Lisabob

I'm curious, does anybody regularly contact boys who dropped out of cub scouts after 3rd grade or who earned their AoL as cubs but never joined a troop? This is something that gets regular lip service but for a variety of reasons it doesn't seem to happen, at least that I'm aware of. I'm thinking that some boys who got "bored" with cubs might find boy scouts more up to their speed (assuming a good troop program of course), and that some who just got lost in the transition from cubs might rejoin if they were approached. But whether it actually happens? Dunno - I've seen no systematic evidence, or even very many anecdotes, in either direction. Aside from that - I think there's opportunity for recruitment whenever we're out in public and in uniform, but a lot of times we just need to take better advantage of it. Case in point, I went to a local art fair a couple weeks ago where members of a troop were selling bottled water from a stand. They were in uniform and had a sign with their troop #, but that was it. They had no recruiting material, no pictures from recent trips, nothing. Too bad, because I happen to know that this is a very active troop with great leadership and lots of fun programs. They were set up almost directly across from one of the larger outdoor outfitters in the region so there was a steady flow of outdoorsy types walking right past them. With a good display, they might've caught the attention of a few boys (and/or their parents) that day. Lisa'bob

Jill, I'm not a fan of minimum requirements or else the parent pays. Often, there's a reason the boy isn't selling the product, and especially at the cub level, it may be something he has no control over. For example: parents can't take him around the neighborhood during reasonable hours due to work schedules or other responsibilities; relatives live far away and the family lacks a social network to solicit; parents work in places where they can't leave the form in the break room, etc.. Then there's also the saturation of the fundraising market, what with school, sports, clubs, etc.. Furhtermore, I have personally seen that when parents can just whip out the check book, those who can afford to will - which means only those who can't afford to pay upfront have to do the leg work to sell the product. And I think this sets the wrong tone, as well as short changing the boys whose parents would just rather write a check than have to participate. Consequently if you're going to set a minimum, does your pack or troop currently do any group activities like show & sells, so that boys whose families can't (or in a few cases, won't) help them sell have a reasonable shot at meeting that goal? If so, consider how to increase participation in those events - if not, consider introducing these to your pack or troop as a way to boost sales and increase the likelihood of all the boys being involved. Lisa'bob

I've seen this too, though generally limited to one outside person. The idea, I've been told, is to have someone who knows the scout in a different capacity than scouting. Lisa'bob

Jill, I didn't post the videos - Fred did - but if you have a hard time getting your hands on them, let me know because I *think* I can get copies from my council. As to the powerpoint - I don't believe it is on the web but it comes on a CD in a packet of stuff for cub round-up training that national provides every year. At least around here, every single pack gets a copy when they show up for round up training (and we try to get copies to packs who don't show up too). Whoever is responsible for your district's round up training should have a copy of it. Unfortunately I got rid of mine last year and don't yet have this year's but again, if someone really wants it and can't lay hands on it locally, let me know and I'll see what I can do. Lisa'bob

I have not seen a video. There is a powerpoint presentation that can be used much like a video would be. And it isn't half bad, but I think it works better when it is edited a little to suit the needs of your pack, and to include photos from events that your pack has actually done, rather than just the generic scout stuff national puts out. Whoever is running your district's round-up training should have this material. Lisa'bob

