Eagledad

Thanks for your well thought out post vol_scouter, it is the discussion I extended. I agree that this dilemma should be left up to experts. But how many parents will provide that opinion to their Scouts unit? How many scout leaders want to know. Several here insist the parents shouldn’t even be contacted if the scout request it. Doesn’t that suggest the seriousness of needing expert guidance in of itself? I can’t tell you the many frustrations of working with Scouts whose parents didn’t explain the son’s medical condition because they didn’t want him to be treated special, or were embarrassed to tell us. But these Scouts were treated special anyway because their behavior was demanded of normal everyday volunteers who struggle to be a good scouter. And what about parents that don’t seek expert opinion because for reasons of hoping their child is going through a phase. Or even worse, they don’t care and are just use the unit to babysit and give them a break. We’ve had all these experiences. And have been threatened with litigation when we questioned and requested help with their sons behavior. What if the scout insist he should be called Superman. What is the scouter suppose to do? What if he insists his parents will cause him harm? Does the volunteer need some expert help? What if the scout uses threatening language and insist the volunteers not call his parents. That happened about 25 years ago. Do you not see how these situations are related? This is such a complicated subject and has so much room for harming the child that volunteers shouldn’t be confronted with the risk. This post gives me hope and is extreme discouragement at the same time. I’m glad folks here consider god as the source of morality. However, I’m disappointed that many don’t see morality in this situation or discussion. Back in the day when the moderators were more lenient with discussions, we had a pretty good discussion about the source of morality. In short, a few posters insisted that atheists can have morals that don’t come from god. I don’t personally agree, but with respect to nonbelievers and whoever else, I presented my opinion pragmatically, so as not to exclude anyone’s moral perspective. I wasn’t looking or expecting a discussion of morality. I must say I was shocked with the references to god and government laws. As I said, I was being respectful to all in saying this is a moral matter that we are discussing and not referencing any moral source. I was honestly shocked by the suggestion of my morality resource. I suggested none because I was open all readers useing whatever source they want. I assumed that “Do no harm” fit in everyones morals. Silly me, maybe I’m wrong. It appears to me now that many folks here aren’t Looking at this subject from a moral perspective, or they don’t want to. Can we really discuss a “do no harm” aspect of this subject without morality? I don’t think I can. I believe EVERY decision we make has a moral intention and consequence. Maybe I’m starting to understand why folks are accepting of doing what’s easy. As for what the scriptures say about this subject, the Bible says we are to raise our children in the way of God. And it’s clear of what happens if we don’t. Barry

Legal claim? Where do you get that? I think you need to start with the posted article and stay within the context that if experts are getting it wrong and putting these kids in harms way, a youth organization should certainly prevent volunteers from contributing to putting kids in harms way. Now, if you want to use state and federal laws to define your moral guidance on the matter, OK. But that certainly wasn't where that tone of the discussion started. You can certainly use that moral definition in the discussion, but don't expect me to understand it because is a little out there for me. So, whose morals? Those who would not want to do more harm to a youth. Barry

Misrepresent? The discussion was in the context of personal morality, you moved into the context of state laws. Barry

Do no harm. Barry

Ah! Government morality as the humanistic guideline. I'm not sure even atheist would agree. Barry

