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K,

As much as I sympathize with your view of BSA leadership training as post-modern jingoism. I'm really not interested in EDGE as it pertains to a concept like patrol method -- even if it were in the syllabus old school style.

We need to know its impact on youth as it pertains to teaching a scouting skill.

You and I can claim it has none. Beav can challenge it's compliance to best practices. We might demonstrate its uselessness in adults learning methods of scouting. But, all of that would not speak to the environment where it's explicitly required to be implemented.

Here's a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone first night pseudo-campfire suggestion ...

Have everyone's cell phones cycle through a bunch of background picks. Toss them in the middle of the circle. Tapping the buttons to keep them lit replaces the throwing logs on. Lights out once the batteries are dead.

Then for the rest of the weekend you don't have to worry about regulating that electronic devices ban!

Guy,

You almost had me there. April fools to you.

Now, by way of testimonial from the opposite camp, one SM of ours had a dreadful fear of public speaking. (I had no clue until the first Court of Honor that we let him lead.) This guy has a lot of outdoor skills, but was really intimidated by the concept of teaching. He appreciated having EDGE in his head because it gave him an outline of what he needed to do to instruct kids.

I'm sure some of you have had similar experiences, but this is anecdotal evidence. What I'd really like to see is some trial, maybe at summer camp. Randomly assign 1st years to EDGE-training or some alternative (maybe even no training), teach them a scout skill. Then have them teach the skill to Webelos. Quiz the Webelos the following day and see if there is a significantly higher rate of skill-retention in the group taught by EDGE-educated scouts.

Why do this? Because for every other skill, I can explain to a boy its importance. (E.g., why talking to a community leader about rights and responsibilities is better than showing me a grade report on your civics test, why "Reach, Throw, Row" is likely to save your life, why a sloppy lashing is going to make your trebuchet fail.) Life experience tells me that meeting these requirements helps one integrate into their community, forestall death, launch projectiles farther.

But, I can't explain why a boy being able to decipher an acronym is going to do any better than a boy just spending time helping his brother until he learns it. If I can say to a boy "Weblos taught by scouts using EDGE scored higher on their knot test. So learning EDGE will make you a more efficient instructor." Well, that would be a game-changer.

Aw buc,

At least whatever these posters are saying is there for everyone else to judge. (Note that some have gotten flamed with more vitriol than you could stir up on your own.)

The sad part about troop and crew life is this stuff goes on behind the leader's back. It's in plain English, it's more divisive than you could ever imagine, and it shuts the kids down because they're old enough to know what's being said, but not old enough to assert themselves and put us all in line. Some the scuttlebutt takes years to resolve.

So if we're treating your "Chatty Kataryzna's" like a molehill when you think it's a mountain, it's because some of us think we'd be better off trading a problem like yours for one of ours. Fact is, you are well within your rights to pick and choose which advice (even down to the "PC or not" arguments) applies to you.

Just

1. remember the cubs are listening, and

2. let us know how it plays out for you in the long run.

Never know when our "mountain" might look an awful lot like your "molehill"!

E61,

I am a little nervous the times I am not out with my boys -- especially the youngest who has had asthma his whole life. (Oldest is in college -- takes the girlfriend on wilderness outings with the youth fellowship, so now I'm nervous for her, too!)

That's why I said understanding the SM's "risk equation" is so important. Unfortunately, that involves time around campfires getting to know the man (and his assistants). You may get answers of why he did what he did at a committee meeting or some other venue, but the tone may be different.

How my parents could drum up the courage to just trust me to my SM, I'll never know. (Of course being the youngest child, they were battle-hardened.)

One of our dads did make a serious bonehead move on a hike a while back. The boys were furious at him. When he reviewed it with me I replied, "Well, at least it's not me they're mad at for once." A seasoned adult leader should be used to a little humble pie. If you're able to approach him in a friendly tone, he should be able to talk to you about the incident: what went wrong, what went right, and what he would do differently.

The "who" should probably be documented on your council's annual report. Chances are the name and number is on the campership application form.

The "how much" should be a line item on your council's budget, unless managed as a separate fund. If that's the case then it would be on the income/expense report. And as E92 mentioned, that could in several places depending on how your council is organized.

Your's is an important question. Every year I hand out our church financial report to my 3rd-5th grade Sunday school class. I tell them, "This is the one document that you should use to decide where you will worship on a regular basis."

I agree that waiting for kids to grow out of the middle-school drama-every-minute behavior is what makes the Venturing program work as a co-ed thing. The 14-16 year old "flirt" (male or female) can be confronted by older youth and brought in line. The 12-13 year old typically is getting too much of a rise out of the attention (negative or positive) to realize that there's a need to cut the act and get with the program!

Bottom line: lacking moms who will push for a culture change, nothing is going to happen. And this nation still has plenty of moms who are very happy with the GS-USA culture for lil' Mary and the BSA culture for Bobby.

We only have a minority of girls who feel they should be immersed in the BSA ethos. Moreover, when a venturing young lady starts with the anti-GS speach (most of them have at least one), we instruct them to tone down the rhetoric and do something constructive like promote our next super-activity.

