Wrong on so many levels

[clemlaw]

In the other thread, allangr1024 wrote:

 

>>>>So we tend to have inexperienced and untrained MBC's who are brought in to troop meetings to teach the badge, and the scouts do not learn the stuff well. As someone has said, it is too much like school. >My son needed to build a crystal diode radio for the Communications Merit Badge in the Boy Scouts. I searched the internet to find a good price and this was it. The instructions were fairly easy to understand and my son built it himself without supervision. But he was unable to get it working. I took a look at it and found that the problems he had were primarily due to incorrectly orienting the kit's chassis to the drawing. Maybe colored springs would make it easier to know what connects where but I can't fault them for that, there needs to be some challenge. The real issue I have with the radio is it doesn't pull in radio stations very well..... However the radio worked just enough for my son to get his merit badge.

 

[moosetracker]

Don't blame the Troop.. It could just be the parent, who is not going to see the sense of the scout doing for himself, no matter what is said to the scout or to him.

 

Take a few months back when I and a few others on the board tried to reason with a father who felt his son was earning the family life merit badge requirement of doing tasks around the house for 3 months. He reminded, pushed and dragged a complaining son over to do his chores, he did them "reluctantly" thus he did the requirement.

 

When stated why this was wrong, he stated that it was not written in the requirement that parents could not help, therefore it was ok for him to help..

 

Point out the passage in the MB pamplet where it stated the scout needed to do the tasks cheerfully, without being reminded to show they could be depended on.. Still the parent was of the mindset that since it was not specifically in the requirements the words in the pamplet didn't count.

 

Now, even had I not found a passage in the MB book.. How many of us would have needed it to know that unless the words state "with your counsilor" or "with a family member" or whatever.. It means the scout needs to do on there own.. But, there are those who will argue that unless stated in the requirements it is adding to the MB requirements, to expect the common rules and policies of the Boy scout program to be applied.

 

So don't blame an entire troop for the beliefs of one parent. Parents can be stubborn creatures.

[clemlaw]

Well, yes.

 

My first reaction was to blame the whole BSA, so at least I narrowed it down a little bit more. But you're right--it might not be the troop's fault.

 

But yes, it might be one parent who hasn't figured out the program. Like I mentioned, perhaps the most troubling part was the fact that the guy felt comfortable telling this story in public.

[AwHeck]

There is no requirement to build a radio in the current Radio MB. You do need to be able to draw several components and locate some of them.

[clemlaw]

Just to make sure, I looked through the Communications MB requirements, and I didn't see anything about a crystal set. And I can't think of any other MB where it's a requirement.

 

So that gives me hope that perhaps his son is a Cub Scout, and instead of a "merit badge", it was actually some elective or something.

 

If that's the case, other than being a little bit mixed up on the terminology, everything is well.

[moosetracker]

And you could be right, I am unsure how much talking about merit badges we do with the parents of new scouts. Yes, our troop will talk about the difference of Akala and that now with the requirements in the Boy Scout Handbook, the scout must do the work and be signed off by someone else in the troop.. The difference between "do your best" and that now they must "Do compentently".. But with new scouts and their parents you try to focus them on the requirements of Tenderfoot thru First Class, and not about the merit badge program.

 

So hopefully when the MB courses come you hope the parents and the sons have had enough time in the troop to incorporate the overall viewset of the program into the merit badge program as well.

 

So maybe we are one of "those troop" by fault of omissions..

 

And yes there are troops out there that just run what is termed the Merit Badge Factories and encourage their parents to still act as Akala, and help their scouts through the requirements..

 

You just never know.. I just hate blaming an entire troop for all the faults when looking at a single scout (or scout parent) as a reference.. You just never know what the background of the troop is.. Is this scout a model example of the entire program, or is this one of the headache "helicopter parent" or lazy scout who believed he was entititled to something without the work, that the troop needed to endure..

[shortridge]

Building a crystal diode radio is a Bear elective in the Cub Scout program.

 

RADIO

Build a crystal or diode radio. Check with your local craft or hobby shop or the nearest Scout shop that carries a crystal radio kit. It is all right to use a kit.

Make and operate a battery powered radio, following the directions with the kit.

 

- http://www.boyscouttrail.com/cub-scouts/bear-scouts.asp

[clemlaw]

Ah, I feel much better.

 

That must have been the "merit badge" that his "boy scout" was working on.

 

As Emily Litella would say, "never mind". (This message has been edited by clemlaw)

[CalicoPenn]

I read that paragraph from that parent and no where in it do I see mention that the parent corrected the problem. I see where the parent did the troubleshooting (and in the real world, most of us, if we believe we've done things correctly and it still isn't functioning, will ask someone else to take a look and see if they can figure out the problem) but it doesn't say the parent then fixed the problem. Yet I certainly see that some folks imediately fixated on the parent as a problem.

 

And if my memory serves me correctly (and I'm pretty sure in this case it does), the crystal radio I built from a kit when I was a Cub Scout just barely worked too. But then "just barely worked" was in comparison to the little blue cub scout transistor radio I had gotten at Christmas (anyone remember those?). If I didn't have a transistor radio to compare it to, I might have thought the crystal radio was working just great.

[clemlaw]

>>>>>I read that paragraph from that parent and no where in it do I see mention that the parent corrected the problem.