Board of Review

[Beavah 205]

The BSA is exactly like the McDonalds corporation because it's materials focus on the process to create a limited end product. A McDonald's operation manual details the steps in making a Big Mac. The BSA details the steps in making a First Class scout.

 

LOL! Yah, that's about the funniest thing I've heard in a while.

 

Yeh really believe that yeh can follow some cookbook recipe with children and have 'em all come out the same?

 

Good luck with that. All of the rest of us who have actually raised or work with kids would tell yeh differently.

 

The analogy yeh want is that the BSA is like a textbook publisher, eh? A textbook publisher publishes materials (like an Algebra I book) that focus on the process to help children who are at one stage of math ability become proficient at the next stage of math ability.

 

Any teacher will tell yeh, though, that they never follow the textbook exactly as written, eh? They have to adapt the text to the needs of their kids, and to the learning goals of their school and state, and to their own teaching style. The textbook is a resource when we're talkin' about kids learning. It's not a cookbook for making hamburgers.

 

Beavah

 

[Beavah 205]

Yah, fred8033, didn't mean to ignore yeh, just cross-posted.

 

What yeh point out is that the BSA really doesn't have a training for unit-level volunteers that explains the BSA as an organization and how it works. The first time that sort of thing is available is when yeh serve on a council executive board. Maybe we should introduce the basics in one of da earlier trainings, eh? It would avoid a lot of confusion of the sort you're describing.

 

Yeh need to actually read all of the documents, eh? The entirety of the ones yeh reference, and then others. So if yeh read the Charter Agreement, yeh also find that "the Council (and BSA) agree to respect the aims and objectives of the [Chartered] organization and offer the resources of Scouting to help in meeting those objectives." So the BSA's role is to provide resources to help the Chartered Organization meet the Chartered Organization's goals.

 

Then yeh need to actually read the Charter & Bylaws and Rules & Regulations of the BSA, to understand that they don't apply in the way yeh think they do.

 

Then yeh need to be careful about your analogies. A McDonalds franchiser agrees to produce standard hamburgers so as to make a profit to do whatever he wants with that profit - buy a house, support a political party, whatever. But a Chartered Organization has goals for the hamburgers. It wants the children in its program to come out a certain way, to learn certain things, to develop certain habits. And those differ between chartered organizations. It'd be like each McDonalds franchisee having a different ideal hamburger in mind as the primary goal. One wants a health-food burger, one wants pork burgers, one wants the best patty-melt on rye bread. And the BSA agrees to respect and provide resources to achieve all those different, non-standardized hamburger goals.

 

Then yeh need to recognize that unlike McDonalds, where da corporation supplies all the raw meat and buns, in the BSA each Chartered organization gets its raw kids from different communities. They come with different characteristics and skills and interest, different levels of family support and goals and desires.

 

Then yeh need to understand the legal relationships.

 

Then yeh need to understand how the BSA thinks about its own mission, and how it feels that the best way to achieve its mission of developing character, fitness, and citizenship is by partnering with community organizations, not by creating a one-size-fits-all program.

 

And on and on.

 

That's what the BSA really is. That's what its organizational documents really say. That's how it's really structured, both internally and legally.

 

Kids aren't hamburgers, and the BSA is not McDonalds. It's not even vaguely close.

 

Beavah

 

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[bnelon44 17]

Beavah

 

The BSA organization is presented in all the specifics courses, but only in a very elementary way and I would agree that the volunteers really don't understand it much from that training. This is Scouting was suppose to cover it, but really didn't. The Chartered Organization Rep training is a little better, see:

www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/04-113_Training.pdf

[BadenP 93]

Beav

 

The BSA does have a standard program of advancement for all boys and which every CO must follow.

 

The BSA has a set program of SM conferences and BOR's which all troops must follow.

 

The BSA has set key components in the Scout Oath and Scout Law which all troops must adhere to.

 

The BSA has a set structural organization of both adults and youth which every troop must follow.

 

The BSA has a mandatory set of skills and requirements that each boy must meet in order to advance in rank.

 

The BSA has a set chain of command on a district, council and National level which every volunteer and CO agrees to follow when they sign the application and charter forms each year.

 

While the BSA may not be McDonalds the two entities share some similiar characteristics, and the McDonald franchise owner has a little more flexibility in certain areas.

