MattR

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Click on his avatar and read the last half dozen posts he made. It's not too hard to guess why.

Is this really a generational thing? Or a cultural thing? More and more leaders involved in Scouting have no prior Scouting experience. My Troop Has 8 ASM/SM's. Half of us had Scouting experience as youth, which I feel like is abnormally high.

I'm not sure it matters. The adults that are eagle scouts are no more likely to help out than the other parents. It's just that those that do help come up to speed much faster.

It gets down to getting to know the parents, and preferably before asking them to do something. I talked to a rabbi that turned a synagogue around and I asked her what her secret was to getting more people involved. She said it's easy; get to know the people. Invite them over. Treat them like guests. Their age has nothing to do with it. In a world that's becoming more impersonal people like the human touch. Granted, this takes time, but the recipe is simple.

Isn't this exactly how we treat the scouts? On the one hand we tell scouts that leadership is more about the people than the task. On the other we want parents to follow us into the troop and be a part of the team. We have a new CC and my only request was that we get someone that enjoys talking to people and getting to know them. I want the CC to get to know every parent the way I get to know every scout.

Interesting how multiple threads simultaneously come around to the same subject.

Trust isn't a given, it has to be earned, and we really want the scouts to earn it. Swords, rifles, hiking on their own up a rock, doesn't really matter. What also seems to be a constant is that older generations don't trust younger ones. Maybe hindsight is a bit through rose colored glasses. I was one kid that got his rear chewed out for being disrespectful, lazy, and all the other things I dislike about dealing with kids-these-days. But I have to admit, when they do get it, it's a great high. Just a guess but I suspect it was the same for my parents, and theirs.

This is not the first time I've heard of differences between Philmont training and national training. My guess is there's something going on between Philmont and those that do training at national. As in, Philmont likes making training (and quite possibly the money that comes with it) and national could care less so they both go their own ways. I talked to someone a long time ago about better understanding how to get the patrol method going and how hard it was to find any useful training and they said Philmont has this great course. I said if it's so great, why is it limited to Philmont and why does it cost so much? No response.

It is comical document. I wonder if Bears can **** in the woods?

 

The "Outpost camping" that I know is a optional program feature at scout camp. A troop backpacks from its campsite to a more rustic site inside the camp (within "outpost") for overnight "camping". Before leaving, they draw food from the mess hall and cook dinner and breakfast before returning the next morning for the regular summer camp activities. Never encountered age restrictions. Could be a "patrol" outing at some camps if enough adults are avilable.

But a boy scout can go backpacking, so what's wrong with outpost camping? Well, let's look it up in the g2ss. Oops, this is the g2ss. Hmm, well, the word outpost isn't on that webpage except in that graph. The graph also suggests, in the right most column, that wilderness back country is limited to 14 and older. Backpacking is also only mentioned in the context of high adventure, 14+. So I guess backpacking is no longer allowed in boy scouts?

Or maybe this whole page should just be ignored.

Yes, when I was a scout in 60s-70s, most scouts held Arrowmen with a higher respect of stature than the Eagle. During the five years I was in the troop of 80 scouts, we had two Eagles. A lot has changed with both programs.

That would certainly be a better model, and easier to focus on the right things. But it would be tough to make work in today's busy world.

Nearly every scout that has Eagled in my troop has described a lazy phase they went through on their trail to Eagle. Without that shiny medal at the end a lot of them would have just left for all the other activities they have going on. When they're 15 they know the check boxes are just a bunch of hoops. At the same time they aren't mature enough to see the bigger picture. Once they're 17.99 and just done their SMC, if you heard them talk you'd realize they agree with everything being said here. It's much more than check boxes. It's about giving. But without the bling they wouldn't have stuck around to learn the lessons they did. So I'd say the eagle focus has a purpose in a round about way.

Maybe I can do a better job with the middle aged scouts, but even my son told me I was fairly stupid when he was 16 but I'd gotten a lot smarter by the time he was 18.

I don't know about most of those 54k, but I just received a very nice thank you note from one of them. The program does work.

There are lots of bits and pieces to the program but a few are critical. First is high adventure. Make memories and they will return. Second is the desire to earn Eagle. Third is a culture of helping out. I use the second as leverage to get a scout to do the third. And then I get a really nice thank you note.

The numbers don't bother me one way or another. Most of the program changes don't either (except for MBs at summer camp). The graph shows a big spike starting in 92. Maybe that's more a reflection of society than the program. When I was a scout nobody really cared about Eagle. And consequently nobody ever encouraged me to be a better leader, or do my Eagle project. So I never wrote anyone a thank you note.

