Giving Rank and Taking Rank Away; IOLS Test Out Spin Off

[Eagle92]

Ok we got into the topic taking rank away if scouts do not continue to show profeivency with skills. My question is this.

 

1) How many units have an active program that uses those skills continually?

 

2)How many units have older scouts teaching younger ones?

 

3) How many units allow junior leaders, i.e. PLs, Instructors, etc OR those appointed by the SPL and SM to teach skills, i.e. Scout who needs to teach basic first aid skills for First Aid MB, to also sign off on T-2-1 requriements?

[BartHumphries]

I replied in that other thread and said:

The boys can never lose a rank advancement simply by forgetting what they once knew. Once an Eagle, always an Eagle, even if it's been enough years that you no longer remember how to tie a bowline (the rabbit comes out of the hole, around the tree...). The same goes for the other rank advancements for boys. It may be that you shouldn't have earned something to begin with, but once you've earned it, it's yours and unless you're expelled from the scouting program (which is a council action, not a troop action), those things cannot be taken away from you.

Anyway, every unit should have an active program that teaches those things continually and where older scouts teach younger scouts. However, in my opinion, only the scoutmaster should sign off on requirements since he should be overseeing any training going on. That being said, validating that training is sort of the point of the board of review, so I can certainly understand other troops who allow boys who've completed something to sign off on a requirement for a boy who's just learning something. Every troop is different, right?

[Beavah]

Yah, hmmmm....

 

I'm sorta with BartHumphries, eh? I think most of the time when yeh see a lad whose skills aren't proficient for his rank, it's because the folks signing off on rank - youth, SM, and BOR aren't expecting proficiency in their troop. Maybe the adults or youth aren't proficient themselves, maybe they're takin' the easy way out. Whatever.

 

I think once yeh really are proficient at something, yeh don't forget it. Leastways, not in the amount of time we're talkin' about for youth. If yeh really are proficient at starting a fire, odds are you can not go camping for 10 years and still puzzle your way through it and start a fire just fine. So if after 6 months a boy has "forgotten" a skill, it's because he was never proficient in da first place, and the troop didn't expect proficiency from him (or he scammed an easy signoff from a "weak link"). However it happened, he was shortchanged and perhaps as a man of honor he should go back and really finish his rank.

 

Da other problem is Eagle92's #1, eh? I think some skills are maybe not used much by some troops, so they don't really care to teach 'em to proficiency. Presumably kids get proficient in setting up tents, but maybe not in map & compass navigation if they only do car camping, eh? Or maybe not in fire building if they live in one of da areas where there are burn bans most of the year. Or maybe not in knot tying if all their gear is modern nylon and velcro .

 

That to my mind is partly a problem with da troop program, and partly a problem with da requirements, eh? The requirements should be things that a boy needs to be proficient in to be a good outdoorsman and citizen in his unit. The unit might need to do more backpacking to make map & compass worthwhile, eh? At da same time, if a requirement says yeh have to climb 1000 feet and yeh live in Florida, yeh probably aren't going to get proficient in that .

 

I think most units have older scouts teaching younger ones, but relatively few have older scouts teaching younger ones well. Teachin' is a whole separate skill to learn, and most units really don't teach lads how to teach (beyond that trite EDGE thing).

 

I think many units have youth leaders sign off on T-2-1, eh? But if they never really became proficient themselves, or weren't taught high expectations for their own signoffs, it's easy for 'em to be a "nice guy" and not be too strict on signoffs.

 

Beavah

 

[JerseyScout]

1) How many units have an active program that uses those skills continually?

 

It depends on the skills. It is possible for any Scout unit to use all the skills all the time?

 

2)How many units have older scouts teaching younger ones?

 

We have that for almost all of the requirements, save a few where the requirements require than an adult sign off (Scout spirit, that first class one where you talk about your rights with an adult, etc).

 

3) How many units allow junior leaders, i.e. PLs, Instructors, etc OR those appointed by the SPL and SM to teach skills, i.e. Scout who needs to teach basic first aid skills for First Aid MB, to also sign off on T-2-1 requriements?

 

In my troop, anyone 1st Class or above can sign off for any T-2-1 rank requirement. At their 1st Class Scoutmaster conference, I go through the signing process (don't make it easier or harder, a Scout is trustworthy, all that good stuff).

