SPL issues

[King Ding Dong]

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

I have been intrigued by many of your thoughts Kudu. My question is what use is scouting to natural leaders and natural followers? My view of scouting has been to develop leadership skills in those who it doesn't come to naturally. My son is a natural at math, reading and science. He is pitiful at composing spoken and written thoughts, that is were he needs development. Should we just give up on that because it doesn't come naturally to him?

 

I don't see parents supporting a program that just teaches their child to follow orders and be good little soldiers. I think aspiring to growth and developing skills that come hard for you is a good thing. Am I misunderstanding you ?

[Stosh]

It is more my growing frustration with the lad.......The return on my time spent with him, is next to zero...I just don't see any growth or interest in the position.

 

His failure to consistently provide leadership in the troop.....Unless I call him to make sure he has a program scheduled he won't do it.

King,

 

Yes, your points are all valid, especially the emphasis we as parents and society as a whole spend on accomplishment/success. There are a lot of accomplished people out there that do fantastic things, but acquire such knowledge at a cost. For example, the medical doctor that spends 99% of his time in his education and 1% developing social skills. Sure he might come up with the cure for cancer, but his bedside manner would totally stink.

 

Parents today want their kids to be able to do everything, but what they often miss is asking their child what they want to do! If a kid says he wants to play baseball, he's automatically expected to make the majors by the time he's 20. No parent is going to invest $$'s into their children unless there is a sufficient rate of return on the investment. Why can't he just play for fun?

 

What's wrong with all C's on a report card?

 

So he's not good at a POR, so what? Try another one. If that doesn't work out, try yet another. Keep working with him until he find's his niche. There are parents out there that just aren't going to be satisfied unless Johnny has a SPL patch for his scrapbook.

 

While we dump tons of self-esteem praise on these kids, how many actually sit down and find out what would enhance their self-respect?

 

Sometimes it's better to let our children learn their own lessons in life instead of trying to dictate their course of life to avoid the mistakes we made. I'd rather have my children happy rather than successful. My mother graduated high school valedictorian as well as did my daughter. Neither of them have college degrees, but they wouldn't trade their lives for anything other than what they have made of them. I'm happy for the successes of my kids because I didn't set them up for failure because of my expectations for them.

[Basementdweller]

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

No I don't treat the SPL like this.....

 

 

But I haven't heard him keep repeating 300 feet 300 feet 300 feet........

 

You just keep spouting the same crap year after year after year......

 

I get it

 

Just not very helpful

[Kudu]

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

King Ding Dong commented

 

My view of scouting has been to develop leadership skills in those who it doesn't come to naturally.

 

 

My question would be: Why Scouting? Why not do to high school football what Wood Badge did to Patrol Leaders: Replace position-specific training with corporate "team-building exercises"? You know, trust falls, game of life, diversity awareness, etc.

 

 

When did Baden-Powell, the inventor of Scouting, ever say the purpose of the Patrol System is to "develop leadership skills"?

 

 

Back when Scouting was popular (before the invention of "Leadership Development"), the purpose of a Patrol was to go out on patrol, just as the purpose of most games is to move a ball through physical space (say 300 feet). Likewise, physical space is why learning Scoutcraft Skills was once an adventure.

 

 

If we did to sports what Wood Badge does to the Patrol Method, just think of how angry the nation's basement dwellers would get at guys who point out that when soccer and football were popular, the end zones were 300 feet apart! "300 feet 300 feet 300 feet........ You just keep spouting the same crap year after year after year...... I get it. Just not very helpful"

 

 

 

King Ding Dong commented:

 

My son is a natural at math, reading and science. He is pitiful at composing spoken and written thoughts, that is were he needs development. Should we just give up on that because it doesn't come naturally to him?

 

 

OK, perfect example. After Green Bar Bill retired, Boy Scouts was run by millionaire office managers, so they added office management as a "Method" of Scouting.

 

 

If Boy Scouts had been run by the Boy's Life editorial staff, then they might have invented "English Grammar" as a "Method" of Scouting. Think of how much more useful Scouting would be to your son (and all boys, actually) if he had to write essays for six months to get "credit" for advancement.

 

 

Let's turn English Grammar into a "Method of Scouting" and force it on boys like we do to Basementdweller's SPL.

[Basementdweller]

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

KDD kudu's program isn't about giving everyone a chance to try leadership......It is about the natural leaders taking over and running the outings....

 

Your son wouldn't get an opportunity to give it a try....

 

Ok wise guy explain to me how the following is helpful

 

". Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement."

 

 

Stupid post like this remove any shred of credibility you had.

[Stosh]

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

KDD kudu's program isn't about giving everyone a chance to try leadership......It is about the natural leaders taking over and running the outings....

 

Your son wouldn't get an opportunity to give it a try....

