Camping Instruction/spin off complaints about New Course

[theysawyoucomin' 10]

I feel that some of the complaints voiced about the new WB course are valid when you talk about the absence of Scoutcraft. I feel Boy Scout leaders should be at home in the outdoors. I feel that those who are physically able should provide a robust program. I don't feel that a weekend in IOLS is enough.

 

I took the new WB course so I know nothing about the old.

 

Here is the question.

 

What kind of course would you design that gave SM's and ASM's , heck even camping crazy committee members, all the tools necessary to safely give boys the outdoor adventure we all

know they crave?

 

How much Scoutcraft was in Wood Badge before they changed it?

 

How long would the "Camping Expert" course take? 6 days like WB?

 

What would your ideal course outline include?

 

 

What would you call it and how would you identify the attendees?

 

Most of all, (given the fact that some leaders will not complete minimal training for a trained patch)how would you get people to attend?

Yes, I would attend it and most of the people here would but what about those that are hard to reach?

 

 

[John-in-KC 311]

My "ideal course"???

 

My ideal course probably would be about two years long, one weekend a month, with at least one long encampment every summer.

 

Tell you what, let's cut to the chase: Get a copy of the 9th Edition (1965) of the Boy Scout handbook. Start there. Update only for technology, physiological safety (ie comments about tanned boys are healthy boys), and conservation of natural resources (no more browse beds).

 

Start with a fixed site; advance to backpacking "house on your back".

 

It took me, as a Boy Scout, with 5 years of annual car camping under my belt, 3 years to be really comfortable in any weather. My training came in quite handy when I went off to a career in the Army.

 

 

[Gonzo1 10]

Now here is where John in KC and I agree.

 

It takes practice and application of skills. IOLS or another course like maybe BALOO might help, but an adult without prior scouting experience can not learn this stuff in a couple of weekends. Maybe study an older field book also as well as older scout handbooks. Learn and master orienteering, pioneering, cooking, hiking, camping in bad weather, first aid also.

 

It just takes time. Attned your district outdoor Leader Skills training course and then the course for other districts. Be careful not to burn out and upset the Mrs. with all the extra camping.

 

I attended WB in 1994 in the North Florida Council. We had an 8 course course, with 8 patrol members. We had to do some pioneering, cook all our own food and cook for 2 staff members also. We had inter-patrol compettions. We had classes on some stuff, some knowledge was assumed. We had to know and demonstrate knife and axe handling, (whoo whoo, we earned a Totin' Chip also) we had to know orienteering, and all the team building, pyschology, management, etc. Classes started about 8 am and lasted until about 9 or 10 pm. Very little free time. We had a short backpacking trip, it was well worth it and very exciting. The thing I appreciated the most was the "secrecy" for the sake of "guided discovery". It was a great course.

 

Owl,

I recently served as an instructor for IOLS, it just touches the surface. There is no way someone (IMO) can learn all the tips and tricks in a few weekends, it takes time.

 

John-in-KC, please check your PM's.

[eagle-pete 11]

Ok, but why should it be incorporated into Wood Badge, by default?

 

I can totally relate with your camp comfort level, John. Maybe I am just way off, but I learned how to camp in adverse weather by camping in adverse weather. Maybe I am lucky, but I have had the fortune of working with some really knowledgeable and really great Scout Leaders who mentored me along and taught me how to camp.

 

To be fair, these excellent Scout Leaders I referred to did go through the old Wood Badge course... but I also know, because I have asked them, where they learned most of their outdoor skills. To my surprise, it wasn't at Wood Badge (although they did learn a lot at Wood Badge). These guys got much their skills from their dads who passed their knowledge of the outdoors and scouting to their sons.

 

I've told the story before, here.. about how I learned to tie a taut-line. It wasn't in a nice warm building, food all prepared and waiting, sheltered from the elements, calm and inviting. It was in a situation where I had to learn: outside, wind and rain beating on me, a family trying to stay dry and cook dinner, sun going down, and cold. Absolutely, I learned to tie a taut-line, and I got the tarp tied down.. At the time I was too flustered to realize the other lesson - that the outdoors will teach lessons which cannot be duplicated in a training course or even at a patrol meeting. THAT'S the Method!

 

I am certainly not saying that you cannot provide training for outdoor skills. But I have also learned that boys will not internalize that training until they are put into situations where they begin to rely on the skills they were taught. Many times, it is no different with adults - I am one of those adults.

 

Maybe I am being too idealistic, but I believe there is a time and place for learning outdoor skills, and there is a time to learn leadership. Wood Badge has not been watered down, the focus may have changed slightly, but the refining of the training is a good thing.