 

Apart from the questions, I had a Surveying instructor (land surveying) in high school that made every one of our tests open book for both years of the program, including the midterms and finals. His reasoning was that a) if you didn't study, the textbook wasn't going to help you much over the span of an entire test and b) if you are a professional surveying, you can always open up a book and look something up if you are unsure or forget it. He believed the skill of knowing where to look to find information was just as important as the skill itself.

 

So will Scouts forget some of their skills? Absolutely. But when a younger Scout approaches them to help with a requirement, they can go into their books to refresh or reteach themselves. They can then either quiz or teach the younger Scout. This way BOTH Scouts are learning, or at the very least, refreshing their skills.

[TNScoutTroop]

We've no interest in a dispute, but we can offer two observations.

 

From our reading of older Scout literature, the idea that Scout badges indicate PRESENT skills seems to have been associated, in Hillcourt's, BP's, and other's minds, fundamentally with being prepared. In other words, it appears that in their minds, a Scout whose skills had lapsed was unprepared.

 

Also, several of us learned at least some Scoutcraft and rescue skills long ago . . . and have found that we retained the ones we were willing to use.

 

If you learn a skill, expecting that you will NOT use it . . . you probably won't. But, if you expect that you WILL use it, and have been mentally prepared to do so, the chance that an occasion for it's use increases dramatically. We've seen this be true with plant / animal ID, land nav, and especially, rescue skills.

 

TN Scout Troop

[Eagle92]

TN et al,

I think that the point TN makes

 

"If you learn a skill, expecting that you will NOT use it . . . you probably won't. But, if you expect that you WILL use it, and have been mentally prepared to do so, the chance that an occasion for it's use increases dramatically."

 

Is 100% right on. Now my question is: why do some units not expect the skill to be used and retained?

[BartHumphries]

Even if you expect to use it, without looking at it again, it's still easy to forget how to do it. I worked at a scout camp for multiple summers and one of the things I taught was the Pioneering merit badge. I tied those knots multiple times a day every day for months. I helped dozens and dozens of kids learn how to tie all those things. Recently i went to teach some of our boys those things for the First Class lashing requirements and I blanked on how to tie a clove hitch. Luckily I go through everything that I plan to do before I do it, so I could just go look it up and then I was ready to teach it again. Very simple knot, but I just couldn't remember what it looked like, even though most all lashing begins with it.

 

I took precalculus in high school, then the first part of calculus in college. Then I left school and just worked and recently went back to college. One of the courses I took was calculus and holy toledo was it difficult -- while learning calculus I also had to relearn all the algebra and trigonometry that I'd forgotten because there just wasn't much call to use the quadratic equation in my everyday life.

 

It's just a fact of life, if you don't continue to use and develop a skill, you're not going to be as good as if you still maintained that skill and the longer you go without using it at all, the more likely you are to forget more things. It may or may not come back very quickly, depending on how well you learned it to begin with. You may retain things for a longer or shorter period of time based on how well you learned it the first time. But forgetting things as time goes by really is a fact of life -- it's why literally every "professional" field mandates yearly "continuing education". You need to keep updating your skills or they'll be lost.

 

That being said, once you have really earned something in the Boy Scouts of America, it can't be taken away from you on a troop level, no matter how much you've forgotten. The Council or National might be able to do that, but it's not something that a Scoutmaster or Unit Committee can do.

[clemlaw]

It's been a long time since I've been a Scout. I'm not sure I remember how to make a "Clove Hitch", although I did have to know how for Tenderfoot. For whatever reason, I never did have to use that one over the years. I bet I could re-learn it, but I hope I don't fail a surprise test and have my Eagle taken away.

 

I don't know what the exact requirements are these days for Tenderfoot through First Class. But I don't think any of them are rocket science. Yes, I suppose one or two scouts might forget exactly how to make a clove hitch, but if a troop is running even a slightly active program, it's going to be impossible for scouts to forget most of those basic skills.

 

So if a Scout really has forgotten everything he learned for Tenderfoot, the solution is not to take that badge away from him. A better remedy would be for the troop to surrender its charter, because they obviously failed him.

[clemlaw]

BartHumphries, it looks like we were both typing at the same time. Shame on you for forgetting the Clove Hitch too.

[Beavah]

Nah, BartHumphries, I don't agree with yeh this time.

