Completing the same activities for Wolf and Bear. ANOTHER outdoor flag ceremony?!

[sixtoe]

I'm a little confounded by some of the Activity requirements for Bears.

 

Last month, when my Scouts were Wolves, we coordinated an outdoor flag ceremony with our local Boy Scout Troop. Each of them learned how to raise and lower the flag, per the Wolf requirements.

 

Here we are on the cusp of June 1. They're about to transition to Bears, so I'm reading through the requirements, and lo and behold, Achievements 3h and 3i are...learn how to raise and lower the flag, and participate in an outdoor flag ceremony.

 

My question: Is this to reinforce the behavior by having them do it again? Or is it to ensure Cub Scouts have done it at least once during their Cub Scouting experience?

 

As an Advancement Chair, I'm a believer that Scouts (or more likely, their parents) shouldn't be marking off activities based on the fact that they once went camping when their son was two-years-old--after all, Scouting isn't about checking off your life achievements. But as a Den Leader as well, I'm not really into organizing ANOTHER flag demonstration two months after our last one...or ANOTHER visit to the police station (after visiting as Tigers and Wolves, and with their school class)...or ANOTHER run through the bike safety rules...

 

So what's the ruling? Do I run through and mark off all the things they already covered as Wolves? Or do we do it all again as Bears?

[dedkad]

First of all, you can't complete a requirement for Bear until you are actually a Bear, so anything they have done prior will not count towards their Bear requirements. The requirement you must complete for Achievement 3 is 3j (the Character Connection), not 3i (the outdoor flag ceremony). I know the j looks a lot like an i in the handbook, but if you look close you can see how the j drops below the line. Also, whenever an Achievement includes a Character Connection, you always have to do the Character Connection, so it makes sense that it is 3j and not 3i. I have noticed there are often a few things that are repeated each year when the boys move up to the next level, but the beauty of Bear is that you have soooo many other Achievements and so many options for requirements within each Achievement to earn your Bear rank. Don't want to do something you've already done as a Wolf? Then choose a different requirement or an entirely new Achievement.

 

Also, I don't know what other leaders do, but I do allow certain school activities to count towards cub achievements, like science fair projects and field trips (things that take many more hours to complete than we could do in a single den meeting). I have even chaperoned a few field trips to make sure the right questions are asked and answered by the tour guide in order to meet the requirement. I know DL's who homeschool their kids and work entire lesson plans around some of the cub requirements.

[jc2008]

The Flag ceremony should not be something you do once and checkbox off. We actually have a makeshift flagpole in our front yard made up up a tall plank of wood and some rope and when the meeting is at our house we do the outdoor ceremony. We have done it multiple times this year. The flag ceremony is not a one and done thing for our Den. In fact the kids actually don't need to be told very much at all when doing the flag ceremony now since we do it so often. If we are inside we do the entire indoor flag ceremony too (honor guard marches forward and presents colors etc).

 

I mean surely your kids are able to do it one time per year just to make sure they actually learn how to do it. Doing it one time isn't exactly learning it very well.

 

[jc2008]

[King Ding Dong]

When they get to Boy Scouts every troop meeting will begin and end with a flag ceremony. Pack meetings should as well, but often do not. In wolf each boy was to Lead a ceremony. So in a den of 6 that is at least six ceremonies. In direct response to your question, yes the purpose is to reinforce what thay have learned and to take it a step further. Many requirements are repeated each year, usually it is expected to make them more complex or fine tune their skills. The flag ceremony requirements are in Webelos also. Even in Webelos it is hard to get the boys to stand still, march in step and not horse around. Unless you have exceptional children I am sure the flag ceremony they performed did not look like a military honor guard at Arlington. Not that that level is the goal, but improvement is. Did the wolves actually get the flag folded up into 13 perfect triangles. Not likely. You dont teach your kids to swim and then expect them to pick right up where they left off 3 years later after never seeing the water. One thing that has helped me tremendously is reading large parts of the Boy Scout handbook. I have a much better understanding why cubs do many seemingly silly "make work" exercises in the requirements and electives. Example in wolf one elective is to measure the span between your thumb and index finger. Seems silly in a vacuum, but knowing that measurement is used in Scoutcraft skills to measure distances of far away objects. All the job chart exercises year after year are direct training for the family life and personal management Eagle required Merit Badges. The WHY things a re done in cubs is not explained very well, and if they tried to do that it would make the leader guides and handbooks to large and comlpex. Sure there are mistakes here and there but for the most part you just need to trust that the developers of the program know what they are doing.

[King Ding Dong]

When they get to Boy Scouts every troop meeting will begin and end with a flag ceremony. Pack meetings should as well, but often do not. In wolf each boy was to Lead a ceremony. So in a den of 6 that is at least six ceremonies. In direct response to your question, yes the purpose is to reinforce what thay have learned and to take it a step further. Many requirements are repeated each year, usually it is expected to make them more complex or fine tune their skills. The flag ceremony requirements are in Webelos also. Even in Webelos it is hard to get the boys to stand still, march in step and not horse around. Unless you have exceptional children I am sure the flag ceremony they performed did not look like a military honor guard at Arlington. Not that that level is the goal, but improvement is. Did the wolves actually get the flag folded up into 13 perfect triangles. Not likely. You dont teach your kids to swim and then expect them to pick right up where they left off 3 years later after never seeing the water. One thing that has helped me tremendously is reading large parts of the Boy Scout handbook. I have a much better understanding why cubs do many seemingly silly "make work" exercises in the requirements and electives. Example in wolf one elective is to measure the span between your thumb and index finger. Seems silly in a vacuum, but knowing that measurement is used in Scoutcraft skills to measure distances of far away objects. All the job chart exercises year after year are direct training for the family life and personal management Eagle required Merit Badges. The WHY things a re done in cubs is not explained very well, and if they tried to do that it would make the leader guides and handbooks to large and comlpex. Sure there are mistakes here and there but for the most part you just need to trust that the developers of the program know what they are doing.