 

I do see the need to teach outdoor skills to boys as well as the need for a Trained leader to acquire those skills as well. My question is, can those skills be provided by experienced leaders in many units? Are these people already available on the council, district, or unit levels and can they provide any training?

 

Eagle Pete

[Beavah 205]

My ideal course probably would be about two years long, one weekend a month, with at least one long encampment every summer.

 

Yah, I'm right there with John and Gonzo. Da BSA has a great instructional program, one of the best. Learnin' with adults works the same as learnin' with kids. Just takes longer.

 

I've seen way too many adult scout leaders out in semi-remote areas who lacked the necessary internalized skill. We're up here in da north, eh? Winter is cold. If yer goin' to be responsible for young beginners, your own skills have to be as solid as my lake is in January. Not just book knowledge learned in a classroom one weekend - real, live, experience and judgment.

 

My experience is da same as eagle-pete's. Almost all of da good scout leaders with real outdoor skills came to the program with them - from the military, from huntin' and fishin' themselves, or from bein' a scout themselves. A few of the very best came from outdoor education programs like NOLS or OB, that combined outdoor skills with experience teachin' beginners.

 

IOLS and Old WB get a relatively inexperienced parent enough to survive an ordinary weekend themselves. Maybe. Barely. For someone who came with skills, Old WB helped a bit in brushin' em up and gettin' them to think about the special issues for kids & teachin'. Maybe. Nuthin' more.

 

[Eamonn 61]

When it comes to being a "Scouty type Scout"

I'm fairly good.

I love playing with knots, lashings,pioneering. hiking, map reading, orienteering, camping -All that good stuff.

My splicing still needs work!!

A lot of the things I enjoy most seem to be the things that a few forum members would like to see go! But we have flogged that horse!! I really enjoy a well ran camp fire and really enjoy just sitting around with a bunch of kids, mug of hot something in hand talking with them and looking into the embers. I hope they have campfires in heaven! If I ever get to sneak in!!

Over the years I have been involved in a lot of Wood Badge courses.

I have served as CD for the 21 st Century Wood Badge. Have taken and staffed the old Cub Scouter Trainer Course. Staffed nine or ten Boy Scout WB Courses and did my original Scout Course at Gilwell Park back in the early 1970's (I was very young!!)

I didn't get to become a Scouty type Scout because of Wood Badge. My love of the Scouting and outdoor activities was born and nurtured long before I visited the happy land.

I enjoyed the old Boy Scout course.

But let's be honest, it seems to me that every course I ever staffed seemed to have one very weak Patrol. The one that was late with meals and the Patrol members didn't seem able to get their act together. They didn't have the skills and if you go back and look at the old course syllabus other than the commando belt (Splicing!!) No one staff member was ever available to teach any of the skills needed. It just wasn't there!!

Sure there were times when Scouting skills were needed and required, but it was down to the Patrol to find a Patrol member who had the skill needed.

Go back and look at the skills that were presented and you'll see the 11 Leadership Skills.

The old course was a lot easier on the staff. Three times a day the staff would get to hang out in their site shooting the breeze while they waited for the Patrol member to come and escort them to the Patrol site for meals. Boy how I hated Chicken day, sure the staff had done a cooking display. But you can't learn to cook at camp, by visiting a display.

Most of the Patrols were made up with a couple of Scouty type Scouts who did know what they were doing (One of these was the guy who got elected Patrol Leader at the end) A couple of guys who had some idea of what was going on and a few who had no idea.

A lot of the time the guys who knew what they were doing ended up doing all the work, while the others were happy to just watch.

Sadly most of the comments made about the new course are by people who haven't taken it!!

The course does move along a lot faster than the old course, there is still 3 days camping as a Patrol, there still is Patrol cooking. But there is a lot more stuff crammed into six days then there ever was in the seven days of the old course.

Back when I was District Commissioner I had a Unit Commissioner who was upset because he had to take the 21st Century course. He had not taken the old course, but insisted on calling it the sissy course!! Later he was upset with me not asking him to serve on Staff!! I wonder why??

I do at times wish that the new course wasn't called Wood Badge!!

I'd be happy if the team who put the new course together hadn't tried to keep any of the old Wood Badge traditions or material.

Looking at:http://www.scouting.org/factsheets/02-501.html

Something doesn't make sense? It states that we have 51,469 Cub Scout Packs and 42,811 Boy Scout Troops, but Boy Scouters out number Cub Scouters??

