Kudu

"would it be worthwhile to require a Boy Scout (or an Adult Leader) to read a book at each level of advancement?" Diabolical! I love it!

In "Lord of the Flies" when boys go to the woods without adult supervision, they UNLEARN citizenship.

In "Scouting for Boys," they go into the woods without adult supervision to LEARN citizenship.

"National Public Radio censored Ender's Game from this year's "100 Best-Ever Teen Novels" young readers' poll, because it was too violent. The jury had no such problem with The Hunger Games series, which came in second.

 

Liberal bias much?"

 

Yeah, Kudo, it's really easy to just go ahead and claim NPR censored something and it's due to liberal bias when you don't do any investigation to see if you actually have a leg to stand on.

 

In this case, you don't.

 

NPR didn't choose the nominees for their list - they chose a panel of experts that chose the list. There were only four of them:

 

The Features Editor and Children's Book Editor for the New York Times Book Review

 

The Children's Book Editor for Publisher's Weekly

 

The Book Editor of the A.V. Club - the arts and entertainments section of The Onion - ironically, this is the non-humorous section of this paper.

 

A Middle School Teacher/Librarian who is chairman of this years committee to select the Young Adult Library Services Association list of Best Young Adult Fiction.

 

This panel of experts didn't nominate Ender's Game. Had they done so and NPR removed it from the list, that would have been censorship. Wisely, NPR didn't edit the nomination list either way - they let it stand just as their panel proposed it.

 

A lot of favorites of people were missing from that list. A different panel would likely have come up with a completely different list - and other people would then be disappointed. Expressing your disappointment and second guessing the panel is just fine. Indeed, I'd expect it if one is passionate about something. But to wave it off as "it must be liberal censorship by NPR" is just lazy and shallow.

(This message has been edited by calicopenn)

http://preview.tinyurl.com/ken3ol7

"National Public Radio censored Ender's Game from this year's "100 Best-Ever Teen Novels" young readers' poll, because it was too violent. The jury had no such problem with The Hunger Games series, which came in second.

 

Liberal bias much?"

 

Yeah, Kudo, it's really easy to just go ahead and claim NPR censored something and it's due to liberal bias when you don't do any investigation to see if you actually have a leg to stand on.

 

In this case, you don't.

 

NPR didn't choose the nominees for their list - they chose a panel of experts that chose the list. There were only four of them:

 

The Features Editor and Children's Book Editor for the New York Times Book Review

 

The Children's Book Editor for Publisher's Weekly

 

The Book Editor of the A.V. Club - the arts and entertainments section of The Onion - ironically, this is the non-humorous section of this paper.

 

A Middle School Teacher/Librarian who is chairman of this years committee to select the Young Adult Library Services Association list of Best Young Adult Fiction.

 

This panel of experts didn't nominate Ender's Game. Had they done so and NPR removed it from the list, that would have been censorship. Wisely, NPR didn't edit the nomination list either way - they let it stand just as their panel proposed it.

 

A lot of favorites of people were missing from that list. A different panel would likely have come up with a completely different list - and other people would then be disappointed. Expressing your disappointment and second guessing the panel is just fine. Indeed, I'd expect it if one is passionate about something. But to wave it off as "it must be liberal censorship by NPR" is just lazy and shallow.

(This message has been edited by calicopenn)

NPR didn't choose the nominees for their list - they chose a panel of experts that chose the list.

So, NPR did not censor Ender, they chose a panel of feminists to censor Ender.

The on-going anti-Ender campaign was addressed by Harrison Ford this week at Comic-Con:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/18/showbiz/comic-con-enders-game

In the field' date=' try to give your patrols some physical distance from one another. [/quote']

　

A few years ago: I wanted patrols camping separately and nobody had the faintest idea why...Now' date=' patrols want to camp as far away from each other as possible. [/quote']

　

Nothing changes the culture of a Troop faster than physical distance between the Patrols. In the rest of the world (which uses Baden-Powell's "Patrol System" rather than our "Patrol Method"), the distance is specified as 150-300 feet.

　

Baden-Powell's minimum requirement appeals to the natural instinct of boys to build hideouts or "secret forts" in the woods. It is the real meaning of the 2nd Class requirement 3b. "On one of these campouts, select your patrol site and sleep in a tent that you pitched. Explain what factors you should consider when choosing a patrol site and where to pitch a tent" (as opposed to "Pick a corner of developed campsite")!

