Eagledad

I worked with an ol-timer on Wood Badge once who has been involved with WB since the 60s. He said back then WB was designed to train District and Council leaders to work with Scoutmasters. There were a few SMs in those courses, but that wasn't the intent. The idea back was that the Council and District would take responsibility for making sure the Scoutmasters had the skills to teach scouting skills and leadership. That was fine with me, the problem came when Wood Badge started teaching everyone. The course that was indirectly designed for Scoutmasters had turned into course for everyone. And it really had switched from a skills development course into an example of how a troop should look. That didn't work very well and here we are now with a course to teach everyone (Cubs and Venture included) team development. Personally I like the new WB course for the management of units, I think it has saved a lot of units in this day and age of big committees. But it is not a good course for teaching adults how to lead scouts. I find it ironic that we again need a course just for Scoutmasters. The pit we seem to have fallen in is that leadership development is the Scoutmaster's job. But we don't really teach them how to do it and now rely on District or Council to do the job for us. Or did, now even the Council course is more focused on team development than individual leadership. Even if you have a good natural leader in the group, he still isn't getting the skills. It doesn't surprise me at all that Eagles today don't really have a full grasp of basic leadership skills that a patrol could survive in the woods by themselves. Still, I wonder if we could even turn it around. We found here that the best new Scoutmasters are the adults who were scouts as a youth. They know the skills and have a general expectation of the program. But, we are getting fewer of those adults leading anymore and taking in adults who have to start from scratch. So I don't really know where to go with training. I think the scouts need a good scoutmaster to teach leadership but that is not really in the future. I approached council once to utilize the Commissioner Corp better by getting good experienced leaders to work side by side with new unit leaders. I was told that the corp. is not as much in focus with the big picture anymore, so they didn't really want to bother. This may be as good as it gets. Barry

>>I pay income tax each year I don't add 10% more to prove I am a Patriot and I don't want to do just the minimum. In my professional certification I must have 24 hours of Continuing Education every 24 months to renew my registration. Am I bad for only doing the minimum? WOuld you be more impressed if I said I would do 30 hours?

You might as well replace reference letters with uniform and you have the same discussion. Neither is required, but it sure makes the whole process messy and "risky" if you don't. Just do it and save the hassle. Barry

>>I'm going to disagree with Eagle92 and some others about having your son be the one to ask these question.

Wow, these are all really great answers. I can't add to any of them, but my ego demands that I get my name in here somewhere. (LOL) I think the suggestion that you and your son need to decide what kind of advancement you want will help a lot because each units adults have different motivations for success. If I could ask one question to learn the SM's to get an idea of their motivation, I would ask where they see your son in four years. If they say "a man with better habits of character", then you are likely looking at a more rounded program where advancement is more balanced with the rest of the program. If the answer is "Eagle", well there you go, lots of advancement. I find more that 50% of Scoutmasters don't really have an answer because they haven't thought about their job that way. That's when you go talk to the SPL and a few other scouts. They will be a reflection of the scoutmaster's program. I wish you luck and enjoy the visits, they were always fun for us. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>So I'd say first step is to take a real good look at how you're doin' youth leadership, and whether yeh have too many adults in the way. Things like what gwd describes, eh? Do your patrols hike and camp alone, without adults? Are the "Awesome" boys treated like that, and do they really run the outing for the younger fellows

>>I find it strange that the BOR of a scout is the means by which the performance of the SM is judged

>>Yes, he took part in a SMC and the PL signed off on it.

>>SM Conferences will now be signed off by the SM and not the PL

>>he expects the unemployment situation to get worse before it gets better,

Never heard it put like this before. From USAToday: The economy is recovering, he said, but jobs are a lagging indicator and he expects the unemployment situation to get worse before it gets better, Obama said at a meeting of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

There is an "Outstanding" article in the Nov/Dec Scouting Magazine called "Build A Better Boy". The article is an interview with family therapist, Michael Gurian, who has written several books about how to raise boys. I'm usually cautious with suggesting such articles, but I think this is right on target and can help leaders understand better how to work with boys. The article is written well in that Gurian gives lots of approaches with boys and a list of mentors responsibilities. I hope you all enjoy the article as much as I did. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>So, at what point should the leadership begin considering dividing a troop?

This is a really great question and some really good responses. I'm not sure there is a bad response really, but I know my answer changed with experience. I think toward the end of my SM carrier I looked at job as the guardian of Scouting's Ideals. The SM is the primary judge for interpreting the Scout Law, Oath, promise, and motto for that troop for everyone in the troop. Every ASM, SPL, PL and even TG run their part of the program differently from their counterparts because their personality is different. So there has to be some kind of consistency or judge to maintain constant direction of leading boys into becoming men who make ethical decisions. The SM's measure of values and ideals have to rule fairly, equally and with justice so that each boy in their different ways still work toward the same Scouting goals. I find those are the most respected Scoutmasters because they are good at judging behavior, not individuals. Boys don't mind failure when they know the judgment isn't condemnation, but only an opportunity toward better ethical decision making. I think that is what Badon Powell had in mind when he described the SM as the big brother. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>This may not be a technical violation of the YPT, but I for one wouldn't want to put myself in that position.