Bottom line: Unless there's a groundswell of youth who look around them and say, "Hey, things could be different," things aren't changing. And I don't see a lot of US boys (or girls) who consider the co-ed programs of other nations as anything more than a curiousity.

Seriously, do any of you have BS Troops asking their SM's why the Jr. High girls can't come around?

Or, you could tell a kid:

Read the handbook, have them read the handbook, do the handbook, have them do the handbook.

Why? Because the purpose of the knots (and anything you need to explain) IS IN THE HANDBOOK.

RTHHTRTHDTHHTDTH is not a catchy mnemonic, but it doesn't need to be. And because it's content laden, I'll warrant it's easier to remember.

But I'm just guessing. Where are those education grad students looking for a research study?

F.Y.I. - I had two very responsible parents, and I got bullied my first year in my troop. So, don't blame it on the single parent thing.

The bullies didn't back off, but more of us stood up to them. Eventually they left, we stayed.

The SM tried to maintain discipline. I don't know if he talked to my parents or not. From my perspective it didn't work.

On the other hand, I stayed, they left.

I had experienced bullying before scouts. My mom's advice, "stop whining, get big." I didn't quite know what to do with that at the time she gave it, but she did raise three older boys and one girl, so I figured there was no point in disagreeing. At the same time she let the bullies know in no uncertain terms that expected better from them.

Somehow it all worked out.

bt -

Choosing the right number of partners is part of the hike plan, isn't it?

I see nothing precluding family hikes. However, I would encourage the boy to team up with another youth or two in his community to work on this. They might appreciate the company. (You didn't hear me say girlfriends, but ...)

As Beav's post indicates, summer may be no less perilous than winter, and a partner who can't see identify heat stroke or hypothermia would do you no good. So you want to teach the boy to aim for quality, not a certain number.

Peri - References are a fairly modern thing. They require written language. We've been teaching as a species long before we had writing. .... (I've seen no evidence that cave paintings were instructional.)

Well, since we don't know who was allowed to look at the paintings, we don't know how instructional they were. I'm only speculating there. So, yes as a species with implicitly EDGE-type methods, we all got along quite nicely before cuneiform. (at least until the ripe old age of 40, the half of us who didn't die in infancy, but who knew it there were ways to beat that gambit?)

Modern, as in civilization-as-we-know-it modern?

Just a generation (600 B.C.) before the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, Josiah instuted what would later become the synagogue model of teaching young men in the absence of a temple. From that point forward Jewish (and Christian) history was riddled with the use of references for instruction.

Pliny the Elder's natural histories were so first century, but people refered to them. Lost to us was a treatise of his on "Throwing a Javelin from a Horse," but I'm pretty sure the Roman calvary gave it a read -- much to their enemies' dismay.

Arabs (and many other Eastern cultures) were very referential in their learning. (Read one or two Hadiith and you'll get the idea. Each is a saying so-and-so son of so-and-so brother of so-and-so heard from the Prophet.) They built hospitals and astrolabes and wrote travel documentaries and propogated symbolic arithmetic.

For Europe, on the other hand, it was The Dark Ages. Folks were mostly illiterate and taught non-referentially. Life was on the EDGE, literally. I'm pretty sure that I don't want to throw my kids back in the dark ages.

We teach our own kids skills (using similar methods to EDGE) long before they can use a reference.

Maybe until they're eight -- and that's only if we discount TV as a reference. After that they get a book from the library or an article online, and start explaining to ME what I should be doing!

I'll grant reference require's literacy. But I think that's the point. If a boy knows "reference" is an important part of teaching a skill, he'll know that his ability to read and interpret are important parts of learning a skill.

And Beav, I'm not joking.

I decided to get off of my high horse and make sure I understand what people are thinking when they promote this "made up poppycock".

Why? Because my scouts are critical thinkers, and sooner or later one or two of them will ask the "what's the point" question. Even if I don't believe it, I want to be able to give them some useful background so that they know why some people do.

Peri,

Thanks for the article. It's not exactly what I wanted but it was very insightful.

But here's the rub ... based on your last comment -it's really no different than people have been teaching other people from the beginning of humankind (except of course for the catchy mnemonic) Well, actually it is. Because from the beginning of humankind we've been making references (cave paintings, wall diagrams, statues, books, blogs, ...) that were central to skill acquisition. Or, at least we thought they were. By omitting "reference" (or handbook, in the case of teaching scout skills) EDGE implies that that step is non-essential.

The question remains, were we being inefficient by telling kids to involve reading a reference as part of skill acquisition/imparting? Will kids be taught just as well not learning to take that step at some point in their teaching process?

Further questions are:

Is EDGE too much of a deviation from deDICT for the sake of maintaining an nmemonic?

Do kids without the mnemonic teach as successfully as kids who've been given it?

OGE, I guess you've figured out that I'm interested in the teaching method. (BTW, I'm the kid who learned all of the FC knots from the book before my first meeting -- except taught-line hitch.)