　

I usually start small: Allow the most matrure, best behaved Patrol to camp "half a football field away," and adjust the distance on the next campout according to behavior. Eventually the Troop culture will change as Patrols elect their best leader, so as to gain distance.

　

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/patrol

 

 

Until we drop the school work and have a uniform that looks more like a BDU and less like a corporate-casual desk jockey, scouts will always be uncool.

At the time REI made a excellent breathable nylon hiking shirt (with a generous ventilation flap on the back) the same color as the BSA shirt, so we used that.

Here is Green Bar Bill's "Intensive Training in the Green Bar Patrol:"

 

http://kudu.net/patrol/green_bar/index.htm

 

This is the nuts & bolts Patrol Leader Training course we take away from Boy Scouts so they have time to learn deep and meaningful "leadership" concepts from milk and cookie games.

 

By the third session, Patrol Leaders use Patrol Meetings to plan and then execute Patrol Hikes without adult leadership:

 

http://kudu.net/patrol/green_bar/3rd.htm

 

And, of course, the course ends with a Patrol Overnight:

 

http://kudu.net/patrol/green_bar/6th.htm

 

If you have natural outdoor leaders, they may enjoy Green Bar Hill's "Real" Patrol Method more than watching "leadership" on TV.

 

Just sayin'

As for the total length of each meeting, remember that "Intensive Training in the Green Bar Patrol" is designed to teach your Troop's most mature leaders how to hold Patrol Meetings, Patrol Hikes, and Patrol Overnights apart from the Troop and without adult supervision. If you scale that level of responsibility (equivalent to a BSA Lifeguard) down to the usual Wood Badge level where everything is planned as a Troop event through the PLC, then the trained Patrol Leaders can hold their Patrol Meetings at weekly Troop Meetings, and the actual Patrol Hikes and Patrol Overnights on Troop Campouts. This reduced level of controlled risk and required competency should leave plenty of space to work real-world leadership skills examples into the six meetings, Training Hike, and Training Overnight without making the PLC meetings too long.

We skipped the training hike, and instead scheduled the training overnight every three months on a regular basis. We camped Friday night and returned home late Saturday afternoon. The Patrol Leaders rehearsed the skills scheduled to be taught at the next three campouts. For instance: 1) A fishing five mile hike, 2) A hot lunch campfire skills hike, 3) A cold lunch woods tools hike to clear brush. Patrol Leaders weak in a particular skill could be brought up to speed, or in some cases a Troop Guide would accompany his Patrol (the Troop Method).

Ideally the hikes were done round-robin: Patrol A doing the fishing hike the first month, and the campfire skills hike the second month; Patrol B doing the campfire skills hike the first month, and the woods tools hike the second; and so on so that each Patrol was always off to a different location. But the perfect remote fishing lake was at one camp, the Camp Ranger with saplings to clear was at another camp, and the camp with enough remote multiple fire rings to allow each Scout to build his own fire was at a third camp, making for Troop Method creep if we weren't careful.

THE SERVANT AS LEADER, by Robert K. Greenleaf, The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, 770 Pawtucket Dr. Westfield, IN 46074 (http://www.greenleaf.org)

Everyone seems to agree that the potato and cookie exercises are lame, but because the goal of Patrol Leader training is to "understand" the nature of leadership (rather than how to actually "lead" a Patrol into the backwoods), we play sheltered "skits/role-plays/games that communicate simple leadership concepts," or just sit them down in front of a TV.

As opposed to physical outdoor role-play in what Green Bar Bill calls a "Real" Patrol.

Since you are one of the very few leaders here who have actually used Green Bar Bill's Patrol Method and/or Baden-Powell's minimum standard of 300 feet between Patrols, I'm asking if you have ever taught "servant leadership" on hikes and campouts using anything similar to Hillcourt's "Intensive Training in the Green Bar Patrol"?

If you described that process, you would be the first person in the history of "leadership skills" to relate them to "Real" Scouting.

THE SERVANT AS LEADER, by Robert K. Greenleaf, The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, 770 Pawtucket Dr. Westfield, IN 46074 (http://www.greenleaf.org)

Servant Leadership cheats Patrol Leaders unless it is a byproduct of learning how to take a Patrol out on patrol.

Patrol Leader Training is to physical distance, as BSA Lifeguard Training is to water.

Was it on the old Newhart show that during town meetings some faceless voice in the back of the hall kept yelling "I OBJECT" to everything?

 

 

It was funny then.