Hmm, 10 trees? You are right, but I'm speaking for the very beginners. And mainly the ones who are like deer in the headlights. Training I've learned is either too much or too little. I believe courses titled: "First day of Den Leader", First Pack meeting", "First Day of a campout", First day of.....", would be better classes because while they are very basic in direction, they provide enough skills to get them through the first day. As I said, this worked very well with our PLC, especially the Patrol Leaders. Get through the first meeting, or first camp out, and it's down hill from there. The hard part for new troop with new adults are the scout skills. So, take them one at a time for immediate needs. Do the first three Troop meetings learning to set up tents, starting cooking stoves and building fires. That will get the troop to the first morning of their camp out where they spend the day learning to cook and kp; cooking lessons in the morning and kp after lunch. Let the scouts have a couple hours free time before they practice cooking for dinner. They practice building a fire for the troop campfire and then send the scouts to their patrol campsite to enjoy the moon and stars. Tell them they can start a patrol campfire if they want. Simple easy basic. Get up Sunday, practice cooking some eggs and doing KP from what was learned yesterday. Then a simple easy 5 minute Sunday service. Spend and hour on skills like two basic practical knots to hold up a dinning fly. Another hour of a fun capture the flag game, then practice breaking camp. Breaking camp is everyone's hardest skill of the weekend. That is where the adult practice patience. Every meeting and campout grows from there. If the scouts see the value of the skills they are learning simply by the hands on application, they will have fun and look forward to the next one. Once the meetings and camp outs become just skills teaching, then keeping them interested is more challenging. But, take one simple step at a time as the confidence grows. I hate tree identification. Is that a left brain or right brain thing? Barry

Even atheist say they are moral. I'm talking about contributing to possible child abuse, so where does that fit in to your question? Barry

Yes, yes, all very practical, but is it moral? We will find out with this next generation of adults. Communities are supposed to stop kids from jumping off cliffs, not encourage just let them go. But I understand the pop culture power of persuasion. Or is that power of intimidation? Barry

My observations are very much the same, which is refreshing. The experience I brought with me from my youth is the "experimental" frame of mind that you are talking about. That is simply the way our troop ran the patrol method. As an example, we completely changed our Tiger program from the format given by National. We were loosing 80% of our Tigers, so we identified what they didn't like and change those parts of the program. Our drop rate was less than 10 percent after the changes. We changed our Webelos hats from the BSA issue to the military camo booney hats. They were much more durable for outdoors and covered the head better in the different weather environments. They were also very cool looking as well and one big reason the younger dens couldn't wait to get in Webelos. My sons and I are still wearing those hats. Adding to the experimenting part, our troop program pushed the edge of G2SS in areas like shooting sports and water sports. We tended to act first and ask questions later because we didn't know better. But I think where we excelled with experimenting was changing the program to fit our goals of building character and leaders using a boy run patrol method. We tried six different new scout programs before we settled on one that we felt gave the new scouts the most growth under boy run philosophy. If we didn't see the program producing growth, then we change that part of the program. And generally the change gave the scouts more authority and independence in their activities. For example, the adults camp site is typically a separate camp site at summer camp. Troops should be dynamic in their design because the culture matures as the scouts grow. If the adults don't change with the scouts maturity, then the older scouts get bored. I used a different term for experimenting in training, but the challenge for adults in building a quality program is understanding they can change the program to improve quality, and also seeing when the program needs to change to improve quality. I'm harping on the obvious again, but those are big challenges with adults who have never experienced scouting as a youth. Which is why the program may have to change to meet the needs of these adults. Can an adult give the space and freedom to a youth that they have never experienced themselves? Or maybe the better question is how do we train future scout leaders to give their scouts the space and freedom they may have never experienced in their youth? I developed a class for that very theme called Removing adults fears that get in the way of scout growth. But, I found adults were skeptical in that class even 20 years ago. It is certainly a challenge. Barry

