Pulling their leg

[OldGreyEagle 5]

I was an innocent, naive scout. I went on a snipe hunt. Yes, I knew about "snipe hunts" but I also knew that a snipe is a real bird and the older scouts and adults lead me to beleive we were in an area where they actually lived. And yes, I stayed out until dawn. Humiliation and despair are not strong enough words to describe my feelings. I was madder at myself for falling for it than anything else. Then at the very next campout, the SPL sent me out for the Cannon Report, theoretically the camp newspaper, actually just the sound the cannon made. I spent 2 hours going camp to camp before some kindly scoutmaster replied when I told him what I was looking for, son, have you ever been on a snipe hunt? I nearly fainted. I didnt want to go back to the troop. I waited until 1am. In the morning I was asked if I saw any Snipe while looking for the cannon report. That was the end of that, I refused any request to do anything until I was sure it wasnt just another ruse. I never trusted another older scout for as long as I was in the troop and I made Eagle, not because of the harrassment, but despite it. It didnt teach me a thing except I was a stupid naive child in the company of wolves. I told my dad and mother what had happened and they said what do want us to do. I knew having Mommy and Daddy complain would make the situation worse, so I said, dont do anything. But I resolved that I would prevent any kid from going through what I did. I would talk to the new scouts, tell them the tricks that would be pulled. They saw "jokes" attempted and because I had warned them, they werent caught. I eventually made SPL because the kids knew I wouldnt abuse them and looked out for them. I do the same thing now.

 

So yes, I spent a night all by myself because I was stupid and naive, I spent a night looking for the cannon report, what did it get me? Totally untrusing of anything an older scout said until I was sure it wasnt a set up, distrust of authority and generally not happy. Sorry if you guys think it was funny

 

[LovetoCamp 9]

OGE,

 

I got sent out for 100 ft of shoreline. I found nylon rope, hemp rope, twine, bungie cord, but never did find that shoreline.

 

 

 

 

 

[AK-Eagle 19]

Trail Pounder

 

You'll find the shoreline on the shelf next to the prop wash. ;-)

 

Phillip Martin

SM Troop 21

Juneau, Alaska

[LovetoCamp 9]

Hi Alaska,

 

Was that the same shelf the frequency grease is on?

 

Pounder

[Eamonn 61]

While I do not have a problem with adult friends pulling each others leg. I can see how what happened to Old GreyEagle was nothing but wrong.

While working on the Service Team, we used to get a lot of young Scouts who were sent out looking for the Left handed : Smoke Shifter or Bacon Turner. I used to always ask the young Scout to go and fetch his Patrol Leader.Once he arrived I gave him one of my best speeches on the English Scout Law that read :A Scout makes good use of his time and is careful with possessions and property. When the poor fellow was really bored with that one we would move on to the Law that reads : A scout has respect for himself and others.

I have a lot of friends that love to pull my leg, we take it as good fun and spend many happy hours retelling the tale, they know me and know where my "Soft Spots" are they never go there.

I feel the same way about nicknames.

These are fine if they are ok with the person being named and are done out of affection or respect. If they cause any harm they too are wrong.

Scouting offers so many great opporttunities for so much fun, we do not need to get our jollies at the expense of others.

 

[bsat4jb 10]

OGE,

 

OK, so you got an extreme case of snipe hunting. Pranks are a time

honored tradition of any organization that relishes outdoor activities,

such as BSA. You are right, they should be kept safe, but I'm not

aware of any newspaper articles that have the heading "Naive scout

falls victim to imaginary bird". As for humiliation, scouts (and

people in general) should learn to laugh at themselves, but you're

right, olderscouts should not make the younger ones to feel stupid,

just assure them that they are not the first, and on the next campout,

they can help make sure that they are not the last. Also, older scouts

should not leave younger scouts in the woods all night. If they are

not back by bedtime, go get them.

 

 

You grow up the day you have your first real laugh-at yourself.

-Ethel Barrymore

 

Blessed is he who can laugh at himself, for he shall never cease to

be amused.

-?

 

JB

 

P.S. I ran away because they tried to tape us. The older scouts were

all reprimanded because they tried to tape us. When the "victims" come

back to camp, they get the ribbing that comes standard with a snipe

hunt, no humiliation. All of the younger scouts are in the woods together-the buddy

system. Eamonn said that he and his friends love to pull each other's

legs. If scoutmasters can pull pranks, why not scouts?