Jo, I agree that this is hard on the young scouts in particular, and even more so when we're talking about one of those "Eagle-required" mbs, where some older scouts in the group are just trying to push through. If the younger scouts acknowledge that they didn't really do the work in a thorough way, the older scout is now in a position of either agreeing - and not having a completed mb - or disagreeing, and looking bad. So in some ways maybe the younger scouts' sense of right/wrong is actually a better compass, but there may be peer pressure there too. Here's what we're doing this summer as a troop to try to reduce or avoid this problem at camp. Late in the week we'll be doing a check with each boy at camp to discuss what has/hasn't been signed off on their blue cards and whether they agree with this. Hopefully by doing this at camp, before the mb is "complete" and while the mb counselor is still available for discussion and additional work (if needed), we can circumvent a situation where a scout comes back w/ a fistfull of mbs but no clue what he did to earn them, or if he even earned them. This is by no means perfect - scouts who really intentionally want to shove through a mb would still be able to do so I guess - but I am hopeful that having that conversation while the experience is still fresh and on-going will make that less likely. And if we find that mb counselors are short-changing scouts (signing off on things the scout agrees he never did) then we're right there to discuss it with the mb counselor and camp director, as need be, and hopefully have a little time for the scout to try to finish requirements as well. And personally I think your notion of asking the SM to talk with your own scouts about this situation is on the mark. Also I think it is helpful to remind scouts that learning doesn't end just because you got the badge. There are always opportunities to continue and solidify (or gain for a first time I suppose) skills that were glossed over in the mb, and offer some practical ways that they might do that. For example, maybe they'd like to do a patrol campout that includes a trip to a good fishing hole. They may roll their eyes - especially at their parent (anyway my son would) - but then again some of them might grasp that opportunity too. Lisa'bob

Zahnada, I think there are myriad ways to teach scouts about citizenship and they come in bits and pieces over time and through repeat exposure. But global awareness is a subject close to my heart too and so here are a few things I've done/promoted in the past to try to raise this a little bit. These are focused on cubs because that's where I was more active as a leader, but there's no reason some of them couldn't be adapted to be suitable for troop-aged boys too. 1. Invite exchange students to visit and share some things about their country and culture. (how about inviting them to join the troop for the duration of their stay in the US?) 2. Choose something international for a monthly theme. We held an international festival where each den represented a country and provided a display, game, and food from "their" country. The kids had a good time with it and I was surprised at how international our community actually is, when parents and grandparents and neighbors started sharing their personal backgrounds. 3. Set up a penpal exchange with a scout group from another country. 4. Variation - we did a "where in the world is cubby?" thing where we put together a kit as a pack. It included a stuffed bear, a journal, a disposable camera, and a letter w/ our contact info & a request to have it passed on, and returned to us by a certain date. We then started it on a global journey (someone in the group sent it to a friend in another country, who sent it to someone else, etc.). Each month we'd track the bear's progress via emails we'd received from the bear's current host. It was a cool project that got the boys really interested in the world beyond our borders. The bear came back in the end with a great journal and lots of photos and new friends. You could do the same thing in the US for that matter. 5. Hold a language & cultures beltloop workshop 6. "Adopt" a soldier from your area who is stationed in some far-off place (though we had some discussion about whether or not this would be a good idea, given the inherent risk that soldiers face in their jobs) Now not one of these things was designed to teach kids about foreign policy or global politics. But all of them help broaden the kids' exposure to the world and that in itself will eventually result in a better understanding of global citizenship, I think, just like getting kids outside makes them more respectful of the environment at a later age. At the very least, it might trigger some little spark of curiosity at some later time. Lisa'bob

What part of NY are you in? (big state.) How far are you willing to travel? Lisa'bob

Pete, I'm still a little unclear about what the other scout in this situation did. From your post I get that he was annoyed by your son's pounding of the stick against the tree. He kicked your son out of his chair (literally?). He ran. He ended up in your son's tent somehow. You mention he had been unruly and disrespectful earlier in the day. What does that entail? Had he done anything major, or just been a little sour and off-kilter all day? Had he been warned or talked to about his attitude already? Were there other circumstances? There are many levels of potential behavior here, which could merit different kinds of responses. On one hand I can imagine that toward the end of the week, all the kids were a little over-tired, hot and out of sorts, and this was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. The other kid lost his temper and ended up running around the campsite, being a bit unruly but not really egging on your son - it just turned out that he was the wrong kid in the wrong place at the wrong time. In that case, fitting punishment might be pretty limited. A service project together with your son (and appropriate supervision), as I think someone else suggested, seems quite in order. On the other hand, I can imagine a situation where this other boy was intentionally on your son's nerves all day long, culminating in a decidedly-less-than-appropriate response to your son's mildly annoying behavior. In that case then maybe a SM conference (not you - another ASM) or a BOR with him (and not the whole committee) might be in order to discuss his behavior too. Others with more experience in this kind of thing than me, I hope and expect, will likely suggest where to go from here as well. Keep in mind, it was a learning experience of sorts for your son - it should hopefully be a learning experience for this other boy too, not just a punishment. Boy this stuff is tough. But then, what did James Madison say? Something about, if men were angels? Lisa'bob

