Eagledad

I don't know how the YPT started down this direction, but I guess the engineer in me wants to see the data that would drive the discussion down this path. Barry

I disagree with your post for your one comment: Folks already notice suspicious behavior and stop it. That isn't the problem is that sexual abuse doesn't occur enough to recognize a problem. We've allowed it to sound like and everyday problem in every unit. It does not. I was talking to my 68 year old Eagle brother in-law about this last week. He brought up the discussion because he is getting some emails about getting on the abuse bandwagon because he was a scout as a youth. He was appalled by the suggestion that he had witnessed, let alone experienced abuse while a scout. YPT is already doing as much as it can. I don't see how it can be more "It's mostly just some common place best practices coupled with some awareness of what to look for" than it already is. You don't even see this level of YPT in schools.. We just allowed fearmongers to have too much voice without enough defensive reasoning. Barry

I think our education system has failed our society into believing that debates (your word, not mine) has to end with a specific conclusion. Debates or discussions of observations, ideas, and so forth in early history were intended for education, hoping for, but not always expecting, a conclusion. They can just provoke higher level thought. I can certainly say that unconcluded discussions have led to many changes of idealisms including parenting, job, and religion. No winners, losers or conclusions, just growth of ideals. I instructed my kids to formulate their opinions in discussions with the intension to not to have to repeat it. Leave the opinion without their pride as something to build the discussion, not make or break it. Pride often drives folks keep repeating themselves to sway the discussion to their conclusion because they want their thoughts to be the final winning thoughts. That is rarely ever going to happen. Some of your thoughts are quite good. Be satisfied with that. Of course we can work to make things better, but I remember that before Covoid, it seemed like the news was reporting every month a new incidence of a teacher caught abusing a student. I have yet to hear a national organized effort to stop teachers abusing students. I know from my teacher kids that local policies are constantly changing to protect both the students and teachers, but it still occurs. So, Is it safe now? How safe is considered safe? Just a thought for discussion. Barry

This is also my favorite award for the same reason. Congratulations.

No, I grouped a lot of people together, so I apologize to all of you.

I know how you feel, I am called a sexist because I would rather the BSA to stay away from coed troops. I've yet to hear anyone on this forum call the GSUSA sexist. So, yes, hypocrites comes to mind. How can I be sexist for my preference and the GSUSA acceptable for theirs? I just called it as I see it. I am certainly open to a civil dialog. I like to think myself as humble and can be swayed. But as you saw yesterday, some folks look at discussions as a battle to be won and don't mind wrestling playing dirty to protect their pride. Barry

In my world both men and woman are applauded. By the way, you emotions misled your anger. The one poster who said that was demeaning the Eagle award, not the MEN or women who earn it. Barry

Hey, don't try to force me into your emotional delusional world. There was nothing sexist about the BSA. Do you believe the GSUSA is sexist? I don't, but I'm not a political activist. But, well, you need to be very careful with your answer because I personally don't see an easy out for you. Barry

You might have made some points if you could have included some non-female firsts, but instead you proved my point that this was more a celebration of a political victory than the individual accomplishment. Your response cheapens the honor of Eagle. Barry

Yes, humility is the fertile ground of morality. I don't have a problem with the BSA bragging a little about this, it's marketing after all. What I can't stand is that the recognition is more about a political correctness victory than the personal accomplishment of 1000 individuals. Which gets back to my comment about hypocrisy, is there any mention of the GSUSA as single sex scouting program? Probably the only single sex scouting program left. Activism seems to go only one way in this hostile culture. Barry

Seems like you poking the GSUSA in the eye to me. I'm tired of hypocrites using girls in the BSA as a prop to brag about girls in scouting without any comment of the existing Girl scouting organizing that does not promote a co-ed program. The BSA took a lot of heat for not being, well lets say progressive, but the GSUSA gets a pass. Comes off a pollical male bashing to me. You have your coed BSA, now go deride the GSUSA like you did to the BSA and push for the first 1000 Gold Award males. Barry

So, you believe the GSUSA Gold Award is not as worthy of an accomplishment as the Eagle. Irony is that I find all discussions of BSA girls showing off to the GSUSA as sexest as the intent of the bragging. Better to say nothing because there is no moral high road in such comments. Barry