Why burn bridges over this one comment? It's fairly clear the sword is okay to use. The problem is grandpa (Someone). Maybe he was just having a bad day. He is not a bully and doesn't need a dressing down over this. Yes, he picked a fight. Does that mean anyone has to respond to it? If courtesy and friendship are really important then how about trying to find common ground first? Sure, this guy might be a real thorn, but maybe he's not and all the experience he has might be useful. This is why I suggested finding a way for him  to save face.

I think a sword is a great idea. Me thinks this issue has less to do with safety and more about some guy just looking for a reason to puff up his feathers.

If it was a fun ceremony and the scouts really enjoyed it then I'd suggest talking to the CM. Don't put him in the middle between you and Someone. Ask for clarity. The CM will regurgitate what Someone told him. Look it up. When you can't find it bring it back and show the CM. Talk about how much fun the scouts had .... You just need a way for Someone to save face when you tell him you're bringing back the sword. Then you can get back to having fun with the boy's imaginations.

@@Hedgehog, I'm trying to make a list of challenges as well. While I would like to do this on a campout I just don't have the time to put that together. (Once I put together something that included climbing, shotgun, and canoes and it was fantastic, but the overhead to put it together was too much.) So, this time it will have to be in town. I also want to create scenarios with people problems; overbearing adults, troublesome scouts from other patrols, immature scouts in the patrol. So, some simple challenges with hidden problems.

I'm all ears with any ideas you have. I only have two weeks to put this together.

I was also wondering about doing a very simple ticket activity. So, after the training each scout would have to find something his patrol would like to do, and make it happen, hopefully using what he learned in the training. Sort of edge method.

If the Webelos never spent time with your troop then that's one issue. If they have spent time and still went elsewhere then it might be another issue. I've had lots of parents tell me how they have been ignored when visiting other troops. We make a big deal when a webelo visits. Bring him up front. Introduce him. Put him in a patrol. Make him feel welcome. Same with the parents. When my son joined, the SPL came over and grabbed him before the meeting started and I didn't see him much. I remind the scouts every year what it was like when they joined. The big kids are huge. It's scary. They aren't sure if they will be welcome.

We also invite them to camp with us but not many do. It's winter camping so that's not a surprise.

Part of the intense activity load for Japanese kids is due to how hard and how important it is to get into the right college. Once a kid gets accepted to college life is much easier. School is easy and if you get into the right school, so is getting a good job. On the other hand, getting into a reasonably good college in the US is easy. Getting out with a useful degree is much harder. So, high school in Japan is very important, in the US it's college. At least this is what it was like circa 1990, when I was there.

What I did was an exercise. Everyone took turns at being the leader. Everyone spent most of their time listening and if they had an idea they suggested it knowing it might get rejected. Everyone was also forced to take a turn at deciding everything for everyone. Believe it or not, this was the hardest part for most scouts. One scout out of the two patrols that participated refused to listen and just decide for everyone else. It was a teaching moment when his approach failed. This approach worked very well. Despite everyone's fear that it would turn into a dictatorship, the scouts were working better as a team under those rules then they ever did before. Furthermore, they also worked better the rest of the weekend. It certainly is a paradox that a leader with final say can create teamwork. But maybe there's a useful nugget there.

I've seen these team building exercises for a long time and they have never worked very well. What usually happens when we run these, even though we repeatedly suggest that the scouts have to listen to one another, is they do what they are inclined to do anyway. The extroverts usually take over and the introverts rarely speak up, no matter how good their ideas are. During this exercise the extroverts had to learn to listen and the introverts had to learn to speak up, because those were the rules of this game. It has nothing to do with bad managers, it's just personalities.

I just did something for a group of new scouts as well as a patrol that is struggling that I'd like to work into patrol leader training, and it worked really well. It was about teamwork, leadership, and how the two interact. I took a bunch of the low cope style activities, one for each person in the patrol, and had the scouts do them with one exception. There is a patrol leader (everyone has a turn at this). The patrol leader has the ultimate say in what happens and everyone else must obey what he says. Also, we stress that the PL needs to be aware of this responsibility. His ideas of how to solve the problem aren't nearly as important as how his patrol solves them. After each activity we talked about what happened. By forcing the leader to lead, the team to obey, and also taking turns at this, everyone got an appreciation of both sides of leadership and teamwork.

It took about 90 minutes. Each activity was 10-15 minutes. The improvement in that 90 minutes was surprising. They started off flailing and arguing. It was everyone for themselves. We reviewed, they tried again, it was a little quieter. All the bad ways a PL or patrol member could abuse things came up, we talked about it, they made it better. They learned the importance of listening. Eventually the quiet scout had to be the leader and by then everyone knew he was quiet, and gave him the time to muster up courage and tell everyone else what to do. This was the quiet scout's first campout and he was telling the 16 year olds what to do. That night several other adults and a few scouts mentioned how well the troubled patrol had worked together for the rest of the day.