Don't just go to a police station again. Do it later In the year or do something else like visit the juvenile detention center. Hehe. There are consequences larger than getting your game system taken away for a week.

 

Do you have a local FBI crime lab?

 

Use your judgement to make it more meaningful. Example. In Webelos we did not visit a "scientist" per say with beakers and goggles. We toured the water treatment plant. There is a lot of science involved and the workers there use a lot of science and testing to ensure our water supply is safe. A waste treatment plant would be another good one.

[ScoutNut]

Not every boy starts Scouts as a Tiger, and goes thru Wolf, Bear, Webelos. Some Scouts start when they are older. Yes, there are certain things that BSA would like boys to learn, and that bear repeating, in multiple ways. Law enforcement, and the use, care, and display, of the American flag are two of those. Even for boys who have "done it all before", practice makes perfect, and perhaps the roles that each boy does can be juggled so that everyone gets the full learning experience.

 

Also, as mentioned by dedkad above, The Bear program is a bit different from Wolf. Bears have choices. They can choose to complete the achievements, and requirements, that interest THEM. For the Bear Country section, Scouts are only required to complete 3 out of 5 Achievements. If you do not want to do - #3 What Makes America Special, and - #7 Law Enforcement Is a Big Job, then don't. Do the others instead. Or simply do not do requirement #3h. Pick other Requirements within the Achievement.

 

Also, as noted by dedkad, ONLY things done DURING the CURRENT Scout year count against CURRENT Cub requirements. Counting things the boys did last year to fulfill Wolf requirements against this year's Bear requirements is just plain wrong.

[blw2]

duplicate post.... I'll copy my comment into this thread since it has more replies. maybe the other will be cleaned up:

 

I'm in the same place as ADL, transitioning to Bear. I haven't gotten to that point yet, but apparently it's not required. Good, because it is silly to bore them to tears repeating stuff......

....but what does it hurt?

We have found is that the boys don't really get it when it comes to formal complex things like flag ceremonies. They are boys and are at best only half paying attention.

Our new DL took over half way through the wolf year. Something he's been doing and I have been supporting is doing a flag ceremony at every meeting.... more than just the pledge.

We have a small US flag and a Den flag on shorter poles, and I made some simple little flag pole stands. At almost every meeting, we run a quick little indoor ceremony where the color guard will march the flags forward, cross the colors, etc.... It takes almost no time from the meeting, and with more and more practice, the boys are getting better. Even still after many den meetings, they still flubbed it at our last pack meeting.....well actually, they flubbed the closing script which we don't practice nearly as often as the opening.

 

When the weather is nice, we sometimes do our meetings outside. There's a flag pole in front of the school and it's no big deal to clip the flag on and run it up. Doing it as a den the second time could be a good review, simple, and quick. I wouldn't think that it needs to be a big drawn out formal production with every boy getting a turn. Just part of a normal meeting.

 

I have yet to see a cub scout color guard that couldn't use some improvement.... even when the "standards" are reduced to a 7 year old level.

 

[jc2008]

When they get to Boy Scouts every troop meeting will begin and end with a flag ceremony. Pack meetings should as well, but often do not. In wolf each boy was to Lead a ceremony. So in a den of 6 that is at least six ceremonies. In direct response to your question, yes the purpose is to reinforce what thay have learned and to take it a step further. Many requirements are repeated each year, usually it is expected to make them more complex or fine tune their skills. The flag ceremony requirements are in Webelos also. Even in Webelos it is hard to get the boys to stand still, march in step and not horse around. Unless you have exceptional children I am sure the flag ceremony they performed did not look like a military honor guard at Arlington. Not that that level is the goal, but improvement is. Did the wolves actually get the flag folded up into 13 perfect triangles. Not likely. You dont teach your kids to swim and then expect them to pick right up where they left off 3 years later after never seeing the water. One thing that has helped me tremendously is reading large parts of the Boy Scout handbook. I have a much better understanding why cubs do many seemingly silly "make work" exercises in the requirements and electives. Example in wolf one elective is to measure the span between your thumb and index finger. Seems silly in a vacuum, but knowing that measurement is used in Scoutcraft skills to measure distances of far away objects. All the job chart exercises year after year are direct training for the family life and personal management Eagle required Merit Badges. The WHY things a re done in cubs is not explained very well, and if they tried to do that it would make the leader guides and handbooks to large and comlpex. Sure there are mistakes here and there but for the most part you just need to trust that the developers of the program know what they are doing.

Agree with KDD,

My son takes swim lessons every summer, I dont expect him to just need one swimming lesson, be taught the basics then never get a chance to practice what he learned. You don't need to make a big todo about the ceremony, getting boy scouts and everything, if that is too difficult to arrange. Like I said, a tall pole in your front yard with a rope they can hoist the flag up with is all it really needs.

[qwazse]

6t,

The requirement becomes superfluous if you open every den meeting with a flag ceremony. So, forget the book, just raise colors until it is second nature and new boys pick it up automatically.

 

This is not a trivial request because it has downstream repercussions. My observation of venturing crews throughout my area is that they are weak on flag protocol. (Yes NER-A4, I'm calling you out. At summit, we had an awesome set-up and plenty of talent, but nobody organized a color guard!) Part of it, I think, is my boys in the troop take it for granted and the non-troop youth are a little embarrassed that they don't know it. Anyway it's something that I'm working on starting last week (when I made my president and vp-admin open with the pledge before placing flags graveside).

 

My point: you are preparing your boys (and maybe their sisters) for the day they'll lead their community in just a few short years, so drill, Drill, DRILL!