 

So I think your last post really missed the mark and your argument kinda falls flat. While I agree with you that the one size fits all doesn't work for all boys the BSA program was indeed created exactly that way. The LDS Church has been allowed to radically change/alter the program to emphasize preparing their boys for mission and achieving the different levels of LDS priesthood, they are the one exception, while the rest of us must follow the rules and regs set forth from National.

[Venividi 35]

Potential Alternative analogies:

 

National Ski Patrol

NSP (I was a member a dozen years ago), per their web site, their role is serving the public and outdoor recreation industry by providing education and credentialing to emergency care and safety services providers.

 

i.e., they provided education material for training ski patrollers, and material/instructions for the regions that have been established across the country to test the patrollers. After successfully passing, individuals receive their certification from NSP.

 

NSP supports ski areas, and each ski area has requirements that are based on the needs of that area. Four Lakes in Illinois has different needs than Ski Cooper in Colorado. NSP supports them both. Because they serve the needs the individual areas; akin to BSA supporting the needs of the chartering organizations.

 

 

Or to stick with franchising: Kumon education centers. Francisees receive material in how to set up and run a tutoring company. Certain standards must be met (signage, approved location, marketing,...). The franchisee's customers, i.e. the students to be tutored, have differing needs and differing goals. Thus I suspect that the franchise agreement is much different than a McDonald's agreemenets.

[shortridge 184]

I'm hungry now.

[JMHawkins 15]

McDonald's doesn't just supply the raw materials for their burgers. They ensure uniformity in their hamburgers by pre-making them at central locations and shipping them frozen to the individual stores where all that's needed is a few final assembly steps. If we want BSA to do the same thing, they'll need to ship us pre-fab Scouts flash-frozen at a scoutfactory on the outskirts of Irving. We keep 'em in a freezer until it's time for another Webelos cross-over, then we unbox a few of 'em, slap 'em on the grill and ask the parents if they want to supersize 'em.

 

A better analogy than McDonalds would be some sort of culinary school. They teach techniques and attempt to instill some general notions of correct outcome in the chefs, and then the chefs go out and cook with whatever local ingredients they find.

 

Another difference between BSA and McDonalds is that the folks cooking the burgers at McDonalds are paid employees, not volunteers. An organization that relies on volunteers to deliver the bulk of the "product" needs to give the volunteers lots of local leeway in determining how things are going to work, or the volunteers will dissapear.

 

 

[Eagle92 110]

I have to agree with the Beav on this one. yes there are some national standards, but a COR can modify the scouting program, or not even use elements of the program

 

Best example the LDS church. They integrated the BSA program into their church ministry at an early date, and have not changed their application of the Scouting program in their ministry as BSA has changed the program, i.e. LDS pack is stillon the old 3 year program of 3rd grade is Wolves, 4th is Bears, and 5th is Webelos, 11 year old, while officially Boy Scouts, do not have anything to do with the troop until age 12 becasue that was the age requirement when LDS began using Scouting, etc.

 

Sea Scouts is another example. Once upon a time, Sea Scouts was very regimented, but then that changes and you had ships that didn't do any of the traditional program. That becasme so wide spread that A) Sea Scouts came out with alternative to traditional rank and B) led to the widespread use of "Piratical costumes" for uniforms with multiple uniforms being seen at multi-ship events.

 

Venturing, when I was trained on stating new crews when the program came out in 1998, had as one of the features that COs could use the program, or take elements of it that they wanted to use.

 

The key with COs is that any elements they choose to use, they have to follow national standards. So if a CO just want to use the outdoor elements and not advancement, that's OK by national.

[Beavah 205]

It's interesting - you fall into the camp that a Scout has to show mastery of a skill before being signed off on - that there should be certain standards that need to be met by all First Class scouts, by all Eagle Scouts, etc.

 

Since we've mostly dispensed with da original question and the McDonald's thing, let me come back around to this point of CalicoPenn's.

 

Yep, it is true that over the years servin' as a unit scouter and over the years servin' as a commissioner and council scouter workin' with lots of different units and such that I have some personal preferences. I think there are some styles and approaches that seem to work a bit better, if by "better" yeh mean that what I care about in terms of outcomes for boys are stronger or more likely.

 

So yep, I tend to prefer mixed-age patrols, a deeper use of patrol method similar to what Kudu advocates, more diverse outdoor program, and a high-expectations version of advancement. I think those on average work better.

