the heart of the declining numbers. Well it is difficult to say at the moment with the huge policy change to accept gays. We will just have to see how that sorts out, but there has been a lot of talk of program issues that could help change the trend like reducing the demand on the adults in the Cub Scout program. Of course it could also be that a Youth Outdoor Adventure program is seeing the end of its days in this culture and the decline to natural level is inevitable. If that is the case, lets at least hold the quality of boys side of the program to the present level for those boys who do choose to participate. Barry

You are applying your observations of post puberty behavior with pre-puberty boys. It is not the same. Nature has wired us to learn about 90% of our behavior from observing others by the time we reach puberty. That is why role modeling is so important at that age. In fact, it is important for both genders to have good role models of the same gender so that they see themselves in their role models. How we learn after puberty is different, so it isn’t as important. Barry

And what has been learned is that coed education is not equal between the genders because they learn differently. One of them always gets the short end of the stick. How the genders behave socially in coed groups depends largely from instinct. Human nature drives each gender to socialize in groups away from the other gender because they are each developing their own instinctive behavior. Girls tend to practice nurturing in their play while boys tend to practice a more aggressive style for the future of providing food and protection (survival). Nature eventually takes care of coed socialization at the appropriate time through puberty. Take a lesson from what we see from the schools, don't mess with Mother Nature. Barry

It's not that I don't think they can't, it's that they can't do it and maintain the quality of the program today. I think I explain the reasoning pretty well in the other post. Barry

The outdoors and scout skills part isn't really an issue, the adults who are up for outdoor adventure usually get up to speed fast enough. The adults who don't care for it usually hang back. Summer camp is the exception and we try to cater to them best we can. It's the values and vision part of the program that is hard to get adults up to speed. I look back and there were several approaches that we eventually developed to get adults up to speed. First we taught them the vision of the program and how each activity worked toward that goal. When I was working for district guiding struggling programs, I found that 90% of units struggled because the adults didn't have or understand what they working towards. Everybody was jumping around trying to do jobs that suddenly had to get done. So the first thing we did was discuss the objective of the unit program and work it down to a one or two sentence vision. Then I suggested they volunteer for specific responsiblities for that vision. Most of the time I only needed to stand back and watch the team develop. If this sounds kind of familure, this is the basis for Wood Badge. But it's a lot easier to get up to speed for specific responsibility. Second, we exposed our adults to the scout activities with an explanation of how the scouts' actions worked toward the vision. I've said many times that a good SM spends at least 50% of his time working with the adults. We scheduled new adult gathering times at meeting and camp outs to specifically observe the scouts, then give a explanation of how their actions worked torward growth in the areas of fitness, citizenship and character. I would request from the SPL a few minutes to observe their PLC meeting. That always brought a lot of questions. Our adults are required to earn the totin chit because that is how I introduce the parents to our trust of boy run. No other adults attend the class accept for the new parents. It's all taught by the scouts. The key to this is expose them to as much as possible with an adult who can explain the value of what they are seeing. The faster the new adults learn how the patrol method works, the faster they understand their responsibilities and boundaries within the program. Have an open door to questions and challenges to your program. Always be respectful of the person asking and answer with a firm justification for the vision. OR, thank the person for pointing out an area of the program that needs attention. The programs that are most resistant to change are the ones that think they are perfect, even while their program is crumbling all around them. It's an amazing thing to see actually and Ive even seen several such programs over the years just on this forum. But nothing helps the new guy feel accepted faster that being respected for their individual contribution to the program, even if that contribution is not accepted because it doesn't fit. It is taught in my faith that a healthy community develops best on the fertile ground of humility instead of the hard rock of pride. Our scouts observe this as well. The third year is time that separates the passionate scouters like most of here on this forum from the ones who just wanted to give less than an hour. Sadly, only 5% of us are passionate enough to put up with the crap that drives the rest of them away. So build the program around those 95%, not the 5% of us. This is what I've been saying about the cub program. Right now the cub program fits best for the passionate 5%. It drives the other 95% away. i love scouting stuff. Barry