I was reading the post from scouter on another discussion saying that Scouts deserve trained adults leaders. I am sure that is completely true, what scouts deserve are confidence adult leaders. When I became a scout leader in 1992, training wasn't required like today. If we went great, but if you didn't nobody came after us. Training back then basically gave additional guidelines to get leaders started. Looking back, I can see the program at the national level relied heavily on experienced scouters in the unit getting new scouters up to speed. After years of being trained, leading training, writing training courses and counseling scout leaders, I believe Scouts deserve confident leaders, not necessarily trained leaders. A confident leader has some direction and training doesn't always provide the confidence of direction. Without direction, adult leaders flail around. Over the years I learned exactly how to get a concerned, slightly scared new out-of-the-box den leader up to speed for their first den meeting. And that was pretty much giving them just enough information to get through their first meeting. More than that didn't seem to help the confidence level of new leaders. In fact too much information added to the anxiety. I eventually used that philosophy for the scouts in our PLC as well. New leaders come into their job looking into a dark cave. I trained Scoutmasters that all any person needs to make that first step into the dark is some light to keep from running into the walls of that cave. The light (confidence) gives the blind just enough vision to step forward. As they gain expereince, the gain more confidence to go farther into the darkness. Den leaders are easy because we just sat down and looked at their Den Leaders guide and went step by step. We talked a little about what boys the cub age like and how to settle them down (if they need settling down) when they get excited. Same thing with our Troop, we went from a 2 day JLT course after each PLC election to a 2 hour course of getting ready for the first meeting. We figured out what each member of the PLC needed to get through their first meeting and first camp out. Just the very basics and just enough to build the confidence to make a first step. Not that all the training we adults have to take isn't good training, but I learned that the training courses don't necessarily give adults what they need to be confident leaders. And what they really need are the very basic skills for that first time because the first time is 90 percent of everything they need to know, whatever their responsibilities. I believe the BSA is more challenged today than ever in training adults because there are fewer experienced adults in each unit than before. And, with the recent program changes, there will likely be more units without experienced adult leaders. I believe the program at a national level is going to have to rethink how to get the new adult leaders up to speed just like they did in 2000. And, the unit programs might need some changes as a result. I can't say what that will be, but I see a much different dynamic for adult leaders today than in 1992. I hope this forum can be a place where we can help get new scouters up to speed. I'm not sure past experiences of training are going to suffice with todays program, so maybe this can be a think tank for the future program. Barry

A Webelos leader that doesn't like to camp is not unusual. You have heard me say it a lot, the BSA looses almost 50% of Webelos IIs because their program is boring. Burnout and unhappy leaders are the main cause. When I was a Webelos, males leaders were expected to take over the scouts for the Webelos experience. But times have changed, moms who take on Tigers is expected to continue through Webelos II. We tried to get packs to plan a head for Webelos with leaders who are comfortable outdoors. But, finding leaders willing to take over at Webelos is challenging enough without finding one with outdoors experienced. Our district tried to match up these boring dens with troop leaders who would come in and assist the leader in the program. Works pretty good. A Den Chief can help a lot too, but a troop leaders is still good to have in the back ground because some of these Webelos leaders just aren't into planning den meetings. I wouldn't worry about the scouts not camping. It's nice, but boys join troops for the expectations of adventure. The SM just needs to take care of these guys during their first couple of campouts. I once had a den of 8 Webelos who had never camped join and earn eagle. We had another den of Webelos that had camped every month for the last two years join and they all quit in three months. They were better at scout skills than some of our third year scouts, so they were bored on campouts. The key to these scouts is get them excited about the troop program so they are looking forward to it. And, take them on a couple of Saturday visits to troop campouts. Barry

Wow, I like your style. A little pointed, but I understand. I actually created a couple of classes that were intended to answer your question. We can get into as much details as you want, but I will keep it short as I can. First, learn the BSA Mission and Vision. Preparing young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetime by instilling in them the value of the scout oath and law are the adult leaders primary task. Aims and Methods is how the troop leaders get work toward that goal. The adults measure each scout's growth of making ethical and moral choices within the categories of character, fitness and citizenship. The adults build growth in character, fitness and citizenship by giving the scouts the independence of making moral and ethical choices in the environment of patrols, ideals, outdoors activities, advancement, adult association, personal growth, leadership development and uniform. The adults are to measure and encourage continued practice of making decisions within these program applications so that the scout continues growth toward ethical and moral choices. The more choices a scout makes during his scouting experiences (bad choices are good, the more the better), the more the scout grows and matures toward their preparation of lifelong decisions instilled by the oath and law. If the adults would consider their every decision and action with the scouts to progressing toward preparing ethical and moral decision makers, the program would simplify itself around the very basic requirements of Aims and Methods. Adult Training would be learning mentoring skills to push scout growth instead of scout skills to be a better adult age boy scout. That is a quick list of what I feel new adults need to learn. It seems too simplistic to some and too idealistic to others. Scouting is a values program that uses the outdoors as the tool for practice. Adult led troops are led by adults who want the outdoor experience without focusing on the values. . If adults could learn to build the program toward the mission and vision, they would find many of their questions answered and a much simpler program to maintain. They would be giving the scouts a real world experience scaled down to a boys size. Their scouts would be more prepared for the challenges of the future than almost all of their nonscout friends. I hope that isn't too much. I wish my writing skills had the elegance of my passion. Barry