 

But as Eagledad describes eloquently in da other thread, when yeh work with lots of different units, yeh have to develop a sense of balance and humility. Different COs have different goals, different adults have different personalities, different troops attract different kids with different needs. Just because I personally believe some ways of implementing da program work better than others doesn't mean that I mean there's one "best" way, or "only" way, or that I support some folks' notions of "standardization". I think there are a lot of "good" ways, and many "OK" ways.

 

And that's when we're talkin' big stuff like how to think about Advancement or Patrol Method. By the time yeh get down to petty little stuff like whether an adult on a BOR is registered as an MC it just ain't worth spending any time on. It's trivia that really doesn't affect kids in any meaningful way. If anybody in a troop has time to be policing that nonsense then to my mind they should be reassigned to somethin' that actually matters, eh? Just as a matter of courtesy and respect for their time.

 

In my experience, the most important thing for most units is to select (and then support) leaders "of the right sort". Folks who have a sense of personal responsibility and who really care about children and who enjoy the outdoors. Most important, folks who share some sense of vision. After that, yeh provide 'em with ideas and suggestions and let 'em run with it.

 

One of da things I've learned over the years is that rather than provide a guidebook or quote regulations, if yeh want to help a troop move along in some area, yeh have their youth and receptive adult leaders go on a trip or two with a another troop that does well in that area. Folks need to see and taste stuff, eh?

 

Beavah

 

B

 

[fred8033 1612]

Beavah wrote: "Since we've mostly dispensed with da original question and the McDonald's thing, let me come back around to this point of CalicoPenn's."

 

Yeah ... Don't confuse "dispensing" and others giving up shouting at the wind. Sometimes you don't have enough time to just say the same things over and over again. Especially when others just don't want to listen.

 

JMHawkins - Your mistake is viewing scouts as burgers ... as meat and wanting to produce "pre-fab Scouts flash-frozen" eagle scouts. They're not. Scouts are the customers. We serve them. The product is the Boy Scout Handbook, the uniform, the materials, the program. You just can't get a better analogy.

 

The main difference is that if you consume McDonalds all the time your going to get a fat consumer. But if done right and youth consume scouting all the time your going to get a well rounded ethical prepared citizen.

 

...

 

Your example of mixed age patrols is good. There's no rule saying they need to be mixed age or not mixed age. That's a discretion point. Personally, I prefer scouts join together and stick together with their friends to share similar scouting experiences.

 

...

 

Beavah wrote: "if yeh want to help a troop move along in some area, yeh have their youth and receptive adult leaders go on a trip or two with a another troop that does well in that area."

 

I fully agree with this. Scouters learn alot by visiting other units. I think it would be useful to replace the unit commishioner concept with scouters visiting other units each year.

[Beavah 205]

Don't confuse "dispensing" and others giving up shouting at the wind.

 

Yah, OK, I'll admit it, I was givin' up shouting at the wind. After having demonstrated that the McDonald's analogy is wrong on so many levels, yeh can't really say much more, other than tippin' a hat to ol' BobWhite for introducing yet another persistent scouting urban legend.

 

Beavah

 

[Lisabob 13]

"Personally, I prefer scouts join together and stick together with their friends to share similar scouting experiences. "

 

Psst, fred: that only works if the boys actually are friends. On the other hand, if you've suffered all the way through (age/grade-based) cub scouting getting stuck with the same couple of jerks just because they're the same age/grade as you, you might feel pretty differently about this idea in boy scouts! Just goes to show that what works varies, not only across troops, but even across cohorts within a troop.

 

 

[Eagle92 110]

Lisa,

 

That's one of the reasons why I like mixed age patrols and the ability for the scouts to decide which patrol they go into every six months. In my expereince, most people stayed with the same mixed-aged patrol until A) we needed to create another patrol B) they quit, or C) The got selected to be in the Leadership Corps and held a troop level POR.

[JMHawkins 15]

JMHawkins - Your mistake is viewing scouts as burgers...

 

In which Fred proves he doesn't understand my point at all, since I was demonstrating that the McDonalds franchise analogy doesn't work because Scouts aren't burgers.

 

Sigh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Oak Tree 15]

In my expereince, most people stayed with the same mixed-aged patrol

 

Oddly enough, we have the opposite experience. We've let the Scouts choose their patrols, and by and large they end up in relatively age-based patrols. Not precisely, and there are obviously a few who prefer Scouts of different ages, but I think it would be a stretch to call our patrols mixed-age.

 

The Scouts do largely tend to stay with their patrol, because we've let them start out by choosing to be with their friends, and their friends don't change rapidly.