I find that, in general, adults ignore what the youth want. Certainly the National doesn't listen to their members of any age. But, I think the biggest driver of integration will be the need for volunteers. Truth is that true patrol method troops require very few volunteers. But in this helicopter parenting culture, patrol method isn't being driven in the program. Barry

Because of the title, most folks give the CM and SM higher stature than the positions deserve. In the hierarchy of the units, the CM has a pretty simple job of taking care of the pack meetings and supporting the Den Leaders. But, supporting the Den Leaders is really dependent on the personality of the SM and committee. .A good committee can deal with them with the right leadership. Our pack was pretty organized, so support on my part basically dealt with recruiting and training leaders. Scouts love fun pack meetings, so I spent most of my time planning fun meetings. I find that dealing with trained Den Leaders is more often than not personality issues.. Our committee was pretty good at that. So, what are the committees expectations of you? I'm not sure I understand this. Is you son in a situation that requires you to be part of the adult staff? If not, let him go on his own. It's the right age and the right opportunity to give him more independence. Barry

This is a warped discussion with the book ends of helicopter parent protectionist to patriotic extremists. Thank goodness Matt brought reason into the discussion. i was talking to one of our past scouts who Eagled 10 years earlier. We ran into each other at Walmart and while he was holding his two kids. I don’t remember how the subject came up, but he told me that one of my Scoutmaster minutes made an impression on the kind of person he wanted to become. The story was about A few soldiers who played a joke on a new recruit by dropping a dummy grenade in the group. While group al leaped away pretending the grenade was live, the unknowing recruit jumped on it to save their lives. The group was so taken by the action, he received a medal even though it was peace time. The scout told me he wanted to have that kind of reactionary courage. It’s was important enough for him that wanted to tell me 10 years later. There are a lot of high moral takeaways a person can take from that story and stories like it. I can’t even imagine it being debated. I learned over the years as a scoutmaster that there are a few requirements to make an adult story interesting for a large group of scout age young men. Action, humorous, and short. A scoutmaster minute requires at least 2of those traits to hold the interest of teenage male mind. I got SM Minutes down to less than 2 minutes. And I found humor was just as memorable as action and adventure. i don’t know how to make an impression to the female mind with a SM minute, but I worry that trying to do it by sterilizing the attempts to make scouts think about morality will loose the scouts respect. It’s not the concern for subject matter that is appropriate for the age that worries me, it’s the lack of understanding for the scouts maturity as adults. Leaders seem to want to treat all the scouts as first year Webelos 9 year olds. My warning is that adult leaders reap what they sow. Barry

Media! There are several forum members here who used harsher words to describe the BSA that need to own up to the hypocrisy. Barry

Every single person has a different set of standards, especially in moral decisions. And most people don't want the weight of being the person who sets those standards (expectations) on the group because that is a huge responsibility with a huge risk of hypocrisy.. But, by default, the SM usually is who everyone expects to set minimum standards of behavior. whether the SM realizes it or not. Everyone should be responsible for their own actions, but the truth is the SM is by default responsible for everyone's actions in the program. The difference between inexperienced and experienced Scoutmasters is the techniques they use to motivate everyone to live up (or sometimes down) to the their expectations. There were nights when the weight of being the SM kept me awake all night. But, I have no regrets, just wonderful memories. I love this Scouting stuff. Barry