THE SERVANT AS LEADER, by Robert K. Greenleaf, The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, 770 Pawtucket Dr. Westfield, IN 46074 (http://www.greenleaf.org)

Why Woodbadge? When I staffed the course almost two years ago, I asked that question of the 50 or so participants, and here is (unedited) what some of them wrote:::

“REASONS WHY I TOOK WOOD BADGE†(or, Why YOU should take Wood Badge)

 

*I took away a lot of ideas from everyone else, not just the staff.

*It reminds me of how much fun Scouting can be.

*The fellowship.

*It helps to build leadership in my Troop.

*My sense of obligation makes me want to payback to Scouting.

*Self-empowerment. I can do more, because I can.

*To grow spiritually.

*It keeps the Pack trainer off my back.

*It’s my Eagle. To accomplish it as my special project.

*To hear awesome bugling.

*To learn leadership skills.

*A chance to play and camp as an adult.

*Train to make better project planning.

*Gives you the BIG picture of Scouting, not just the day to day stuff.

*Gets you in a Scout Spirit atmosphere.

*Looking for the “AHA†moments. Found’em.

*Make the transition from Cub Scout to Boy Scout more seamless.

*Gain in understanding the “other†Scout.

*I am not alone.

*Seeking ‘Personal Growth’, it’s not just about the boys and girls, but adults too.

*It renews your energy for Scouting.

*Big chance, not just happenstance, to interface with lots of other Scouters.

*“A raven is like a writing deskâ€Â.

*Supreme networking.

*Observing excellent exampling of Scout leading..

*Learning that everyone has their own strengths and talents and weaknesses – that the group can often accomplish more together than anyone singularly.

*To experience the very best in leadership (what they told me before I came!). I think I did.

*I gained tools to look at one’s past to be a better leader in the future.

*You can’t help your Scouts “get it†until you “get itâ€Â, and Wood Badge is where I “got itâ€Â.

*“Rehydrate†for Scouting souls: Water for the physical body, Wood Badge for the “Scouting†body.

*For the Coffee.

*Obtain a deeper understanding of the purpose of Scouting.

*If you choose to do something, if you volunteer to do something, don’t you want the best skills to enable you to do that something the very best way possible? Why do it half way?

*To benefit from them that have “been there and done thatâ€Â.

 

The ones that did not respond? Well, I can't report wht they didn't tell me.

 

Just picked up Dale Carnegie's _How to Win Friends and Influence People_ (literally -- it was in the free bin outside the book collector's store -- that's how I roll). Opinions anyone?

Until we drop the school work and have a uniform that looks more like a BDU and less like a corporate-casual desk jockey, scouts will always be uncool.

School work Scouting and office dweeb "leadership skills"?

Uncool.

The very first page of my Boy Scout Website was a photographic comparison of a BDU with the official dress designer uniform of the time:

http://inquiry.net/uniforms/bdu.htm

Around 1997 I switched my support to nylon zip-offs.

Wood Badgers from around the country were so incensed at my advocacy of the uniform as an outdoor method, that they called my local Council office to report me. Whenever I stopped by, the secretaries would say "Those people from the Internet have been calling us about you again!"

Here is Green Bar Bill's "Intensive Training in the Green Bar Patrol:"

http://kudu.net/patrol/green_bar/index.htm

This is the nuts & bolts Patrol Leader Training course we take away from Boy Scouts so they have time to learn deep and meaningful "leadership" concepts from milk and cookie games.

By the third session, Patrol Leaders use Patrol Meetings to plan and then execute Patrol Hikes without adult leadership:

http://kudu.net/patrol/green_bar/3rd.htm

And, of course, the course ends with a Patrol Overnight:

http://kudu.net/patrol/green_bar/6th.htm

If you have natural outdoor leaders, they may enjoy Green Bar Hill's "Real" Patrol Method more than watching "leadership" on TV.

Just sayin'

 

Anyone know anything about the BPSA? Any experiences with the organization, or knowledge of how it works...?

 

 

I am not currently a member of BPSA, but I served on its original Policy, Organization, and Rules committee (PO&R: the document that gives a Traditional Scouting program its structure).

Much of the BPSA's material is taken from my Traditional Scouting Website:

http://inquiry.net/traditional/handbook/

Baden-Powell's Scouting is radically different from what Americans call "Scouting" in two ways:

I) PROFICIENCY versus ADVANCEMENT:

A. B-P's badges are called "Proficiency Badges." They reflect a Scout's "Current Proficiency" (as opposed to past achievements).

B. Proficiency Badges are either Outdoor Skills or practical Public Service Skills such as first aid (as opposed to school subjects).

