Talk About a Reversal of Fortune...

[ScouterPaul 11]

I attended Woodbadge this past winter/spring. On staff was one of the Councils District Exec. and attending as a participant was the DE from my District. If I was a betting man I would bet that our DE was attending because it was the politically correct thing to do. I attempted to observe him throughout the two weekends and I must say that he made the tranisition from having to be there to wanting to be there. Since the completion of the course he has become a much better DE and truly has become a Scouter.

[NJCubScouter 1389]

My oh my, how one person can take a discussion down a road...

 

It has always seemed to me that it is better for a person to attend an educational experience (whether it be called training, school, orientation, continuing ed, or whatever) reluctantly, with a negative attitude, etc. than not to attend at all. Chances are you will learn something even if you did not think you would, even if you did not want to, etc. (Never an issue for me, I like school, in fact in 2 weeks I am voluntarily attending the weekend-long statewide training class for new school board members. It should be an interesting comparison with Scout training.)

 

My pack has one den leader who kept making excuses why he could not attend basic training. The cubmaster and I stayed on his case most of the school year until he went. He definitely learned something and is doing a better job. (Same issue with his uniform, he was a Tiger leader from September to about April before he finally broke down and bought the uniform, and believe me it was not a financial issue. But again it was the CM and I reminding him at every pack meeting that he attended in civvies, till he finally got worn down and got the uniform. Does he want to wear it? I don't care -- the boys do not see his reluctance, what they see is a leader in a uniform, and that serves as a good example to them.)

 

So if your OGE's council's DE's only attended Wood Badge because they were ordered to, so what? If they learned something despite themselves, they will still be better at their jobs, to the benefit of all the Scouters they work with, and ultimately the Scouts.

 

It is true that you probably learn more when you are enthusiastic about it, but as I said, given the choice between someone picking up 20 percent of the material at a class or training session, or zero because they didn't show up, I'll always take the 20 percent.

[yaworski 10]

"It has always seemed to me that it is better for a person to attend an educational experience (whether it be called training, school, orientation, continuing ed, or whatever) reluctantly, with a negative attitude, etc. than not to attend at all."

 

That may be true but that isn't the center of the discussion. My question was, "What motivated him to go in the first place?" He may be learning but he should not be lauded if he went under duress.

[NJCubScouter 1389]

Ed says:

 

I have been told I must attend training classes for my job that I didn't want to take for one reason or another. I went & basically it was a waste.

 

But can you really say you learned nothing? I think it would require a great deal of work (and maybe a hidden set of headphones and a walkman) to sit in a class and learn absolutely nothing. I bet you did learn something, and I bet the DE's in OGE's class learned something as well. If I remember his post correctly, it has had a positive impact on at least one of them. I think that that's inevitable.

 

For myself, I remember that when I was signing up for classes before my freshman year in college, my counselor strongly recommended that I sign up for a particular introductory course, even though I had no interest in the subject. I didn't really want to do it, but I took the advice... and ended up liking the class so much that I soon switched my "minor" to that subject.