All units go through this. The definition of integrity in every unit is what the culture expects and practices. For your scouts to develop habits of making good decisions, they have to feel it's right when nobody is looking. The expectations has to be culture expectation. That doesn't happen overnight, cultures have to be formed. And it is the nature of humans to take the path of least resistance, so yes, human nature will seek the most lenient accountability. For both adults and youth. I think you are making a mistake taking scouts out of the process of accountability because you drew a line between youth and adults as if being an adult automatically makes us moral. If your scouts are ever going to behave like adults, they have to be treated and respected as adults. Role modeling expectations is the best form of teaching. The culture sets accountability, at all ages. As you stated, even the adults have different expectations of accountability. So, what's the difference whether the scouts or adults are lax. You have to figure out how to set accountability in the culture of the troop for everyone. Scouts must feel they are making the right choices. The moral choices. But, everyone in your program must also feel their choices a practical results. I imagine your scouts and adults don't see the practical effects of the skills they are being tested on, so they are trying, get away with minimum expectations. Your program expectations set the practical expectations. A small example that pops in my head was I found our scouts really struggled with lashings. We rarely use lashings in the woods, so we started doing camp gadget competitions and requiring a lashed flag pole at every outing. It helped, but the reality is lashings are not really required in a duct-tape bungy cord society. So, setting expectations can be a challenge. The expectation will be set from the lowest level of practical application. Cooking is another example of expectations. We started requiring cooking at every meal to force the scouts to practice the habits of cooking. This culture makes eating without cooking pretty easy. All that being said, attempting to raise expectations and integrity can easily cross the line of overbearing, condescending, or just plan boring. I learned that Scouting still has to be fun. Don't take away the fun trying to make scouts better decision makers. Add fun instead. I always took a box of Tootsie Pops to every campout. I ask the SPL to set it in middle of camp every morning with the conditions that each scout could have as many Tootsie Pops as they want provided they took only one at a time and that they put the wrappers and sticks in the trash. The SPL would remove the box if either of those conditions was broken. No lecture, just the consequence of making a bad decision. The box was removed within 15 minutes on the first campout. But, within three campouts, the boxed was usually emptied before being removed. .The culture changed to meet up with expectation because scouts developed better decision making habits. I also carried candied Fireballs in my pocket and gave one out when I saw a scout perform a good deed. At first a few scouts would do a silly acts of good deeds in front of me just to get a Fireball. But eventually the troop, as a whole, saw me give out the Fireballs for recognition for real acts of living the Scout Law, they saw the expectation of good decisions. The behaviors grew more mature. The reward of feeling good for making good decisions eventually dominated the reward of candy. I always carried a few fireballs, but the habits of making good decisions continued when I wasn't around. Which was 99% of the time. In your attempt to raise the level of your scouts quality to your expectation, search for fun passive ways to give the scouts opportunities to feel good with making good decisions. Those actions will turn into habits. I found that cultural changes happen a lot faster than you would think.. Barry

The ticket is the most educational part of WB because it's On the job training. As the WB ticket counselor (Troop Guide ASM), I would guide you to write the ticket toward getting experiences in your position. And, it's a lot more fun too. Barry

Great post. We used the first MB to guide scouts in Building confidence for contacting adults. We showed them how to write down on a piece of paper the scouts name, the troop he is with and the reason he was calling. He could practice his first call simply by reading the list. The list is really a crutch to help them through brain lock. We also contacted the parents to encourage them to cheer their son on if he needed. This was also a passive way of saying “let your son do this”. We originally thought a scout would need to do at least 3 MBs to gain the confidence for calling adults, but we found that only 1 or 2 was all most needed. As DuctTape points out, MBs can teach a lot of life skills beyond the skills of the badge. Barry

One of the ways we were able to track MBCs in our district was require them to come to our training once a year. The training was a half hour long. Now, things are more complicated and challenging, but I threw that out there for ideas. Barry

Stopping discussions with self-righteous declarations isn't going to contribute toward a working resolution. Don't you agree? Barry

There is a famous statement, I forget who said it, but it goes something like "debates and discussion are intended for the purpose of learning, not winning". I remember back when the BSA started requiring MB counselors to register; the explanation was the new policy was to protect the counselor as much as the scouts. So, I personally don't believe only protecting scouts from abuse ends the discussion. This is a complicated situation that forces the a look at the intention of the MB process as well of its benefits in the present day. The subject has to be discussed with some depth, and with some degree of reason. Barry

True, this is one method. Hmm, have you ever worked with boys? I see the detail orientated style of girls eating this up, but not the big picture boys. I think we just found a place where your extremism is more extreme than mine. But, I don't think you were a SM. The simplicity of your suggestion triples the resources for a scout to track his advancement. True, once he learns the management style, he will take that life skill with him. But, the chaos of scouts loosing track will force a lot of new procedures and adult interventions. If scouts can't keep track of their books, a few notes on used envelopes will really push the struggle. .I'm not saying don't try it, I'm just saying not me. Barry

This is worth discussing. When I was a scouting the 70's we had 3 fold advancement cards instead of using the handbooks. I imagine that changed in the 80s because loosing cards was so easy. But, as a SM, I collected more lost books than any other item except for hats. And, since more scouts quit in their first year of a troop than any other year, that is a lot of books there that are wasted. because the advancement part is partially signed off. I would be willing to go back to advancement cards again so the handbooks could be reused. Of course that doesn't help funding. Barry