More Eagles than in the Past?

[resqman]

It seems that many more scouts are earning the rank of Eagle than I remember in my day. I was thinking it over wonder what the rest of you think about this idea.

 

Used to be that everyone played recreational sports. You paid you minor fee, and played your 10 games and 10 practices. Everyone knew it was not pro-ball. Lots of kids were also scouts. Just another event in your life.

 

Now every kid picks an area and focuses all their energy on that one membership. Nobody "just" plays rec ball, they only play competitive ball. The rec leagues are almost empty by middle school because everyone has moved up the ladder to tryout teams and travel teams. Same with scouts.

 

Scouts used to be one of many activities boys participated in and lots more causual users were in the program. Not all were driven to earn Eagle, just go camping and have some fun with your buddies. I am seeing more where Scouts is the one event where it is not just about having fun and hanging out with your buddies, but it is a cattle drive to get all the scouts to market as Eagles. Those who are in scouting, are IN Scouting. Not casually but almost professionally in scouting. As a result, the goal of this competive sport we call scouting has become to earn the trophy of Eagle.

 

Or is it just because I am adult leader and I tend to hear about success's more often? What say you?

[Beavah]

Objectively, earning Eagle has become more common. Where it used to be 2% of da membership earned Eagle in any given year, it's now up over 6%. So a 200% increase in 20-30 years. At da same time, membership has declined gradually.

 

I reckon there are a lot of reasons for the trends, eh? Some good, some bad, some just different.

 

Beavah

[BDPT00]

Example is 300%, and I'll bet the 6% is far short of the actual mark. I think resqman has a pretty valid position. Interesting perspective.

BDPT00

[Beavah]

Yah, sorry. For clarity, da BSA reports the % of the Boy Scouting membership that earns Eagle each year. So if 50,000 earn Eagle out of 900,000 Boy scouts, they report 5.6%

 

That's not the same thing as the percentage of boys who join Boy Scouting who earn Eagle. That number is much higher. Since an average boy spends about 4 years in Boy Scouting, usin' the above numbers da Eagle percentage would be 5.6% per year x 4 years per boy = 22.4% chance of earning Eagle per boy who joins.

 

Those are pretty close to what da real figures are.

 

Beavah

 

[BadenP]

Maybe another factor for this large increase is as our friend Kudu constantly reminds us of is the "dumbing down" of the scouting program to the point that the Eagle today is equivalent to the current 2nd or 1st Class rank. While I don't think that this analysis is entirely true there are some very valid points to Kudu's argument that the Eagle of fifty years ago versus a current Eagle scout was better prepared and more knowledgeable in both scoutcraft and leadership skills. So many Eagles today of whom I know, or have sat on their EBOR's are the victims of their "helicopter" parents who push and harrass their boys all the way ,many of whom could care less about being an Eagle.

[Stosh]

The requirements have changed. Just look at FC of the early 1900's most boys would find it difficult if not impossible to attain. Yet with the check the box requirements of today, all one has to do is go through the motions and not really have to think too much about it. Following directions is not the same as leading.

 

Just my opinion.

 

Stosh

[allangr1024]

I know that the thing that held me up from getting Eagle in the 1070's was the practice of making scouts schedule their own merit badges and find and contact a councilor. I got my merit badges at three years of summer camp, period. My SM never encouraged us to earn MB's, never had a MBC list, ect. I did not get out there and earn MB's that way, and then age 16 happened....

 

Today in a lot of troops in our district, you earn MB's in the troop meetings in classes that are a part of the troop meeting plan. Since you need 2 deep leadership, and can have a gang of adults on hand, troop leaders reason that they can do something, like teach a MB. Now, committee advancement guys will direct scouts to the proper MB class so the scout can advance. So, more scouts can get the 21 MB's in the course of 2 years (1 MB per month?)

 

That is the way I see it.

 

[John-in-KC]

What Stosh and BadenP have to say has merit. Certainly I thought it harder to make First Class in the late 60s than my son found it in 2003.

 

BUT...

 

One thing that has been done for the better is to organize the trail a tad.

 

When I was a youth member, I had to have 1 Eagle MB for Star (of 5) and 5 for Life (of 10). That meant Life to Eagle was still an uphill climb.

 

Now, a youth needs 4 Eagle MBs of the minimum 6 for Star. A youth needs 7 Eagle MBs of the minimum 11 for Life. That means he's probably on the downhill slide in terms of MB attainment when he makes Life Scout.

