Bending or Changing the Guidelines

[Fuzzy Bear 12]

A.

A person is considered correct/safe when abiding by the stated limits set by the rules of the authorities in all situations.

 

Problems arise when the situation defies the logic of the rule and the individual believes that he/she must confront an unknown. Another set of problems arise when the individual is asked to do something by an authority that may or may not appear to be risky behavior, meaning the individual has a question about the validity of the request. There are also problems when a known rule is in direct conflict with a strong belief.

 

When a person uses reason regarding a rule, a guideline, or a law; one uses abstract reasoning and judgment. This is an individualized and varied aptitude that is not wholly dependent upon age, maturity or intelligence. In other words, given a situation, given the emotional intensity of the situation, given one's overall ability to reason and judge an answer to an unknown, the resulting answer may or may not be valid or acceptable but attempting to use the process may be thought to have value given the situation.

 

B.

Situational analysis for an unknown is as important to understand as it is to know and follow the rules. Problems arise because of a lack of aptitude, thus making knowing the rules have precedence.

 

[schleining 11]

The Safe Swim Defense analogy does not hold water.

That is to say do not start a fire even if you do not have a Fire N chit card, yet your buddy is going into hypothermia...

 

Common sense is the rule there and that would not violate the BSA policies.... in fact you'd get a medal for it.

 

The rules are there for a purpose. We live in a world of rules. If we want not to follow them, then get them changed, vote, become a member of the Board of Directors etc.. but until then set a good example and abid by the rules.

Bending and changing only send a message that rules can be broken and that they are not important. As soon as you teach that to a Scout... you can not unteach it. You are setting yourself and that Scout up to fail later in life... or set him down a path of breaking rules as a rule.

Personally I think that is the wrong way of doing business.

 

If you choose not to wear the uniform, because it is not required that is fine... I personally have heartburn with it... but fine. You should still expect a Scout to wear the full uniform and properly when he has it on.

Now- in my Troop the boys do not all wear "official" pants, and they are docked for that when we do inspections, but they are not penalized and told they can not participate. The goal is to get them fully uniformed and we are working to that end. If I told them it was ok to wear the uniform improperly than I would be setting the wrong tone/ example. If it is ok for that, than it is ok for other things.

 

I am not going down that road with my troop.

 

Jerry