funscout, I have that same problem with my son and it drives me a little nuts too from time to time. nld is correct - they have until they are 18 and this is in writing in a variety of places (none of which I can quote right now, but I'm sure someone could if you really wanted to pursue it). Best thing I can suggest is that your son's SM or another adult in the troop *might* bring this up in friendly conversation at some point w/ your son, if it becomes a habit for him to start and not finish mbs. (I know in my case, if I bring it up, my son is likely to dig in his heels and move even slower - but if one of the other adults in the group were to mention it, he'd probably give it at least a serious thought) But yeah, in the end it is up to him. In the meantime we can be sisters in tongue-biting silence. Lisa'bob

I know a lot of den leaders who visit their public library with their den. Many public libraries have a children's librarian on staff who will probably be happy to do a program for your den. Additionally a children's librarian will probably have some good ideas about what kinds of books might be appropriate to teach the boys a little about what life was like "back then" while still holding their interest. Other options- do you have any old military installations in your area? For example we took our cubs to visit an old WWII submarine that has become a museum. Torpedos, guns, etc., they loved it. Old forts are always a big hit. Since you mention that you went to White Haven I'm guessing you're in the St Louis area? How about a trip to the Museum of Westward Expansion, located below the arch? I see they run programs for wolf, bear, and webelos dens and I bet they'd do something for your Tigers if you contacted them. They seem to have a good Native American collection too. What boy isn't fascinated by indian lore? Keep in mind that you shouldn't be doing all of this yourself! Encourage (expect) the other tiger parents to help with activities and share the load. Just because you are an Eagle scout doesn't mean you're the only one who can put together a good den outing! Most of all, have fun with it. Lisa'bob

Well I'm glad to hear that the boys ended up going to camp in the end, and given all the bad blood it is probably better off for everyone involved that you are going to camp separately from the other group. I hope the new troop as a whole will be able to put all of this unpleasantness behind and look forward to building a great scout program for the boys. Lisa'bob

Exactly Beaver - and I can't see how you'd do that with such a topic as the Middle East turmoil, unless you ended up over-simplifying to a point where it becomes ludicrous. Arrogance/ignorance aren't going to be combatted by such a discussion and in fact might be bolstered. Lisa'bob