 

That is not a bad thing at all imo.

[Twocubdad]

I agree changes in the requirements and BSA's approach to them (see current definition of "Active") makes it possible for a Scout to skate to Eagle if he wants to.

 

But the greater influence has been social changes over the past three generations. How many of our parents would have spent $5,000 so we could play baseball on a hot-shot travel team? How many would have paid an engineer to seal the plans for our Eagle project?

 

I don't need to write a long post on all the ways children are induldged/supported, depending on how you want to spin the conversation. Making sure little Skippy has Eagle Scout on his college applications is just one of them.

[Basementdweller]

Got a single mom with a neurotic kid who will be an eagle because it is a family tradition. Kid won't sleep with his patrol mates, but in a tent with mom on the outings. He will do it because it is too easy.

 

I will say heck ya, it's easier now than then. The eagle projects I have seen get approved are terrible, either not enough work or things as simple as dad using his backhoe to do work for the CO.

[skeptic]

This has been an issue of sorts for years now. But as always, we are comparing apples to oranges again. Few would disagree that First Class today is not as great an accomplishment as it was prior to 1960 or so, as the skill levels are not as great, and they have removed the "official" review past skills from the program. By that, I mean we still can find ways to reinforce many of the skills; but some are just no longer there, the things that often made the scout focus, such as signaling. But Eagle itself is actually far more difficult, due to the project. Even the absolute minimum project is more than was required prior to around 1966. I am not sure if I would have finished Eagle if I had had to do a project, as I was already working, playing sports, and so on. Would like to think I would have, but who knows.

 

Now, we all are likely familiar with the troops we call "Eagle factories"; but there are fewer than we would think, though the ones that are there skew stats dramatically I think. We have one large troop here that averages 10 Eagles a year. I have sat on many of their BOR's, and some barely have met the requirements. Still, a surprisingly large number are actually very fine examples, in my opinion.

 

Finally, I would have to agree with the original premise though. As a SM for over 30 years, I have seen a gradual change in the membership focus, as noted. And we have far more of the "overly concerned" parents than we once did. Surely one of the reasons we stay small, and continue to struggle to bring in webelos, is the fact that I personally try to avoid pushing kids too hard, and counsel parents to back off a lot more than once seemed needed. Our troop has fewer than 50 Eagles in just under 90 years, so we certainly would never be considered a "factory". Yet, we seem to have a pretty high proportion of boys stay through high school just the same.

 

Interesting discussion.

[Troop24]

allangr1024 you are really showing your age. . . the 1070's! Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

I do think that resqman does have a point about the "driven" quality of some of the modern day scouts. If they are going to involved in the program they might as well concentrate all their efforts on the ultimate goal. Only two of my scouts (out of 18) are involved in sports. The rest have only scouting as their extracurricular activity. But not all of them are Eagle bound. I have three life scouts that have been just sitting out the project for the last 18 months or so. I figure they know what they need to do and will come seeking further guidance when they are ready!

[Eamonn]

Maybe it's the adults who are serving the Scouts are the reason?

Seems to me that at one time the adults knew a lot more about what we called Scout-craft.

A great deal of time was spent preparing for making yourself comfortable in the great outdoors and then doing stuff in the great outdoors.

Troop meetings were planned around teaching and learning these skills, weekends were spent putting into practice the stuff that had been done at the Troop meetings.

I meet far too many adult leaders who just don't have the skills and seem happy not to acquire them.

Troop meetings are about inviting a parent who qualifies as a MBC to attend and cover that badge. Then the only requirement in order to "Earn" the badge is to have sat through Mr. Soandso class.

When I was Skipper I never met a Boy Scout no matter what Boy Scout rank he held who was able to tie even the basic knots, most had no idea how to use a map and a compass.

With the exception of one Lad who had all sorts of problems. Each and every Lad was able to master this stuff.

So who is at fault? Who signed off that he was able to do this stuff? And more importantly -Why did they sign off?

A lot of the blame can also be placed with Council run summer camps, it is bad enough that Scouts spend an entire week rushing from MB class to class but worse still is the MB's that are being offered. Do we really need to cover the Citizen MB's at camp? Is summer camp the place for MB's that really should be about something that a Lad has an interest in, not something that he feels he has to do because the SM sees he has an open hour after lunch. I'm thinking about MB's like Art and the like.

