Merit Badge Counselor -18

[BeastlyGaming]

Would I (16) be able to teach, or demonstrate certain areas of the Programming merit badge, under the supervision of the Counselor in charge?

 

This is without being going to any summer camps as a counselor or staffer there... This would be in the troop and under charge of the merit badge counselor.

Obviously I wouldn't be signing off and the Counselor would review this material fully and in detail with the scouts but me being able to summarize and show how to do something like how to make an application that's simple, show and tell how the code works; ect.

[MrBob]

You can teach Scouts in your Troop, or any troop, or even non-Scouts, just about anything you'd care to.  Good on you for offering!

 

Obviously, the registered Merit Badge Counselor would have to sign off as each Scouts completes each requirement, but there's no rule saying the MBC is the sole deliver-er of knowledge.  You'd just be the "guest instructor".

 

[qwazse]

Absolutely! We often have our scouts teach aspects of MBs ... even to scouts who aren't working on a MB.

This is especially true if the skills being demonstrated have become the scout's hobby.

In fact, sometimes by having a scout demonstrate a skill, the other scouts better know exactly what they are supposed to do for their counselor.

[Stosh]

Go for it, sounds good to me.

[Chisos]

Sounds awesome, do it!

 

If the question was about "allowed to teach MB's..." look at the Life rank req's.  One of the options is for a scout to use EDGE to teach something from one of the Eagle-required MB's...then the scout being taught can demonstrate their new skill and get it signed off by a MBC.

[BeastlyGaming]

I will be working on a presentation for Programming merit badge, I will assist in teaching HTML, Java and Python to a group of interested scouts :>

 

 I will also be teaching about the History & Languages and how they're used and translated.

[SSScout]

No COBAL?   No  FORTRAN?   Why did I waste my time in college....

[qwazse]

No COBAL?   No  FORTRAN?   Why did I waste my time in college....

holely multi-punched Hollerith cards!

[NJCubScouter]

Moving this to the Advancement section, though I am not sure whether there is anything more to say on the subject, since we already seem to be getting into let-me-tell-you-how-it-was-40-years-ago territory.  

[Stosh]

With the rapid pace of change in the computer world, BSA is always going to be a day late and a dollar short.  20 years ago when I was doing the Computer MB, it was so out-of-date it was pathetic.  Even if they were to update it to today's standards, by the middle of next week it's going to be obsolete.  It's just the nature of the beast. 

 

Just remember, the US put a man on the moon using a slide rule.

[Col. Flagg]

Moving this to the Advancement section, though I am not sure whether there is anything more to say on the subject, since we already seem to be getting into let-me-tell-you-how-it-was-40-years-ago territory.  

 

Well, when you have mainframes that have been running large parts of our government and financial services industry for the better part of 40 years, it's as much a conversation about then as now. Just sayin'.

[Stosh]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_57_merit_badges_(Boy_Scouts_of_America)

 

Edited April 6, 2017 by Stosh

[TAHAWK]

The Guide to Advancement expressly provides for persons other than Merit Badge Counselors to instruct on Merit Badge topics.  See B.S.A., Guide to Advancement (2015) at p. 50: "It is permissible for guest speakers, guest experts, or others who are not merit badge counselors to assist in the counseling process. Those providing such assistance must be under the direction of a registered and approved counselor who is readily available onsite, and provides personal supervision to assure all applicable BSA policies and procedures—including those related to BSA Youth Protection—are in place and followed."

Edited April 7, 2017 by TAHAWK

[Stosh]

The Guide to Advancement expressly provides for persons other than Merit Badge Counselors to instruct on Merit Badge topics.  See B.S.A., Guide to Advancement (2015) at p. 50: "It is permissible for guest speakers, guest experts, or others who are not merit badge counselors to assist in the counseling process. Those providing such assistance must be under the direction of a registered and approved counselor who is readily available onsite, and provides personal supervision to assure all applicable BSA policies and procedures—including those related to BSA Youth Protection—are in place and followed."

 

I believe this is the clause summer camps use to cover themselves for providing CIT's for MB instruction.

[TAHAWK]

No need for cover.  What they routinely do that is shameful is:

 

1) allow Scouts who don't know the subject to teach ("Bear bags are made of special material so the bears can't smell what;s in them.");

 

2)  allow Scouts to decide who gets a signed Blue Card; andc

 

3) have those Blue Cards signed after zero individual testing/passing.  

 

Not Trustworthy.  100% scam.  All to raise $$$.  

 

At least the mistaken advancement-mill SMs are not doing it for money, just out of a mistaken belief that advancement is a goal - the same blunder as Journey to Mediocrity.

 

But BSA is responding, if belatedly and without admitting the depth of the scandal, first with the rule that the honest SM can block awarding the MB if he determines it could not, in fact, have been earned, as with the 16-year-old "Counselor" or impossibly-short time available.  Next should come refusal to certify camps who lack Merit Badge Counselors for Merit Badges that they "offer."  ("Pssst.  Kid!  Want a Personal Management Merit Badge from scratch in five fifty-minute sessions?  Get your troop to Camp Runamuk.")