C. What Americans call "rank" badges are tested in B-P Scouting through the adventure of significant solo backwoods "Journeys" and "Expeditions" (as opposed to indoor, adult-run Scout Spirit requirements, Scoutmaster Conferences, and Boards of Review).

D. "Qualifying Badges" (the required badges, all outdoor) are retested every twelve (12) to eighteen (18) months (as opposed to our "no retesting" one and done, also known as "Once an Eagle, Always an Eagle").

II) PATROL SYSTEM versus PATROL METHOD:

A. B-P's Patrol System Patrols camp a minimum of 150-300 feet apart on Troop campouts.

B. In common with Green Bar Bill's "Real" Patrols, a Patrol System Patrol is required to hike on a regular basis (and sometimes camp) without other Patrols or adult leadership. This is where the Patrol Leader (not a "Troop Guide") teaches and signs off on Scoutcraft skills.

C. In the Patrol System, a Patrol's most gifted natural leader serves as Patrol Leader for as long as possible because of i) the controlled risk involved in Patrol Hikes, ii) actual competency needed to teach and test all Tenderfoot through First Class skills, and iii) because the Patrol Leaders actually run the Troop (as opposed to the adult Troop Committee, Troop SPL, Troop ASPLs, Troop Guides, etc.).

D. The purpose of a Patrol System Patrol is Patrol Adventure (as opposed to learning "leadership skills").

Have you had a chance to look through the Pathfinder handbook you ordered?

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/patrol

Prissy by design since 1965, the year that William "Green Bar Bill" Hillcourt retired, leaving the BSA's top office managers in control of the program.

They switched Scouting's icon from outdoorsmen to themselves.

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

In Leadership Development's Troop Method, the TROOP elects the SPL.

In the Real Patrol Method, the PATROL Leaders always outnumber the SPL in the PATROL Leader's Council.

In the Troop Method the TROOP SPL's patronage positions, such as the TROOP ASPLs and the TROOP Guides, can vote against the Patrol Leaders.

Maybe the word "Troop" has been Program Neutered out of NYLT, like the Patrol Leaders were neutered out of the "Patrol Method" presentation of Scoutmaster-specific training?

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

That is because when I was Scoutmaster, my Troop ran along the same lines that Stosh describes.

I encouraged each Patrol's most competent Scout to stay on as Patrol Leader because he was important.

I never let an incompetent Scout leave a Scoutmaster Conference without finding a good POR for him.

A Patrol election occurred only when a particular Patrol actually needed a new Patrol Leader, and (in the first few years of the Real Patrol Method) only after I met with them to discuss the qualities of a Patrol Leader necessary for me to allow them to camp at 300 feet, or conduct Patrol Hikes without my adult helicopters.

Sometimes a Patrol Leader would return from NYLT preaching the Troop Method and, against my advice, the PLC would arrange a Troop-wide popularity contest, thinking that the little kids would elect one of them. However, even when that resulted in a loser SPL like you have now, the competent Patrol Leaders would plan the campout. When Patrol Leaders run a Troop, that is their job, not the SPL's.

Not even remotely helpful,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/patrol

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

Your reply is why I take such a dim view of "leadership" theory.

When any leadership enthusiast first hears about Baden-Powell minimum standard of 300 feet between Patrols (never in BSA training, of course), he or she rejects it with the same objections as you:

1. It is impossible to space Patrols 300 feet apart in 21st century Boy Scout Camps.

2. A historical analogy to prove that if Baden-Powell were alive today, he would have based Scouting on anything but camping.

3. An apocalyptic vision of parental objections.

4. A reference to fecal matter.

5. The assumption that unlike sports (which are all still based on questionable life-skills like bouncing or kicking a ball, or hitting it with a club), we must replace the elements of B-P's game with modern "leadership skills" because most boys will spend the rest of their lives sitting in a cubical.

Leadership theory appears to be inherently anti-Patrol, from local Roundtables to the BSA's top professional millionaires. In fact, leadership skills are so predictably anti-Patrol that they deserve an anti-Scouting acronym formula all of their own!

My guess is that this is because of POR requirements: Even if by pure chance your Scouts elect a responsible Patrol Leader, he will be gone in six months and replaced by the next popularity contest winner. Therefore it is safer to stick to a Webelos III program where adult helicopters keep Patrol Leaders on a short leash as they oversee Troop "Controlled Failure."