Zahnada writes: But is it out of place to begin a scoutmaster's minute by saying, "If any of you have watched the news lately, you've seen footage of the Israeli conflict. Does anyone know what that's about? Why it's important to the US?" Well I think that the answers to these last two questions depend greatly on your perspective. And I think it takes someone very skilled to lead this discussion with a group of kids and have it go somewhere productive. Where I live, many scouts have relatives either living in the Middle East or serving in the US armed forces (or both) so it is also important to walk a line between discussion/information and needlessly scaring kids or unwittingly stirring up what may be very emotional issues for them. I hate to say this but there are a fair number of people I've met in scouting who I would be happy to have my son emulate in many ways, but who I do not believe could pull off this conversation. There are also many who I like and respect, but who hold very different political views from mine. Just as they probably wouldn't want me to use the SM minute to regularly impose my personal political views on the boys, I really don't want them to either. If my son were to ask one of these people about their views, that's one thing and an opportunity for an open exchange of views. But to use the platform we're granted as leaders to seek to tell others, unsolicited, how to think about politics, well that's another and in my view, goes too far. Now, if the above were the lead-in to a general discussion of why it is important to learn about the world around you, to respect divergent viewpoints, to seek information from many sources, etc., then maybe it could work. (As opposed to a discussion of Syria, Iran, Hizbullah, Lebanon's questionable sovereignty, Lebanon's not-too-distant experience with civil war, whether Hizbullah is a legitimate part of the Lebanese political scene or "just" a terrorist group, and why they seem to have a surprising level of popularity even among Lebanese people who decry violence, why Hizbullah seems to feel justified in its regular mortar attacks against Israel, Israeli policy regarding the pull-out from Southern Lebanon and why they occupied S. Lebanon to start with, why Israel feels it has the right to defend itself by attacking Lebanon and creating a situation in which currently 1/4 of the Lebanese population has had to flee their homes and become internal refugees, and so on and so on...) But frankly, even if someone handled the above with a great deal of sophistication and nuance, how it would all fit into a sensible SM minute is a little beyond me anyway. Lisa'bob

Great article, thanks Fred. This is one of the biggest challenges that fellow leaders have brought up whenever we've talked about introducing hiking (whether to cubs or to new boy scouts) - how to keep it exciting? There are some very good ideas in this post. Happy hiking everybody! Lisa'bob

Jeffrey, To address your first point, I believe this is a matter of pack culture. I've seen packs where the webelos are off doing their own thing and others (usually stronger packs) where the webelos are thoroughly integrated. Mainly it seems to have to do with what's considered "normal" by the adults, although of course that assumes that the pack is scheduling activities that the webelos will still find exciting, and perhaps mixing things up so there's less of a "been there, done that" feeling among the older boys. To address your second point, boys may stay in cub scouts through the end of 5th grade so yes, a webelos scout who turns 11 in Sept/Oct does have a choice and would not be forced to join a troop upon turning 11, if he wanted to stay with his den instead. From the other side of the line, some troops prefer not to have boys crossing over at all sorts of different times of the year - makes it hard to have a coherent first year program. Other troops seem not to mind this. And it depends greatly on the boy in question and his maturity and preferences too. Lisa'bob Lisa'bob

I'm in agreement with advice given already to tread lightly when suggesting changes to a group you are only just joining. As for cubs and pants - well yes, cost does play a big role, and along w/ that, I found the quality and fit of the cub pants to be poor. But I think a bigger reason that many cub groups don't stress the full uniform while many more troops do, is that by the time we get to boy scouts, families that continue are much more committed to staying involved. In cubs, people come and go with greater frequency, and so uniform cost is perhaps a bigger deal. (NOTE: I am not justifying the practice, just trying to answer the poster's question based on what I've witnessed over the years.) I've also found a cub uniform exchange hard to get started. But for those who are interested in stocking a uniform closet from scratch, I've frequently run across good prices on cub pants on ebay while looking for boy scout pants/shorts. They seem to go for less money than boy scout pants, actually. Less demand I guess. Lisa'bob

Sorry guys but I think rehashing why/whether we should have gone to Iraq at this time is both futile and somewhat irrelevant. The question as I see it is, how do we engage the boys in learning about world politics (and our own gov't too) without injecting our own political views? Kids at this age are very impressionable and you could probably easily impose your own world view on them. But is that our job? I don't think so. Our job is to teach them to analyze and understand these things for themselves. Now I'm not saying that if a boy asks you a direct question that you should completely evade it. But I am saying that one had better step carefully in these matters. I don't think, for example, that a discussion of geopolitics makes for a good SM minute. And I think that when we give boys our political opinions, we should be careful to make it clear that that's what we're giving - opinions, which may not be held by other, equallly reasonable, people. By the way I love the citizenship mbs. The requirements (in particular, for the cit. in the world badge) mirror many of the things I teach in my introductory college classes on the same subjects. And when I get scouts who have done these MBs? Well they nearly always have a passion for, and deeper understanding of, the subject matter. Lisa'bob