(End of Rant.)

Ea.

[clemlaw]

I made Eagle in 1978. Now, first of all, I do realize that this was during the "improved" Scouting program of the 1970's, but what I'm about to say would also be true during the 1960's. (I had already mostly completed the First Class requirements by the time of the switch over. Also, I--and every other Eagle I knew--completed mostly the same Eagle required MB's. There were alternates for many of them, such as Emergency Preparedness for Lifesaving, but I'm not aware of anyone who took advantage of the "easier" alternate required MB's.)

 

When I made Eagle, I do remember thinking to myself that it wasn't really that big a deal. Basically, I had completed about 21 Merit Badges, most of which did not require any superhuman feats on my part. There was only one that I would describe as very difficult, and that was Lifesaving. In some ways, I'm more proud of that one MB than I am of the Eagle award itself. There were about 10 more required MB's. In most cases, I earned those as a result of just going along with the program, and showing up at camp. That's not to say that they were "signed off" just for showing up. But in the course of camping, I cooked meals, set up tents, paddled canoes, rowed boats, etc. We learned how to do most of these things for the sake of knowing how to do them. And in the course of actually engaging in these activities, we earned merit badges, and most of those were the required merit badges.

 

Personally, I thought the dreaded "Citizenship" merit badges (there were three at the time, IIRC--community, nation, and world) were pretty easy. But I was more of a bookish kid, so maybe for the non-scholars, those were more difficult. But they weren't anything particularly difficult.

 

That left about ten non-required merit badges. In some ways, most merit badges today are, indeed, "easier" than they were back then. Quite a few scouts have earned _all_ of the merit badges, which would have been impossible when I was a scout. It was impossible back then because a few were very hard, and a few more or less required that the scout live on a farm, and that the farm produce a particular product. For example, Cattle Production, Hog Production, etc., pretty much required that the Scout have access to the beast in question on a regular basis. It would be basically impossible for a city kid to earn this Merit Badge.

 

Currently, as far as I can tell, there are no more "impossible" merit badges of this type. There are also fewer "difficult" merit badges, namely, a merit badge that requires a scout to gain mastery of an arcane skill. For example, Radio Merit Badge, when I earned it, required Morse Code at 5 Words Per Minute. While definitely not impossible, a Scout who does not have this interest to some extent is not going to learn Code just to earn a merit badge. Today, there are very few of these "difficult" merit badges.

 

However, the current absence of "impossible" and "difficult" merit badges does _not_ explain why there are more Eagles. It is definitely not a case of the program being "dumbed down" from what it was in the 60's and 70's. Because while there are _more_ "easy" merit badges today than there were back then, the "easy" merit badges did exist back then.

 

Then, as now, a Scout needs only about ten non-required Merit Badges. Today, there is a much wider selection to chose from. A city kid, if he wants to, can easily earn Animal Science merit badge, even though his counterpart from the 1960's would not have been able to earn the predecessor badges.

 

But back in the day, we still had plenty of "easy" ones. Ones that come to mind (some of which I earned, some of which I did not), include: Basket Weaving (not sure of the name); Stamp Collecting; Coin Collecting: Fingerprinting; etc.

 

Also, back in my day, most shop teachers (who may or may not have been certified MBC's) were willing to sign off scouts on the respective Merit Badge. For example, I earned drafting and printing based upon my teacher's signature. I imagine the course covered more or less the same topics as the MB, but as far as I know, the teacher never went through the requirements specifically.

 

The long and short of it is that the 10 non-required MB's could be earned pretty easily, and the required MB's could be earned pretty easily just by showing up and participating in the program.

 

The main thing that the Eagle badge demonstrates, IMHO, is that the Scout had a certain amount of perserverance. To earn Eagle, the Scout had to track down those 10 non-required MB's. Adults would give nudges when necessary, but they rarely set up "classes" in which Scouts could simply enroll.

 

Also, the Scout had to stick with the program for a few years, long enough to go to camp, and engage in the activities that were going on there--like camping, cooking, canoeing, etc. During the process, it would be hard _not_ to earn most of the MB's.

 

And occasionally, a few Scouts might require a gentle reminder that they had better call up Mr. ____ and make an appointment to start on _____ Merit Badge. Even that was pretty rare, but when they made the call, there weren't any particularly difficult requirements to meet.