 

Why not? If all the Librarians sat around looking at books gaining valuable credit for advancement, and all of a sudden one of the boys said, "Hey, I'm bored of this and I want to go camping, who's with me?" you'll have your natural leader identified immediately. The reason this doesn't happen in today's troops is because everyone one sitting around waiting for someone to lead. They don't think they have the authority and even a responsibility to do such. ANY boy that shows initiative on anything shows more leadership than all the POR's sitting around gaining advancement and not doing their jobs. This forum is full of threads that reflect this problem. My credibility goes out the window when I supported the idea that toss out the advancement program and put in it's place a program of letting the boys learn life skills and putting them to use in a controlled environment, like camping and outdoor skills. Very few life skills can be taught inside in a classroom.

[Kudu]

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

Yeah, Basementdweller, I haven't been active here in a while. For some reason I thought that we were in general agreement on most issues, so my 26 Librarians post would give you a helpful perspective on the destructive force of POR requirements that you are now witnessing.

 

 

I swear that I would not have intruded on your thread if I had known that for years now, you have seethed with anger whenever I suggest Baden-Powell's minimum standard (yes, minimum standard) of 150-300 feet between Patrols when they camp as a Troop.

 

 

I guess your admonition to "SEEK TRUTH" does not extend to, um, trying the Patrol System, huh?

 

 

Otherwise why did you duck the two most practical questions in Scouting: How far do your Patrols hike without adult helicopters? How far apart do they camp as a Troop?

[King Ding Dong]

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

Did not notice all the comments prior to mine. Sure stepped into the middle a a big one. I have not wisdom or experience to make much sense of this banter, but a few observations.

 

I don't know anywhere within reasonable distance where a our troop could camp 300 feet apart without backpacking and our younger scouts just cant carry the necessary equipment.

 

Our school district does a pretty good job at civics so the 3 citizenships are a waste. Would love to see them replaced with Scoutcraft skills. The Wright Bros may have invented the airplane, but that doesn't mean their design was perfect. And if I have to hear one more district training rep or camp director give the same damn BP and the Zulus and Boer War speech again I think I am going stand up and start blowing wet farts all over.

 

Like it or not an active scout over the age of 14 these days is a rare breed. Maybe it is the helicopter parents, but I suspect it has more to do with the dream of sports "scholar"ships and the eroding middle class. If you want to survive in the future with very few exceptions you must be a leader. If you are not, good luck making a living wage.

[Basementdweller]

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

I agree with what you preach

 

But you are not being even remotely helpful..

 

So our July outing.....The lad has done nothing to plan it......I applied pressure to get him going......If it were my son I would have booted him in the ass to get him going......Well he is not, so I cannot apply the fatherly boot.

 

Spoke with him this evening and he made significant progress today......We have a campsite...and program ideas........

[King Ding Dong]

It is more my growing frustration with the lad.......The return on my time spent with him, is next to zero...I just don't see any growth or interest in the position.

 

His failure to consistently provide leadership in the troop.....Unless I call him to make sure he has a program scheduled he won't do it.

I get what you are saying about setting expectations to high or not in the interest of the child. However, if we left all the decisions up to kids, most of them would just sit in the basement sucked into the vortex of video games.

 

I have no expectations of my sons being a star athletes, but they are going to get exercise, how they choose to get it is up to them. They have a choice, go to swim practice, choose another sport or cycle, run, walk, push-ups. They both opt to swim and go to meets. Never made 1st in a race, all I care about is the did their best.

 

What's wrong with all C's on a report card ? Well that may have worked in the past, but the world is changing rapidly and that just won't cut it anymore. I am not talking about being successful, I am talking about surviving above the poverty line. Unless you are in a position to demand higher compensation, you are not going to get it. Try surviving on your own with minimum wage and no health benefits.

 

Sure there will be some that do not have the ability to get good grades, but if the ability is there we are failing as parents to not expect them. Sure I want my children to be happy, but I also want them to be able to support themselves. I will take food, shelter, clothing and health care over happy. There is a large portion of this country that think health care is a privilege not a right. We are now competing against near slave labor, just look at the work conditions at Foxconn. Dormitories.

[Eagledad]

Anyone else feel the usability of the new Scouter.com forum is synonymous to the BSA's present situation. A response requires a great deal of planning, persistence and patience. My response to King Dingdong will be brief, wish me luck. Your highness, if you can't keep older scouts in your program, you are doing it wrong. Barry

[Stosh]

It is more my growing frustration with the lad.......The return on my time spent with him, is next to zero...I just don't see any growth or interest in the position.

 

His failure to consistently provide leadership in the troop.....Unless I call him to make sure he has a program scheduled he won't do it.