Anyway we have 520,591 Boy Scouters and 23,380 Varsity Scout teams. That would mean that if the Wood Badge course were to focus on Boy Scouts skills we would serve 543,971.

There is still another 602,159 adults out there. Of course these numbers don't take into account the numbers who have taken WB.

I really think that the numbers are flawed, it seems to me that there are a lot more adults involved in Cub Scouting than Boy Scouting ( Even a small pack will have nine leaders and a committee?)

Cub Scouters tend to have to deal with a lot more adults than Boy Scouter's and do need to be good leaders.

I'm thankful that I had leaders that had the skills and were able to pass them on to me. But over the years I have taken more training's that I felt I could use.

Back in October I went and took the LNT Trainers course, I took the camp fire leaders course at Gilwell, have worked with leaders who have skills that I thought I could use and tried work on improving my own.

The idea that a week or a month spent at any training is going to equip anyone with all the skills is just silly.

Eamonn.

 

[LongHaul 10]

Well if we look back some years we find that in the 60's you had to have two years as an active leader to be eligible for WB. The idea was that you gained the experience by doing then used WB to refine your skills. Anyone else remember CornerStone? It was a training program for SMs and ASMs which consisted of 9 sessions usually over several months. Anyone remember when Powder Horn was an advanced outdoor training beyond WB and intended for those who wanted to provide a more High Adventure program. The new WB is marketed to those who are brand new to the program and not necessarily at the Boy Scout level. IOLS was not intended to teach you outdoor skills it was intended to teach you how to teach 11 year olds the basics skills up to First Class. First Class should take 1 year to complete so you get the experience and applied knowledge of the skills. You cant teach it in a weekend not even to adults. I agree BSA needs a Nationally standardized advanced outdoor skills course. It would be to hone the skills you have acquired over several years of active involvement not teach them to you.

LongHaul

 

[SueM 10]

This is my feeling..and that of many other adult leaders and trainers in our council...there are many training opportunities for Adult leaders, which focus on learning or improving you camping skills in both the CS & BS programs...WB is the ONLY advanced leaders training course which focuses on leadership.

 

Sue m.

[Oak Tree 15]

The NOLS courses (www.nols.edu) look like pretty serious 'camping expert' courses. I think that's about how I would design a course. For local purposes I'd probably do a bit more variety including the different types of outdoor experiences, and make it shorter.

 

I must say I don't really feel that the BSA courses do much at all to improve my camping skills. I've taken both BALOO and IOLS, and came away from both of them feeling like they would only be valuable (skill-wise) to people who have hardly ever been camping. It seemed like our groups averaged several years of experience with Scouting, and on many topics we knew more than the instructors. I don't get the idea that would be the case with the NOLS classes.

 

Oak Tree

[Lisabob 13]

I'm in agreement with Oak Tree re: OLS and BALOO. In fairness, BALOO is not designed to teach hands-on skills but rather is supposed to help a leader figure out how to plan an age-appropriate camping experience for cubs. I would like to see more opportunities for leaders to learn and practice "scout skills" at district or council training sessions but on the other hand I don't really know if district or council level programs could seriously do this, if we're looking at weekend courses, or longer. While it would be nice to think that if we just offered it, people would come, I'm not convinced that's true. There are already a lot of weekend courses that we go begging to get people to attend. And although (around here) attendance at University of Scouting is pretty good, a one or two hour, one-time class isn't really sufficient, not to mention that most UoS events aren't held outdoors where participants could actually practice the skill.

 

I do think we could make better use of existing opportunities like camporees to offer adult skill sessions while the boys are off doing their own thing though.

 

Just floating this as off-the-cuff...what about offering skill training for new leaders at round tables? Pick a set of basic skills for new leaders and offer them on a rotating schedule a couple of times each year? Not perfect I know but at least a couple of hours once a month is better than once a year and it could be a tease to get people to sign up for OLS where more advanced skills could be covered. Maybe start a little early so that there's time to actually try the skill out.

 

 

 

 

[Eamonn 61]

It's been a while.

But I seem to remember that BALOO was never intended to be a course for leaders?

Has this changed?

I also seem to remember that Philmont offered courses that were Strictly For Scoutmasters - I wish I'd taken it in place of the Delivering Commissioner Service course I did take.

Here again I have to say that even a Commissioner who has attended WB can spent a week at Philmont and come home with new skills.

Wood Badge -No matter when you took it, where you took it or which course you took is still just a course.

Let's not make it into something that it isn't.