 

Both of your examples involve an awful lot of time, eh? Yah, you were once proficient in da clove hitch, but if yeh go for decades, yeh might forget, especially as we old folks have brains that are slowly decaying, eh? . But that's not true of young people over da course of a few months or years, instead of decades. If they can't do it 6 months later, then they never really were proficient in da first place.

 

That's my objection to TNScoutTroop, eh? If a lad can't do it down the road a ways, the problem isn't the boy not maintaining proficiency, the problem is that the troop never taught and tested him to proficiency in da first place. So what they need to look at is fixing that, eh?

 

Yah, sure, yeh can also establish a notion of personal honor, where if yeh discover yeh really can't do something you either work your tail off to fix it or you surrender your badge until you do. But that should also apply to the SM and adult leaders, eh?

 

So when yeh take that boy's badge away, yeh take away the SM's and the BOR's privileges until they can demonstrate the ability to teach and recognize real, long-term proficiency in youth.

 

Sauce for the goose, eh?

 

Beavah

[CalicoPenn]

It doesn't take decades to forget something we've learned. It just takes the time we move from one test to another. If I test you on the clove hitch this week and then start concentrating on new skills next week, unless you're given an opportunity to practice the clove hitch in real life situations, then by the time your being tested on all the new skills you've been learning, chances are great that you will have forgotten how to tie the clove hitch.

 

Apparently, many of you have forgotten what it's like being a student with cram sessions at the end of a semester for final exams - we don't engage in cram sessions because we've remembered everything we've been taught in a semester, we engage in cram sessions because we've forgotten much of what we've been taught, and tested on, throughout a semester.

 

 

 

 

[Beavah]

Nah, Calico, I disagree.

 

Scouting is not school, eh? Nor should it be.

 

From what da kids tell me, the norm in school is to cram for each test, eh? I don't think things have changed much in 50 years . So they never really learned to proficiency during the semester. Instead, the system is set up to let 'em get by with something less than really learning. And like any good teenagers, they're going to play the system.

 

Scouting should be different, eh? The Scouting standard for rank advancement is proficiency in outdoor skills, not cram for the quiz on Tuesday's meeting so I can forget it by the following Tuesday. If yeh let 'em do the cram-and-forget thing, then yeh aren't doing good Scouting.

 

I reckon it's been a few years since I actually started a fire myself, eh? The scouts usually do it . But I could start a fire right this minute if someone asked me to. Been 6 months since I did any real off-trail map and compass navigation for any distance, but I could do it tomorrow. I have to renew my AHA CPR cert next month (2 year renewal), but I could handle someone coding on the street this afternoon if need be. That's what Scouting should be. Learning to proficiency. We expect when we give a lad a BSA Lifeguard certification that it's good for 3 years, eh? They've learned well enough that they won't need a refresher for three whole years and will still be able to save someone's life.

 

That's a far cry from learn it this week, forget it next week.

 

Beavah

 

[boomerscout]

Stuff not used can be forgotten in three months time -- just ask any elementary school teacher. The first two months of any school year usually needs to be a review of what was learned earlier.

The brain is energy efficient. So, if something is learned, but not later used, those synaptic connections are just going to dissipate.

We like sending the troop to 2x a year camporees so they can participate in the skill contests. Same for the Klondike. Same for intratroop Scoutcraft contests on a regular basis while out camping - one time may be a treasure hunt, another rescue the plane crash victims, etc

[Beavah]

Stuff not used can be forgotten in three months time

 

Yet we only require one swim check per year. If a lad really knows how to swim, do we really think he's goin' to forget how in three months? Around here, da lakes are frozen for more than 3 months. We also don't seem to have trouble with any young fellows forgetting how to ride a bike over the winter either.

 

Which should we be doin' in Scouting... teaching kids to swim, or teaching kids to get by on the swim test? Teaching 'em how to ride a bike, or preparing 'em for Monday night's cycling test at da troop meeting?

 

The brain is really great at long term memory and retention if yeh really learn something. It's only the short-term cram stuff that is transient, but that's not Scouting.

 

Beavah

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[evmori]

Beavah,

 

Don't think you can compare swimming and bike riding to knots. Kids ride bikes and go swimming all the time. There is a good possibility the stuff they do in Scouting is the only time these things are done.