There are Troops in which leadership theory does not replace the Real Patrol Method. In my mind's eye I picture Barry's SPL power-pointing the Forming--> Storming sequence of a new Patrol Leader's first experience at 300 feet, or diagraming a Leading Edge analysis of a eight-mile Patrol Hike without adult supervision. But such "Real" Patrol Method Troops are the exception that proves the rule.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

I swear that I would not have intruded on your thread if I had known that for years now, you have seethed with anger whenever I suggest Baden-Powell's minimum standard (yes, minimum standard) of 150-300 feet between Patrols when they camp as a Troop.

I guess your admonition to "SEEK TRUTH" does not extend to, um, trying the Patrol System, huh?

Otherwise why did you duck the two most practical questions in Scouting: How far do your Patrols hike without adult helicopters? How far apart do they camp as a Troop?

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

King Ding Dong commented

 

My view of scouting has been to develop leadership skills in those who it doesn't come to naturally.

My question would be: Why Scouting? Why not do to high school football what Wood Badge did to Patrol Leaders: Replace position-specific training with corporate "team-building exercises"? You know, trust falls, game of life, diversity awareness, etc.

When did Baden-Powell, the inventor of Scouting, ever say the purpose of the Patrol System is to "develop leadership skills"?

Back when Scouting was popular (before the invention of "Leadership Development"), the purpose of a Patrol was to go out on patrol, just as the purpose of most games is to move a ball through physical space (say 300 feet). Likewise, physical space is why learning Scoutcraft Skills was once an adventure.

If we did to sports what Wood Badge does to the Patrol Method, just think of how angry the nation's basement dwellers would get at guys who point out that when soccer and football were popular, the end zones were 300 feet apart! "300 feet 300 feet 300 feet........ You just keep spouting the same crap year after year after year...... I get it. Just not very helpful"

 

King Ding Dong commented:

 

My son is a natural at math, reading and science. He is pitiful at composing spoken and written thoughts, that is were he needs development. Should we just give up on that because it doesn't come naturally to him?

OK, perfect example. After Green Bar Bill retired, Boy Scouts was run by millionaire office managers, so they added office management as a "Method" of Scouting.

If Boy Scouts had been run by the Boy's Life editorial staff, then they might have invented "English Grammar" as a "Method" of Scouting. Think of how much more useful Scouting would be to your son (and all boys, actually) if he had to write essays for six months to get "credit" for advancement.

Let's turn English Grammar into a "Method of Scouting" and force it on boys like we do to Basementdweller's SPL.

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

How far apart are they when you camp as a Troop?

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

You need to get over it' date=' or go to the local council and view the bylaws, or hire a lawyer and call the LA Times. Unlike the ban on homosexuals, the BSA's religious stance is right there on both the youth and adult application, it's in the oath, it's in the handbook, it's part of the program.[/quote']

 

Is it? This is what the BSA actually says about it (the current Guide to Advancement, page 33):

 

5.0.5.0 Religious Principles

From time to time, issues related to advancement call for an understanding of the position of the Boy Scouts of America on religious principles. In the appendix (section 11), see the Rules and Regulations of the Boy Scouts of America (article IX), and clause 1, Declaration of Religious Principle, from article IX in the Charter and Bylaws of the BSA. The following interpretative statement may help to clarify this position:

 

The Boy Scouts of America does not define what constitutes belief in God or practice of religion. Neither does the BSA require membership in a religious organization or association for membership in the movement. If a Scout does not belong to a religious organization or association, then his parent(s) or guardian(s) will be considered responsible for his religious training. All that is required is the acknowledgment of belief in God as stated in the Scout Oath, and the ability to be reverent as stated in the Scout Law.

 

See the lovely circular logic? All that is required is a belief in God - the BSA refuses to define what constitutes belief in God. That is for the scout and his family to decide. As for A Scout is Reverent, I believe this is the current wording:

A Scout is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties. He respects the beliefs of others.

 

This doesn't define what God is either. So if someone belongs to a religious faith that doesn't have a god (like many forms of Buddhism) or require a belief in a god (like Unitarianism), who believe they can do their "Duty to God" as their faith defines it, the BSA appears to say they can be members. Which is the situation the OP was in.

 

So to tell the OP: "stop whining, it's all their in black and white" is incorrect.

packsaddle commented

 

I noted the derisive tone you employed in your use of the phrase 'you Greenbar fanboys'. Could you elaborate on what your intent was in that? Was it intended to imply that 'you Greenbar fanboys' are hypocritical for some reason? Please explain.

 

Presumably because a belief in "leadership skills" constitutes belief in supernatural forces!

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

http://inquiry.net/ideals/beads.htm