[Fat Old Guy 11]

I have a sea bat in this box. Ya wanna peek?

[OldGreyEagle 5]

Laughing at yourself because you have made an error is one thing, being laughed at because you didnt know enough to get out of the way is humilitation. Your good natured ribbing, as you call it, may be as hurtful as can be to another person.

 

And such seemingly harmless things can escalate, as what happened in your troop with the tape. Its not unusual to have kids add another measure, things adults dont know about.

 

OK, you dont think snipe hunting is bad, and I know there is nothing I can do to stop you, I hope you never scar a kid or turn him off to scouting. Have fun

[dsteele 20]

Many of you have read enough of my posts to know that I do not believe in treating Scouts with delicacy because they are young. Indeed, challenges are what teach them to become men, regardless of the pressure it may cause at the time.

 

However, the above precludes any activity that is hazing. Hazing in the Boy Scouts of America ia prohibited. You can't do it. Period.

 

This includes snipe hunts, encouraging younger Scouts to hang one another's underwear on the camp flag pole, forcing a Scout to sing at flag ceremony to recover his lost item, waving mail in front of other scouts at the dining hall and making them sing for it, etc.

 

OGE made an excellent example. What some think of as all in good fun can be another's lifetime humiliation.

 

My example of pressure I'll draw from my own experience as SPL when a tornado struck town on the night of a troop meeting when the Scoutmaster was out of town. The town was paralyzed. I called the patrol leaders and the adult leaders to tell them the meeting was cancelled -- pressure on me. When I got hold of the patrol leaders I told them it was their duty to call each member of their patrol so that no one tried to ride across the broken power lines and downed tree limbs to get to the non-existant meeting -- pressure on the patrol leaders.

 

That kind of pressure builds leaders and is good.

 

Waiting all night for birds that aren't there to go back to camp to be laughed at builds no leadership at all. Simply put, it's a bad thing.

 

DS

[sst3rd 129]

Has to have been 15 years ago when a lot of these "activities" were still acceptable as paying your dues; we went to a big District Camporee. Friday night, after the campsites were up, all of the adult leaders were going campsite to campsite visiting fellow Scouters and getting warm-ups on their coffee. A really special Scoutmaster (Woodbadge sponsor) friend of mine poured the coffee, and we were catching up on each other's Troops (we attended several summer camps together). A young Scout from another Troop approached our fire, and asked permission to enter our camp. He was looking for a lefthanded smoke shifter. He had been to several camps already, and was looking tired and frustrated. Nobody had one, or had already loaned it out. So, Paul asked his SPL if theirs was packed in the Staff kitchen box. SPL said it was, and smiling broadly, got it for the young Scout. Paul (the SM) asked the Scout to please have his Scoutmaster return it when done.

About 15 minutes later, this young Scout's Scoutmaster showed up with the "shifter", and was pretty upset. He wanted the joke to go on longer than it had, and that they were teaching the boy a lesson. When Paul asked what lesson was that, the old Scoutmaster stormed out of the campsite.

Hazing is "victim defined." If the victim, in any way, is made to feel uncomfortable or threatened. It is wrong. This is lowering everything to the lowest common denominator, but that's where it has to go. There are plenty of fun,exciting, and appropriate activities to do. You just have to find them.

On a slightly different note, I took Woodbadge back in the 80's. Every skit that was performed by the Staff and later the participants, are now considered inappropriate and can't be used. We use our imaginations and come up with "better" ones. That's the Scouting Spirit.

 

sst3rd

[Fat Old Guy 11]

"This includes snipe hunts, encouraging younger Scouts to hang one another's underwear on the camp flag pole, forcing a Scout to sing at flag ceremony to recover his lost item, waving mail in front of other scouts at the dining hall and making them sing for it, etc."

 

They may not build leaderships skills but they build team spirit and do a good job of weeding people out.

 

Most "male bonding" activities are designed to determine who is worthy of your trust and friendship. If someone can't take the pressure of singing to get his skivvies back, he probably won't be able to take the pressure of a mammoth hunt or a raiding party to get new wives.

 

I think that it was Fraser Crane who said, "It's what guys do. They screw each other to the wall."

 

As a real psychologist that I know said, "We're doing our best to castrate boys."

[dan 10]

Had a first year scout at last month's campout that did not want to participate in skits.

I explained to him that we (we would be SM, ASM, SPL, ASPL, PL) could not make him do anything he did not want to do, unless it was a safety issue. I hope I helped this scout stay in scouting (he is shy, I hope scouting will help him become a leader) sounds like I should have sent him after some snipe instead.