On the bright side, you got 13 more crossovers than we did this year.

Does anyone have a bibliography on the EDGE method?

I've decided to stop being an armchair skeptic until I've learned how it does or does not improve a person's teaching ability.

I tried Google scholar. "Trainer's EDGE" comes up with a couple of books on computer and distance instruction. "EDGE Method" brings up lots of articles in physics and math. Nothing to do with pedagogy. Is it out there under another name?

What would really be interesting is some type of randomized trial. What would be gravy is if the trial involved 12 - 15 year old instructors and learners.

Okay people, this has nothing to do with my utter and complete disdain for EDGE.

If I have not kept up with my water rescues, someone may die. Same with paddle safety, chainsaws, etc ... We all forget details, so being reminded every couple of years is a good idea. Each fine point remembered removes us one degree from calamity.

If your not up to date with the best dog-and-pony-show you can do for your trainees, will they die?

Granted, I've not formally taken trainer's edge, so maybe I'm missing something. But do you guys on the training side of things feel like refresher courses every few years are essential? Isn't doing training frequently and getting evaluated what you really need?

Tell 'em that if traumatized son wants to bring up the issue, he'll have potentially 6 SM conferences and BORs to do so. If scars are too deep, he may remind us of them in his speech at his Eagle ceremony.

Our past two trips no scouts capsized. Wished I could've said the same for adults.

The second guessing is endless. The best you could do is listen to the SM and understand his "risk equation" as much as it can be understood.

Sometimes hugging a shoreline has disadvantages, such as submerged logs and rocks that will quickly throw a boat bobbing in high waves.

Sometimes guys make bonehead moves. That's why preparedness on other levels (clothes and a drybag) makes a difference.

Picasa (i.e. Google Photos) gives me just enough to be dangerous. My crew youth use it pretty well.

Sounds like Barry's approach would fit well with the kids you have who are really gung-ho.

You may have to challenge your committee to be flexible with this "side show", but more likely they will be thrilled that you want to offer a specialty program.

One more thing, on your first hike, bring a guide book or maps for three options for your next tour. If your BP-ers are like mine, they are all ears about options while resting by mile markers -- not so much at meetings.

I guess what I like about Venturing and OA programs is the culture clash that is inevitible when youth A and youth B discover their respective troops have not really emphasized a particular method or another ...

"You mean you really are excited about silver epaulets?"

"You actually shop and cook for your crew?"

"Woa! You have Mr./Mrs. ___ on speed dial?" [Or, whatever they call it these days.]

"Wait, you're going hiking AFTER SUNSET????"

"You'd rather camp by yourself than with another patrol in your troop?" (B.T.W., that'd be one of my boys. We perpetually ad hoc.)

So, whatever your position (pick-and-choose, prioritize, in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound), make sure your boys get some exposure to other units so you can hear from them which method needs to be ramped up in your unit.

Any idea why Trainer's EDGE would expire?

[Resisting temptation. Resisting. Failing....]Because it is a non-referential method of pedagogy; therefore, you are dependent on on someone else to remind you of it LEST YOU FORGET!!!!!

As long as the target's non-human ...

G!

Sounds like a solid plan to me. Except the President and VP's are youth positions. That's right, have the kids be responsible for filling out the tour plan for next month's activity and getting it back to you for your's and the CC/COR's approval.

You want the adults to be available as consultants in their area of expertise. Mine literally sit and wait for a youth to contact them before they act. Then they'll outline with the youth what needs to be done to make an activity happen. They look at the crew calendar, and take turns serving as chaperons. Every now and then they show up with chocolate chip cookies.

Sharing with a troop is always a hassle. But think of it this way: if your crew did this with no input from the troop, would you earn as much? Can you leverage the efforts of some of the scouts since the funds are going to be split? (Like the older boys say, the younger scouts have the "cute factor" in their favor.)

My 2 cents: let the troop have the trailer and half the supplies! Venturers pack light! Regardless (and this is where that "wild ride" comes in), let your youth know the issues (try to explain it in 3 minutes or less), tell them you are going to leave the room for 5 minutes and when you return, you want their decision about going forward with the fundraiser if they have to go halvsies with the troop.

Even without having to split earnings, mine all decided that they could get part-time jobs or work summer camp buy up or get handed down gear and pool their resources for activities.

Having had to instruct 1st year through 3rd year scouts to finally conquer the intimidation of the swim test, I found the picture very natural. (Although, not as photgenic that lifeguard.)

The point is to get you in the frame of mind of the kid who can't seem to pass that test. It's a strange situation. You don't fit in. Nothing feels right. There's this guy who is supposed to help you, but you're stuck in some kind of limbo waiting him to give you an instruction that your body has no clue how to follow!

Most boys have no problem with this situation, but every year there's that odd one or two -- or that odd year when you have a number of boys -- who can't seem to beat the headgame and make their body work for them.

If you were never phased by an aquatics challenge, the picture will do you the favor of capturing the creepiness of it all. And that, my friends, is what will keep an otherwise bouyant body from covering 100 yards.