I like the model of giving the scouts lots of problems to solve. For us it was more like 5% talking, 75% activities, and 20% review. Unfortunately our SPL is not capable of teaching this. Let's just say he needs to take the course.

The regular ILST has always seemed like a waste of time because the resulting scouts weren't any different than before. It has always seemed like a great set of tools once you know the basics but they skipped the basics. The basics are more about people than the job at hand. What I don't understand is why nobody that writes up these courses gets that. What kid in school ever sees any of this? These scouts have next to no experience at this sort of thing. I tell these guys "don't make a decision that your patrol can make without you" and this is just hard for them to get their brains around. From the scout viewpoint, of course leaders make decisions for everyone, that's what their parents and teachers do.

 

Just looking for hints

 

While competition is good it's not the goal that counts. I.e., Cam Newton is also a very competitive person.

I think it has something to do with drinking espresso from a tin cup with fancy 19th century etching on the outside. :?

Steampunk is a mix of the wild west and scifi. The original steampunk was the Wild Wild West. Cowboys and Aliens and the remake of the Wild Wild West are more recent versions. I loved all those shows. What could be better to a 12 year old than a turbo charged steam engine shooting lasers at the bad guys?

MattR - sure one can make that assumption about new units, but that's not necessarily a valid assumption for everyone. 

Sorry, just bad wording. I meant someone starting new with any troop and trying to make it more boy led. If anything I'd think it would be easier to start with a new troop.

I would seriously like to know what it is you're finding that needs more? 

As I said before, take care of your people means different things to different people. To mom it might mean plow the field so their son has no problems to deal with.

... "On my honor I will .... help other people at all times."  Then go on to point out that the members of the patrol are other people and that also includes the PL and APL.  It also means they have promised to step up and be a functional Instructor and actually work hard at helping the young boys.  It might also mean something like helping boys from another patrol put their tents up in the rain...at night.  And one can draw the last 15 minutes to emphasize "AT ALL TIMES", not just when one feels like it.  I find that when I take leadership seriously, they do too.

But steampunk is much more fun.

I have never assumed character development ends after kindergarten.  

Of course not, nobody in scouts has. My point is that's what is walking in our door. Parents won't let it develop and we need to get it up to speed.

The real key to this whole leadership training is simply telling YOUR story, assuming of course you, yourself are leading by example and that example is servant/service leadership.    Don't just do as I say, do as I do, too.  If the two are the same, you've got all your bases covered. 

Yep, my scouts do watch me. And that's been good. But listen? They are teenagers. That's where the steampunk comes in.

I mentioned that "learners" in the first version of Wood Badge were supposed to already know about Scouting methods.  Here are some questions they had to be able to discuss well enough to satisfy staff before they could take the "practical" course:

 

1965

 

3(a) How do you interpret the words of the Scoutmaster's Handbook: "The Scoutmaster's job is not to run HIS troop, but to train his boy leaders to tun THEIR troop"?

 

5. List what you consider might be five obstacles to the use of the patrol method and explain how those obstacles can be overcome.

 

11. ... [How would you] tell [a Scoutmaster] how he can make the patrol method a reality in his troop.

 

1969

3. Added comment for staff grading question 3 (above): "This is the heart of citizenship training on the troop level.  The writer should  indicate that he realizes this and has thought about the theory behind the statement as well as its meaning." 

Wow, it really must have been part of the fabric of scouting. I guess there's been a lot of lost knowledge. That's exactly the type of thing I was looking for when I took WB.

But my point was that servant lifestyle of leadership doesn't have to be taught or guided once the culture is set. The older role models instilled the attitude and leadership habits to the younger scouts simply by their actions. 

 

At the same time, if the scouts are showing some bad leadership habits, skills, or styles that aren't necessarily scout like or desired, it takes outside intervention to change culture and is done best by guiding the change at the older scout role models.

My boys find that the servant leadership role taken by the older boys is quickly recognized and the leader's popularity rises quickly for positive common benefit reasons, not personal gain, political reasons.  Boys quickly recognize this and peer pressure usually settles these issues far better than adult intervention.

What both of you are saying is that once it's in place it's easy to keep going. That's fine. But what if you start with a troop that doesn't have it in place? I honestly do not see many troops with at least patrols cooking on their own, so I suspect there is very little scout leadership. Isn't this one of the best ways for scouts to learn the main aim of scouting? And yet, there's no help. The BSA courses do not cover this. We've beaten that dead horse. I agree that a power point presentation would be a waste.  Stosh's "take care of your scouts" is a start but I'm finding that needs more. Eagledad did say this is a great time for the SM to step in. I agree. That's what I'm doing, but it's trial and error and I'd like to speed things up.