Good question. Let me explain by starting with a my life lesson based from our experience of expanding the troop program. Over the years of crossing new scouts into the program, we learned that two new scouts was the maximum number a patrol of 8 scouts could handle without negatively effecting the patrol culture. The goal is to assimilate the new scouts into the patrol culture, not change the culture as a result of the new scouts. So, we learned that 25% was the maximum number of new scouts we could add to the patrol without effecting it too much. In truth, I preferred 20% or less. I have no idea statistically how much new blood an organization can bring in without directly effecting the whole organization. But, our district once calculated that the percentage of new scouters without a scouting background joining the BSA before 1990 (Women could become troop leaders) was less than 25% in our area. After 1990, that number shot up considerably to over 40% and grew. Now these numbers have a great deal of guess because anyone who has worked with BSA membership numbers learns that they change constantly. Districts set their own annual renewal schedules and inflate the numbers with membership drives like Webelos IIs in the winter. Drove me crazy because the number of crossover scouts can't be calculate accurately for at least a year when Webelos who signed up with a troop are resigned at the troop's next signup. A huge number of Webelos who sign up with troops never show up, but are officially registered active with the troop. Anyway, I was listening to very experienced volunteers around 1995 complaining that the new training staffs didn't really understand the program they were teaching. One Council Trainer said that he was watching Wood Badge course change from a leadership skills course to a scout skills for adults before his eyes and there was nothing he could do about it. His trainers needed training because they were hung up on scout skills basics. He was feeling a lot of pressure from Council to shut up about his observation because our Council volunteers weren't the only ones speaking up. He was gone a year later. A whole new training program from bottom to top came out 5 years later. So, your question is how does and organization expand without bringing in new blood? You are right, simple math shows growth requires some new blood. So the bigger question is how much new blood can an organization handle without changing the dynamics of the organization? Based from my limited experience in my very small world, less than 20%. The program has been changing for the last 25 years to adjust with the large influx of inexperienced adults. Now that number is about to jump again. As, NJ points out, how the organization adjust depends on the training. But a lot also depends on how much of the program the organization management wants to maintain. I was shocked and deeply hurt to learn of the new derogatory term "Conditional Scouters" coming from the top end of the organization. I think that says a lot because the Conditional Scouters are today's experienced teachers. Barry

That is exactly what we do. The adults enjoy it, but they do require some training because most of our adults are under the CC, not the SM who does that kind of adult training. But once the adults understand their role, they take it very seriously and have fun with it. And it works very well in keeping the program at a very basic level. Barry

I know, but I'm basing my concern completely from the observation of bringing in female troop leaders. If one doesn't know, how can one get there? Observations show that one doesn't get there. I guess this is considered pessimism in your business. We call it planning a head in mine business. Barry

Really! We created the parents guide because we got so many calls about troop meeting times, campouts, annual dues, summer camps and other common questions. But maybe Web Sites are the go-to guides for that information now. A word of warning from our experience with troop strong "chairs" in a boy run troop. Their natural adult efficiency will tend to push more bureaucracy into the program than a boy run program requires, which tends to take away the scouts practice of initiating the actions and contacts for their needs in the patrol method program. We countered the problem by recruiting a scout to assist each position. Except for the treasure, the older scouts enjoyed the roles as well as the adults enjoying assisting the scouts. Watch out for the advancement chair in the Spring, they have some pretty cleaver ideas toward streamlining the Summer Camp MB signup process. Barry