This is an exciting question for me. I started using a scouter Forum back in the early 90s and I can honestly say that probably 40% of the program that I left when I retired as a SM was based from those Forums. Not so much this forum because I came here late, but from ScoutsL. My job requires me to constantly evaluate performance, so I naturally did that in my scouting experiences and I was always seeking advice to improve our program. I found that while each troop may look different locally, they are very much the same when you look at it from a national scale because of district guidance and influence. I needed more guidence than I coudl find locally. Our Troop isnt an extreme boy run program when you compare it to troops all over the county, but we were considered a very out-there boy run program locally. We grew from 12 scouts to 90 in 6 years in a District of 22 rather large troops. Our annual new scout class average over 20 scouts. That didnt include the older scout transfer we got each year. But with success comes stress of growth, so we lost a lot of those new scouts because the program changes so much with size. We adults were not keeping up very well and I was desperate to find news solutions, which is why I got to be an expert on New Scout Programs. While I think we failed a lot of boys, I attribute any and all of our successes to those wise scouters on the forum. Same with the older socut program. Our boy run program developed a reputation for a fun older scout program as well. By the time I left as a SM, our troop had the biggest group of scouts 14 and older than any unit in the state, including the Venture and Explorers. And again, the stresses of keeping that age group excited were very challenging, just the same as the questions we see asked here on Scouter.com over and over. As Ive said all along, we failed more than we succeeded, but we did also have some success. Another great accomplishment for our troop that I can directly credit the forum was when our troop planned out and ran a mini- Night-camopree. We invited six other troops from three different states. I suggested those troops to the PLC because I knew them from the forum. Those troops had so much fun that a couple of them troops went back and ran their own mini-day-camporees in their own district. Those are just a couple of things off the top of my head. But I also made a lot of friends. As I traveled around for my job, I would ask the forum lived in that area I was going and I would visit their troop if I could. I learned a lot from that, but its just fun to meet folks as well. I gained an enormous amount of experience and knowledge through the years and now Im trying to give it back here on Scouter.com. I will say I havent been out of it all that long, but I am amazed how quickly the boys are changing due to our fast changing technology (cell phones and games). There is a lot of difference in how our youth communicate. I dont know how a scouter could keep up without the forum. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>I have had some of the best scouts, adults and youth from a variety of different program try their best and it doesn't work.

>>I hadn't thought of it in terms of working as a team, but that's basically what we do (and in the future I'm going to emphasize the team aspect

>>but it still isn't going to do much to get the car started if it's out of gas.

>>Boys will be boys, but we are not responsible for perpetuating boys, we are to assist them into mature manhood and appropriate choices in their lives.

>>I gather that some councils are now imposing a minimum hour requirement with National's consent.

Day 2 from Foxnews A 17-year-old Eagle Scout in upstate New York has been barred from stepping foot on school grounds for 20 days for keeping a 2-inch pocketknife locked in a survival kit in his car. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,565520,00.html Matthew Whalen, a senior at Lansingburgh Senior High School, says he follows the Boy Scout motto and is always prepared, stocking his car with a sleeping bag, water, a ready-to-eat meal and the knife, which was given to him by his grandfather, a police chief in a nearby town. But Lansingburgh High has a zero-tolerance and when school officials discovered that Whalen kept his knife locked in his car, he says, they suspended him for five days and then tacked on an additional 15 after a hearing. ---------------- Barry

Hi Buffalo Skipper I try and teach that discipline of behavior is everyones responsibility. In other words, we work as a team. In this case, I ask that the group leader first ask the disrupter to stop with a clear warning they will need to leave the room if they dont stop. No second chances, just get the interference out of the room if they act up again so the activity isnt interrupted. Typically these guys are just seeking some kind attention. If the disruption does continue, the group leader ask the scout to leave and find the SM to explain what happen, resulting in a SM conference. If the problem persists, then the parents get involved. Either the SPL or the SM can asked the scout to call the parents, it just depends who is dealing with the problem. I always make the scout do the call. I dont mind getting the parents involved because we are a team and the parents are part of the team. What you are doing is allowing the leaders deal with the situation within their experience and maturity. That way the leader doesnt loose respect of his leadership responsibility. However, once it goes farther, you give him and out by moving the problem out of the room so the group can continue their activity while the next person up the ladder deals with the problem. The next person up the ladder may be an adult or scout, just depends on the maturity and experince required for the problem. Worst case scenario is the parents have to come to the meeting and stand with their son. Ive seen it go that far only once, and only one meeting. It was a special needs scout who pushed the limits hard, but it worked. The important lesson here is the scouts learn to just move the problem out of their way and deal with it later or let someone else deal with it. I saw this really work well when one of our Scouts was leading a meeting with all the SPLs in the District. When one scout became a problem, our scout just asked him to leave. No confrontation, no yelling, just get out. The observing adults from the other troops were very impressed as well as the SM of the problem Scout. For those that ask what happens when a scout is defiant and doesnt leave, I teach the scouts to back up the leader. I suggest that an SPL should only have to ask a scout to stop once during a Troop meeting. The Patrol Leaders should automatically takeover from there so that the SPL can continue. Always work in numbers so that the leaders dont loose control. What you will see happen is as the scouts mature, they will take on more of these problems and you will see less of them. Hope that was an answer that helps. Barry

>>I wonder what the tone of this thread would be if little Annie had taken the knife to school to cut the cake that Grandma had baked and Nasty little Lad had taken it and killed another student with it? Would we all be asking why she was allowed to take a knife to school? Eamonn

>>I have seen some kids grudgingly do more work when their parents push them, but I don't think I've yet seen one where the parent had a talk with them and they came to the next meeting a changed teenager.