Historically, character has been taught via stories. Scouts like stories. Maybe a bunch of SM minutes based on a couple of mythical patrols? Maybe that's how to explain servant leadership. And we could throw in some good ol' Mark Twain style adventure. Rafts. Out on their own. Dealing with wild animals and bad weather. All the things we can't do anymore. Just to get their interest. We could even throw in aliens. How about steampunk?

I think you are right with this. I have another theory as to why the scouts struggle with this, and it is that most people these days seem to look out for themselves first, others second (if at all).

 

Side Note: While I was having this conversation, one of *our* newly minted Scouts (crossed over three weeks previously) walked over, picked up the remaining packs and brought them to the shelter. He notified the adult in charge he "found" the packs, brought them to safety and wanted to find the owners.

Kudos to the young scout, but he's an exception. My theory is character development stops after kindergarten. Play fair, put your toys away, don't bother people, do as the teacher says. That's kindergarten. That's were all the scouts are that enter my troop. Take care of someone? Unless they take care of younger siblings they don't have to. Maybe their dog.

If one's boys can't wrap their heads around the leadership concept of "Take care of your boys", one might want to simply focus on "help other people at all times" and "Do a Good Turn Dail"

My definition of take care of a scout is very different from an incoming webelo parent. And that incoming parent's definition is surprisingly close to a new SPL or new PL. Last week my newish SPL decided to have the patrols do something and I could just hear Stosh screaming "managing the task and not the people". So I asked the SPL how this was going to help the patrols and he said it will be good for them to be more efficient. It will build teamwork, he said. We had a bit of discussion about who owned the job he had in mind (the QM) how this was impacting him, how possibly a campfire might be more along the lines of what the patrols would like to do ... And none of it stuck. I let him do what he wanted. I'm not sure if he learned anything, even though he heard a scout call him something not very flattering. He honestly thought he was taking care of them.

Maybe my point is most of these scouts have never taken care of anyone before. So telling them to take care of someone doesn't mean much. When I think of take care of someone I think of family: accept people warts and all, tough love, clan first, make up.... Rule 1 of marriage is listen, and that isn't explicitly in the oath or law. And using the family analogy is not so good because plenty of scouts have a challenging home situation.

So I'm still searching.

Maybe the first thing to do is define what is meant by awesome. If it's get every scout 3 merit badges in 2, 1 hour classes spread a week apart then you'll see a lot of push back here. However, if you start with what is awesome for one scout working on one MB with one counselor, and then figure out how to scale it up without losing the one on one definition, then you'll have something.

Leadership for whom?  As we were discussing Wood Badge, do you mean training for adults?

 

My first Sm told me that taking care of the Scouts under your leadership was the Gold Standard of leadership.  I had not heard from anyone that meeting that standard was all there was to leadership.

Scouts. I'm finding that they are becoming more willing to take ownership of the calendar and are better at leading events as they focus more on the people. It's a paradox that they don't see and honestly most people never do. I never see that written anywhere. Instead there are vague ideas of leadership. The phrase take care of those under you is too abstract. It could easily be interpreted as "do their work for them". It's a good place to start but needs more.

@@TAHAWK, so in the old days of more outdoor skills and patrol method, how was leadership taught?

My def of burnout: when the crap hill gets higher than your passion. But passion is different for different people. Where it comes from I don't know. I have noticed it is infectious. One person can float an entire boat. I saw a pack go from 60 people to 20 in just a year when their 3 or 4 good people left.

Interesting though that, from another thread, passion for your people is not too far from leadership. BTW, Stosh, I agree with you that WB doesn't give this topic nearly enough attention.

I thought being a DL was also the toughest job, but I do more and deal with more as SM. For me, DL was just waiting for boy scouts. Not nearly as much passion.

I really don't see many rabbinical scholars flipping coins when it comes to which meaning is intended, but go to further clues from the context of the comment.  It is clear that no one knows God's name, so we either leave it blank, use a made up name or we put in a descriptive phrase in it's place.

@@Stosh, I realize you're an expert in a lot of things, but the subject of what rabbinic scholars do? No offense, but I'll listen to a rabbi before I listen to you. Actually, I have. I didn't make up the differences of I am who I am. I saw the quote here, saw that there was a difference of opinion of the translation, and just knew there would be a lot more to this given the importance of that statement. It took me a minute to find the discussion of I shall be vs I am. I thought it would be a fun way to illustrate something interesting about the Bible. I certainly didn't want to start an argument. There's enough of that in this forum.

But, back to the OT, please. Just as religion is full of arguments about a subject that's supposed to be about good will, and this forum is full of arguments about a subject that's supposed to be about good character, the idea of leadership seems to also be full of arguments about a subject we'd all like to encourage. Solve that dilemma and I'll listen.