Yep, and it supports my deepest concerns of inexperienced adults leading the program. I can't see it going any direction other than Advancement based Eagle Mill camping programs. Barry

Many troops do this with a new parents guide. Our troop does a required adult leader training course twice a year after each SPL election which identified the official BSA documents used to guide the troop policies and program. We also scheduled an advancement training class once a year originally intended specifically for MB Counselors, which most of the active adults attend. But, even with all that training, 80% of adults don't pay much attention until they have a specific need because that kind information makes for a good sleeping pill. Which is why the burden of knowing and understanding BSA policies lays so heavily on the SM and CC. Barry

Wow, I couldn't get through it either. I had to pause at the uniform instructions. I've said before that the two most discussed subjects in my adult leader training classes were "uniform" and "scout discipline". I understand "scout discipline" because adults are challenged with controlling behavior in a so called "boy run" program. BUT UNIFORM? "Uniform policy is set by the Scout Handbook. Anything else must be approved by the PLC and SM." The uniform guidelines kind of represent the adult frame of mind in that they are making scouting too hard. Youth of the scouting age like to take the path of least resistance. Why would any kid want to endure the complexity of the scout program today when they could be playing video games? Barry

Some scouts do mature faster but this is a little unusual because they like to stick with their friends. Are these scouts not his friends? 10 is a funny age, seems like there’s a huge maturity gap between them and 9 year olds. Typically the problem is opposite, the more mature scouts drag the less mature scouts along. If this is a parent pushing, I would not suggest battling to make a point. And while unusual, I wouldn’t worry that it sets a bad message. If they aren’t tight group, the other shouldn’t care much. Qwazse has a good suggestion. Barry

Mostly the adventure outdoor themes including rappelling, shooting sports and water sports. The PLC once did a space theme where they did some pretty cool physics and space ship stuff. That was 20 years ago, so I dont remember specifics. But I was super impressed because the Scouts did it all, research and activities. We also did a few troop night camporees and a Trooporee with 3 other troops. Those are a lot of work for a boy run program because the boys are in-charge with adults assisting. Be creative and bring ideas to the table. As I said, we included adult suggestions to push out the envelope of fun ideas. Also, merit badges can give ideas. The PLC planned an auto mechanics theme one year. The boys are to young to drive, but they all like cars. They found enough classic car owners to have a classic car show at one meeting. Barry

At first I was surprised that some parents take their son to another troop. I got used to it, but I was always disappointed. I improved my visitor talks to give parents a clearer understanding of how our program worked. And it helped, but some parents have their own vision of scouting. Barry

Here is the way it would have happened in our boy run troop. The boy run PLC plans a program for dens in the district just like they have been doing for the last 20 years and sends the same invite they have been sending to packs for the last 20 years to their program that the previous PLC planned a year ago. Only this time National made a recent major policy with complicated details That few adults, much less Scouts, understand. And the pack adults are offended. As a SM, I would suggest to the SPL that they disinvite that pack because if those adults can’t handle this error, they won’t tolerate our boy run program. Scouting was fun until the adults got involved. Barry

Exactly! Because I was the Council JLT Chairman, I was asked to join a National sponsored forum with other Council Youth Training Chairman to discuss and pass along suggestions for the new NYLT course. Very few, if any suggestions by the list ended up in the course. I’m not quite sure why National wasted our time. Barry

You will find a lot of information and videos under Boy Scout chariot race. This was a common patrol competition when I was a scout. The only difference was we used 6 eight foot poles. Four were lashed in a square with the other two lashed to the four corners in a cross. Im not sure I understand your question of using fewer lashings since tying lashings is the point of the race. Barry