I Blame the Boy Scouts

[SR540Beaver 116]

Here is a great article by National Geographics Boyd Matson.

 

http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/traveler-magazine/unbound/boy-scouts/

 

"On this, my third climb up Kilimanjaro, I already know what to expect: six nights sleeping on the ground, no bath for a week, cold wind, thin air, and maybe mild altitude sickness. I keep asking myself, Why am I doing this, again? Finally I come up with an answer. I blame the Boy Scouts of America. That organization stole my soul when I was a kid and planted it in the wilderness. I was too young to resist their clever sales pitch built around hiking and camping trips. And their system of rewarding accomplishments with higher ranks and colorful merit badges meant, in effect, there was always one more goal to reach, one more mountain to climb"........

 

 

[Gunny2862 10]

http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2012/04/10/new-study-shows-46-ways-eagle-scouts-are-different/

[SR540Beaver 116]

Interesting read Gunny. Thanks!

[Gunny2862 10]

It showed up on my Facebook today, glad you liked it. It seemed like a good addition to the thread...

 

[Eagledad 2653]

>>That organization stole my soul when I was a kid and planted it in the wilderness. I was too young to resist their clever sales pitch built around hiking and camping trips. And their system of rewarding accomplishments with higher ranks and colorful merit badges meant, in effect, there was always one more goal to reach, one more mountain to climb"........

[Tampa Turtle 1011]

Very nice little read.

[Brewmeister 132]

An infographic to follow up gunny's post:

 

http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2012/04/11/this-eagle-scout-infographic-pretty-much-says-it-all/

 

What I found surprising was the average age of Eagles! I had just assumed it would be much, much younger because of the number of discussions here about "12 year old Eagles," etc.

[OldGreyEagle 5]

Welcome to the Crew, Brew,

 

You may find that amoung the group there are several who are extremists, all things BSA are Bad, all things Leadership oriented are bad, all things Wood Badge are bad and a few others I am sure

 

There are several voices of moderation, I leave it to you to decide who you feel most follows your own values and who to believe

 

 

[Buffalo Skipper 13]

SR540Beaver, thank you for the post. I used that as my Scoutmaster Minute last night. It acutally got a round of applause from some of our scouts.

 

Life is Good!

 

[Brewmeister 132]

I wasn't being critical of any posts, I had simply assumed that the average age of Eagles was getting younger based on comments, so it was very surprising to me to see the nearly 3-year increase. Which goes to show what happens when one assumes!

[Deaf Scouter 23]

Brewmeister,

I was NOT surprised at the average of Eagles. My son's Troop motto was Eaglemakers and it was that challenge of getting them done before 18 like my son did. Most made it the year before having learned that Senior year and Eagle projects are not a nice combination. It came from watching another before saying WHEW on making the deadline and comparing it to one that didn't have that deadline. Sometimes lessons are learnt from watching and listening than reading and talking...*smiles