Ah that's tough, sorry that you are having to deal w/ this Pete. However, I have to say I agree w/ the committee chair's request to remove your son from camp. Pulling a knife - even though it sounds like your son didn't intentionally plan to do so and even though he pointed it at the ground, not at the other boy - is a serious act and needs to be treated that way. And if I were a parent of a boy in the troop and I heard from my son that the SM's kid pulled a knife on someone at camp and didn't get sent home? Well you can imagine that people would draw some unpleasant conclusions (right or wrong, it would still happen). Many camps also have a disciplinary policy in writing that states that knife incidents are grounds for immediate dismissal from camp so if your comm. chair hadn't done this and word got around, the camp director might have ended up getting involved and doing it anyway. As for your son, well I'm sure he learned something valuable, if painful, from this experience. And the other boy? Did he receive any kind of punishment for his role in all of this? Respectfully I disagree w/ scoutldr that he should receive equal punishment because based on your description I don't think he did something equally serious. But I think some disciplinary action would be appropriate. At the least, he shouldn't have followed your son into his tent (does your troop have any rules about this? My son's troop, for example, requires permission to enter someone else's tent - gives the boys a bit of privacy and a place to cool off when tempers flare) and then this wouldn't have escalated. Lisa'bob

By the way a lot of packs and troops have done things to recognize or honor soldiers lately - care packages, letter writing, visits, etc. - and I think this is a good way to help broaden scouts' understanding of the world too. Regardless of where one stands on US policy, most reasonable people can agree to recognize and honor the sacrifices our soldiers are making.

I teach political science for a living and so not surprisingly, I agree these topics are really important - and difficult to discuss. I would not use scouting as a vehicle for pushing my personal political views, just as I don't use the classroom for that purpose. The three citizenship merit badges offer a really good opportunity for boys who are interested to learn more about the political world though, and since these are Eagle-required, maybe here's a place where discussion (not proselytizing) fits. At the cub level, well there are opportunities to introduce scouts to the world at large without entering into politics too - such as the language and cultures beltloop, or setting up pen pals for a den with an equivalent scouting group in another country. Get them familiar with the world and maybe later they'll be interested in world politics and history too. Lisa'bob

Of all the things I worried about doing right or often enough when I was a Webelos DL, whether or not "my" webelos scouts had the boy scout oath & law memorized was way, way down on the list. Yes, we spent time on numerous occasions reading it, talking about it, etc., and I do think that's important to do so they're not just reciting a bunch of mumbo jumbo. But I figured the memorization part would come quickly enough once they joined the troop and recited them every week. (And the troops I've seen in action don't single out random boys to lead the group - the SPL tends to lead this - so we don't have the concern that funscout describes) I've noticed that a lot of new scouts have that deer in the headlights look for at least a few meetings after they cross over. With absolutely everything being new to them I guess I'm not surprised that you get a fair few who have no recollection of the oath & law, despite wearing an AoL badge. Ask their former den leaders if they ever talked about it and I bet the answer is yes! Lisa'bob

acco I admit I'm curious - why on earth would a mb counselor *want* to do that? I can't think of any good reasons and I can think of at least a couple of bad/creepy reasons. Lisa'bob

Backwoods, I'm a merit badge counselor for communications. There is no 90 day chart requirement for that badge so I'm not sure what you are referring to here? Maybe a different mb? Just shows the difficulty of verifying all information so as to reach correct conclusions. Lisa'bob

The next council over from us still does Webelos Woods. Nobody that I'm aware of near where I live is doing a webelos-ree at this time, but it is something that is beginning to be tossed around. Clyde, I like the idea of local troops working together to host their own mini-weekend. But I'm not sure if they'll be willing? Competition for recruits, and all. It is something I'm planning to start inquiring about among local troops though, as I think it would take a while for our district to pull something like this off. Lisa'bob