 

Eamonn(This message has been edited by Eamonn)

[Oak Tree 15]

Eamonn,

 

It probably depends on what you mean by 'leaders'. Here's a quote from the Buckskin council's web site: "The target participant for BALOO training is a new Cub Scout leader with a desire to plan and carry out an entry level outdoor experience for the pack." I think you're right if you mean that it's hoped that it will be someone other than the Cubmaster or Den Leaders, but in practice I'm sure many Cubmasters take the class. And I think if you take the class and plan the campout, you are pretty much a leader by definition.

 

I will agree, to be fair to BALOO, that it's probably correctly targeted at relatively novice campers who are trying to plan age-appropriate activities while camping with Cubs. My disappointment with the training is more reflective of my IOLS experience - which mostly involved various instructors just trying to teach us the First Class requirements. We already knew the great majority of it - heck, most of us had been teaching it to the boys for a few years. And they didn't focus on teaching us how to teach it better, they just wanted us to learn how to do it.

 

We did pick up a tip or two, but the ratio of useful tips per hour was pretty low. I still like the training for the time I get to spend with other Scouters, so I'm not planning on bailing on the whole thing.

 

Oak Tree

[Lisabob 13]

Around here DLs and CMs are among the target audience for BALOO because (let's be honest) they're the ones who are usually planning and implementing cub pack and webelos den camp outs. We did encourage as many people as possible to take it - with limited luck, I admit.

 

Of course things might have changed in the last few years. But when I took BALOO the focus was on ensuring that there was a clear, well-organized, age-appropriate, G2SS-compliant, plan. That people understood the rules for who could camp in the cub program and under what conditions, for what activities would work well with what types of groups, for simple cooking ideas and how to have the cubs be involved with cooking in a safe way, how to advise parents (non-leaders) regarding what to bring or not, what they may do or not, etc., how to run a good campfire program for cubs, and some real basic "gear" type information for truly novice campers. We cooked a "field" lunch of soup and hot iron sandwiches and wrote mock camping plans.

 

BSA Health & Safety training was included as well (which, as I seem to recall, focused mainly on rules for tour permits, driving, and 2-deep leadership).

 

Although an experienced camper would find some of the above to be redundant, the emphasis was not so much on developing skill (or even teaching skills to cubs) as it was on ensuring proper planning and supervision. More of a cub camp out planning workshop.

 

As for OLS again I agree with Oak that there's a mission and vision problem here. Two of the people who run our OLS courses are friends of mine. Both have "sold" the course to me and others by saying it teaches leaders the skills they need to have in order to help boys make first class rank. But that's not the same as teaching leaders HOW TO TEACH those same skills. I hear the same complaints about the outdoor training for webelos leaders (OWL or whatever current name is), which is sometimes treated as a beginners course for OLS.

 

But let me say this as someone who does a lot of teaching (though not in outdoor skills, generally speaking). Many people who know the material cold are terrible at conveying that information to others in a useful manner. What I see as a major flaw in BSA leader training in my area overall is that there is very little emphasis on how to teach. Trainer development is non-existent or given lip service at best. This means that even very knowledgeable volunteers who are generous enough to take time to staff our courses often have no idea either what the objectives or outcomes are really supposed to be, or how to reach them. In the OLS and OWL cases, this translates into a change in mission to something simpler. Rather than teaching leaders how to teach skill we just teach leaders skill (hopefully). And if we're just teaching skill then I agree that many leaders really won't find this terribly useful because they already have that basic skill. For those who don't have the basic skills, a weekend intro is nice but (as others have said) isn't sufficient to really develop anything. So what purpose does OLS serve then? Answer...it fills in the blanks on your training record, maybe allows you to meet some new people, perhaps gives you a couple of new ideas, possibly gets you fired up (again) about camping. But it isn't enough to really teach skill and it isn't serving the purpose of teaching leaders how to teach skill.

 

 

[John-in-KC 311]

This might be an area the National Committee on the Order of the Arrrow ought to pick up its socks and start pulling together some training. It has an active organization to leverage beyond just the local Council, but smaller areas than the Region.

 

I can see training like this being offered in clusters in many cases.

 

Perhaps the National Camping Committee needs to ask for volunteer Scouters of all skill levels to do some "field testing" ... and let's establish some baselines for where Americn adults are in the Y2K era for camping and fieldcraft skills.

[emb021 16]

"Anyone remember when Powder Horn was an advanced outdoor training beyond WB and intended for those who wanted to provide a more High Adventure program."

 

Was? Why the past tense?

 

Powder Horn is what it always has been: a high adventure resource course mainly for venturing leaders, but also boy scout leaders. Others may have tried to envision it as some kind of 'advanced outdoor training beyond WB', but I don't believe that was the original intention.