Yep, my kids have run the full scale of life's decisions. First of all none of them is in anyway incapable of doing great things: I have 7 kids

1) Daughter (single)- International Business Consultant - New York, NY

2) Daughter - (single) - Studying for her Doctorate in Bio-research - Philadelphia, PA

3) Daughter - (married) - Starting her medical residency - Houston, TX

4) Daughter - (married) - College grad - Works at Target department store, part time, locally

5) Daughter - (married) - College dropout - Works for food distribution company, full-time Chicago, IL

6) Son - (single) - Electrical/Computer engineer, Boulder, CO

7) Son - (single) - no post high school education - resident of the computer game vortex, hasn't held a job for more than 3 months in the past 10 years.

Once they turned 18, they made their own choices in life. Yep, and the only grandchild is from child #7....

Parent may think they can control the success of their children, but that's a total myth and once they realize that things run a lot smoother. Same for any SM. One does their best, but the ultimate decision is the scouts, not their parents, not the SM.

[Kudu]

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

KDD,

 

 

Your reply is why I take such a dim view of "leadership" theory.

 

 

When any leadership enthusiast first hears about Baden-Powell minimum standard of 300 feet between Patrols (never in BSA training, of course), he or she rejects it with the same objections as you:

 

 

1. It is impossible to space Patrols 300 feet apart in 21st century Boy Scout Camps.

 

 

2. A historical analogy to prove that if Baden-Powell were alive today, he would have based Scouting on anything but camping.

 

 

3. An apocalyptic vision of parental objections.

 

 

4. A reference to fecal matter.

 

 

5. The assumption that unlike sports (which are all still based on questionable life-skills like bouncing or kicking a ball, or hitting it with a club), we must replace the elements of B-P's game with modern "leadership skills" because most boys will spend the rest of their lives sitting in a cubical.

 

 

Leadership theory appears to be inherently anti-Patrol, from local Roundtables to the BSA's top professional millionaires. In fact, leadership skills are so predictably anti-Patrol that they deserve an anti-Scouting acronym formula all of their own!

 

 

My guess is that this is because of POR requirements: Even if by pure chance your Scouts elect a responsible Patrol Leader, he will be gone in six months and replaced by the next popularity contest winner. Therefore it is safer to stick to a Webelos III program where adult helicopters keep Patrol Leaders on a short leash as they oversee Troop "Controlled Failure."

 

 

There are Troops in which leadership theory does not replace the Real Patrol Method. In my mind's eye I picture Barry's SPL power-pointing the Forming--> Storming sequence of a new Patrol Leader's first experience at 300 feet, or diagraming a Leading Edge analysis of a eight-mile Patrol Hike without adult supervision. But such "Real" Patrol Method Troops are the exception that proves the rule.

 

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

[Kudu]

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

OK, Basementdweller, I agree. I admit I have nothing to contribute to your situation that is even remotely helpful.

 

 

That is because when I was Scoutmaster, my Troop ran along the same lines that Stosh describes.

 

 

I encouraged each Patrol's most competent Scout to stay on as Patrol Leader because he was important.

 

 

I never let an incompetent Scout leave a Scoutmaster Conference without finding a good POR for him.

 

 

A Patrol election occurred only when a particular Patrol actually needed a new Patrol Leader, and (in the first few years of the Real Patrol Method) only after I met with them to discuss the qualities of a Patrol Leader necessary for me to allow them to camp at 300 feet, or conduct Patrol Hikes without my adult helicopters.

 

 

Sometimes a Patrol Leader would return from NYLT preaching the Troop Method and, against my advice, the PLC would arrange a Troop-wide popularity contest, thinking that the little kids would elect one of them. However, even when that resulted in a loser SPL like you have now, the competent Patrol Leaders would plan the campout. When Patrol Leaders run a Troop, that is their job, not the SPL's.

 

 

Not even remotely helpful,

 

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net/patrol

[SR540Beaver]

The dead horse here is "Leadership Development," which began to replace Hillcourt's Real Patrol Method in 1965 with the imposition of position of responsibility requirements.

Leadership Development kills twice: First by forcing into PORs, boys who have no interest in being a "leader," and second by encouraging your natural leaders to make room for others once their six months are up.

The solution is obvious.

1. Purchase 26 Troop Librarian patches.

2. Ask your SPL to appoint one Troop Librarian for every letter of the alphabet. Especially valuable are letters for which you have no book titles. They teach the very highest form of leadership: Innovation (the ability to package nothing as something).

3. Announce that everyone in the Troop now has a "POR" for advancement.

4. As it becomes obvious that certain jobs need to be done, your natural leaders will step up.

Baden-Powell called that "Practical Christianity."

 

Teaching boys to extract compensation for stepping up is like paying them to love Jesus.

Yours at 300 feet,

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

Having been an NYLT Course Director this past fall, I can assure you that the "troop method" is not taught.