I really believe that the BSA needs to put this in the front of the handbook, big bold letters.

AS A SCOUT I CONTROL MY OWN DESTINY, I WILL MAKE MY OWN DECSIONS AND I WILL NOT DO ANYTHING THAT MAKES ME FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE.

Could you imagine some of these leaders having fits when a scout looks at them and saying. I am sorry sir but I do not feel comfortable doing that.

 

How do you get the scouts to follow the buddy system after having a scout sit in the woods alone?

How do you explain to them its okay not to follow the buddy system sometimes?

 

 

[AnneinMpls 10]

Such incidents are perhaps less common in our part of the galaxy but do happen.

 

I was helping out with my foster daughter's troop at a Service Unit Encampment many years ago, when the troop leader noticed a Brownie (2nd grader) had poured too much ketchup on her plate (I think we all understand about young people and occasional lapses in fine motor control, eh?). The troop leader handed the girl a spoon and made her eat all of it...My foster kiddo and I spent the rest of the weekend hunting for a new troop to join.

I'm especially disappointed in myself though, because while I did say to the leader and her asst. that this was a wrong thing to do I didn't press the issue to the point of stopping it. At the time I was thinking if I did I might be setting my foster daughter up for similar bad treatment while my back was turned, but fact is, I was a lot younger then, and didn't have quite the self-confidence to stand up to the situation as I should have.

This same leader had her girls pull a prank on the oldest troop at the Encampment, resulting in retaliation where the older girls snuck in and stole all of the younger girls' teddybears, etc. (We found them stashed away a day later.) Icky. Scouting on two continents with 7 different leaders, I'd never encountered such behavior before. Heck of a way to introduce a bunch of kids to Scouting. For most of them, this was their first overnight.

I strongly agree with Mr. Steele - there is so much *good Stuff* to do under the auspices of Scouting, that if you're engaging in this cr*p you're kids are going to miss out on, and maybe be driven out of the program for good.

[Rooster7 11]

You can't regulate life. I understand OGE's story and I appreciate his feelings. However, try as we may, it's not a perfect world. People, especially young boys, will always find ways to bend the rules. Furthermore, we cannot create rules every time someone discovers a new way to take advantage of someone else, or because it is revealed that a boy may get his feelings hurt under certain circumstances. My point - while I agree that OGE endured an unnecessary abuse, the response should not be - "Let's ban Bushy, Bushy, Grey Squirrel!" Ultimately, a boy won't be able to fart unless he stands in a designated area. Pranks can and should be fun. Im not willing to ban fun.

 

Did you know, in little league, each year about four or five boys die because they are hit in the chest with a baseball? What can we do about this? One - we can ban little league baseball. Two, we can force all little league clubs to provide chest protectors (of course, this in effect, we would eliminate about 70% of the clubs due to financial hardship). Or three, we can allow millions of boys to play the game knowing that life contains a element of risk. Its a harsh reality, but we cannot protect our children from every physical danger, much less every possible cruelty. Thus, we should do the next best thing. Educate them and prepare them for life. Which by the way, is what I thought Scouting was supposed to do. Yes, they should feel safe in Scouting, but lets not smother them in bubble wrap. We wont be doing them any favors.

 

Having said all of the above, I do feel strongly that adult leaders need to be much more watchful for these kinds of abuses. I find the "left-handed smoke shifter" prank to be somewhat counter-productive. I am not convinced that a boy is truly humiliated. Yet, I have to ask myself - "What kind of boy falls for this trick?" I think the answer is - It's the kind of boy who willing helps his leaders and peers without question. He respects authority and understands the chain of command concept. He's eager to let others know that he can be counted on. He wants to be accepted. So, consequently, he accepts the task and does not question his "orders". When the prank is done, what does he learn? His elders are not always going to protect his interests. His fellow Scouts cannot always be trusted. In some sense, perhaps this is good. The boy is given a dose of reality. Nevertheless, I think there are other ways to communicate this lesson. I am not suggesting as OGE has that all pranks need to be banned. BUT - I think the adults do have a responsibility to be watchful. They need to know their Scouts. They should take measures to ensure that pranks are done in a spirit that translates into camaraderie and fun, not humiliation and discord.(This message has been edited by Rooster7)

[OldGreyEagle 5]

Open question, why was the OA Tapout changed to a Callout, why did that change?