 

And Eagle projects have become more difficult. I doubt if my Eagle project would have qualified today. I know for sure that I would have had to document it better today. And I suspect that I would have been asked to add a few hours to follow up on it.

 

My project was a little more arcane than most--it basically involved recruiting volunteers to work on an ongoing basis. Again, I suspect if I had proposed it today, I would be asked to do more follow up, to make sure that some volunteer activity actually took place as a result of my efforts. (I know it did, but I don't have any way to quantify it.) Most Eagle projects back then, as now, were construction projects. The difference is that, back then, the beneficiary was often a council camp. (A typical project was to cut logs and move them into place in an amphitheater or outdoor chapel.) Most projects from then would probably pass muster today, but a lot more documentation seems to be required these days.

 

Also, I barely remember my EBOR, so it must not have been nearly as daunting as the ones I read about today. I was under the impression that it was conducted by the Troop, and not the District or Council, but I could be mistaken. There might have been District representatives, but IIRC, it was mostly members of the Troop committee.

 

So some things have changed, but as far as I can tell, the Eagle requirements have not been "dumbed down". If anything, they are slightly more difficult. The MB requirements are about the same level of difficulty. The Eagle project today is somewhat more difficult. And as far as I remember, there were no specific "POR" requirements back in my day.

 

Can "helicopter parents" make it easier for a Scout to make Eagle? I suppose they probably do. But there is nothing about today's requirements that make "helicopter parents" more or less likely. I don't really remember any back in my day (although different parents had different levels of "nudging" that they would give thier son). If they exist in large numbers today, it's not because of the requirements.

 

If an "Eagle Mill" makes its Eagles soar by having a good program, and maybe nudging Johnny to call Mr. ___ to set up an appointment to get started on ____ merit badge, then it sounds like a pretty good program to me. If it has "classes" once a week in order to get kids "signed off" on merit badges, then it probably isn't.

 

But my hunch is that the troop with the good program, and occasional nudges, probably cranks out more Eagles in the end, anyway. So I'm not going to discount a troop just because it brags about its Eagles on the side of its trailer.

 

Unless I see evidence to the contrary, I assume that each one of those names earned it just as much, and probably more so, than I did.

[desertrat77]

Clemlaw, your experiences are similar to my own....

 

Earned in Eagle in 1977. Though the Improved Scouting Program definitely downplayed the scout/fieldcraft, Troops I belonged to were very strong in the outdoors. My camping MB has the non-required border, but I earned it fair/square nonetheless.

 

Two 50 milers--Grand Canyon and Philmont.

 

Went the Lifesaving MB route instead of Emergency Prep...and I consider it the toughest MB I earned--more effort than all the others combined. The mental and physical demands were quite high, and the the whole experience is still quite vivid in my mind. Very proud of it.

 

My Eagle project and write up? Accomplished both but I think today's administrative requirements are far clearer as far as expectations and requirements. Some projects I see today are impressive, others are very easy....but I think the same was true in the '70s.

 

The citizenship MBs were quite annoying...not hard, just bothersome. Always thought they should be one mega-MB. The other homework-style MBs were just speed bumps (safety, personal management, etc.) but powered thru them.

 

If you were a scout and wanted to earn a MB? Go find a counselor yourself! I don't think there was an approved list...you just found someone who knew what they were talking about, and sought their approval, vision, and requirements. Some counselors added a bunch of requirements, and while it took longer, you learned more. This was not viewed with the same horror as today.

 

Nobody--parent or SM--was going to follow up on my advancement...if I stopped progress, I stopped. The prevailing attitude seemed to be "it's your trail to Eagle--get cracking, or get left behind."

 

Talking with scouts from previous years, and serving as a leader later, I think each era has it's strengths and weaknesses.

 

I respectfully salute all scouts, past and present, Tenderfoot or Eagle...each has or had their own experiences, and brings a unique perspective to scouting.....

 

The guys whose moms pushed to Eagle? Or the Eagle factory alums? They are Eagles too. They'll grow into the rank. However, if perhaps one may look back in doubt or regret, no need to stew. Never too late to go back and fill in the gaps. Go on a hike in the rain, get the old handbook and really learn the bowline, etc. Just as importantly, read the oath and law and take time to reflect.

(This message has been edited by desertrat77)