Scout-led Instruction

[Twocubdad 665]

How much rope do you give your Scouts to lead instructional time during troop meetings? How far do you let them go before you pull the plug? Or do you ever pull the plug? How much do you let it affect the instruction the younger boys are receiving?

 

Our situation: We've been in serious rebuild mode for two years. For the past year we've been running troop programs by the book -- PLC does the planning, we use the 7-part meeting plan, Scouts execute the plan. Last year the results were spotty at best. In the first place, all the monthly themes were a bit too advanced. Too much Wilderness Survival and Shotgun Shooting and not enough First Aid, Pioneering and other basic skills. Secondly, the boy's presentation skills were very rough. Everything ended up sounding like someone reading a school essay. Not near enough hands-on, active instruction.

 

We tried to address this at JLT this summer. We spent a lot of time working on presentation skills. We also spent a lot of time discussing activities and how to make programs interesting. The themes the Scout selected were more basic.

 

Unfortunatly, the results thus far have not been good. This month's theme is cooking. It hasn't helped that for two of the four weeks the guys responsible for the program bailed -- "surprise" mid-term exams, ect. (The SPL tapdanced through one week, I filled in another.) When they have done a program it's been more of a glorified snack time than any sort of real instruction. The highlight has been two second-year guys cooking French toast. They actually did a good job of breaking down the skills and teaching.

 

I feel we set rather clear expectations of what we were looking for, however I will admit our new SPL doesn't really have the hang of staying on top of the program guys and making sure they are ready.

 

As always, the issue is the fine line between "Scout led" and "Scout led into the ground." Where and how do you draw that line?

 

 

[Oak Tree 15]

I think that question is on the final exam of Scoutmaster school. Where is the pesky line?

 

I ask myself some of the following questions when I'm trying to find that line:

 

Are the people doing the planning learning anything about how to do it better? Or does it appear that this level of performance will continue indefinitely?

 

Are the majority of boys getting nothing out of it?

 

Are any boys getting discouraged about attending the meetings?

 

I like to steer the boys away from failures where the whole group experiences the pain but where the group as a whole can generally do nothing about it. In this case I would certainly sit down with the SPL and re-evaluate whether these plans are realistic. If the Scouts aren't up to doing effective instruction, then I'd have adults help and/or lead the instruction.

[PeteM 10]

Someone will be along shortly to show you that he feels that boy-led is a fallacy.

 

Other than that,

Sit down with your SPL and the PLC, discuss what you have observed the problems to be, and how you would correct them, IF you were in their shoes. Don't do the work FOR them, just work WITH them in developing and excuting a better program. Contact your UC for any help that he/she could offer. Have you and your SPL visit some of the other troops in the area for ideas (after contacting the SM of the other troops to explain why you are there).

 

Just my $0.02

 

Pete

[evmori 11]

Is the information correct? Are the skills being taught correct? Are the Scouts getting anything out of it?

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[OldGreyEagle 5]

Boy lead is the goal, but as with many things, most of the time in encompassed by the journey. If the instructions are missing the marks and you feel that the youth have been persented with the best instructions you can give, it may be time to set up a tag team of teachers. Assign one adult and one youth to teach the subject, the adult leads the youth and develops the instruction (be sure to be the "correct" adult for this). The team presents their instructions and then the youth serves as the mentor for the next instruction. It may take a few times, not all troops will have a glib public speaker but do have youth that can be developed. It takes time but the growing reslessness of the "audience" must be considered as well. It isnt very efficient if you lose 5 scouts to boredom while developing 1 scout as an instructor. I guess the analogy is (recognizing all analogies limp)you want the Instructors to take off the training wheels as soon as possible, but you have to be ready to put them back on again for safety reasons

[Eagledad 2779]

Hi All

 

Lots of great answers. OGE gave the style our troop uses.

 

I think it was well said that boy run is a goal more then a technique. We have to understand that we are developing skills and maturity through the experiences of activities in our troops. That means lots and lots of activities are required.

 

If the skills required of the activity are to complicated, scale back the activity and or bring in more experienced guidance. This is the lesson I teach to new units with young scouts.Dont scale back the program for eleven year olds, instead fill in as much experienced counseling as required to keep the program going forward. But dont fill in so much that the scouts don't gain skill from the activity.

 

If a scout is to grow beyond the point where they really struggle, they must learn something that gets them farther the next time. It is a hard difference for adults to learn, but adults need to push the line to find where to step in and step out. Adults must be proactive in observing what the scout can and cannot do and figure out a way to get the scout past the cannot do.

 

Planning is an extremely difficult leadership skill to learn and even many adults arent good at it. Keep hammering at it and develop several small routines that simplify the process for scouts. I find communication alone can hurt planning because scouts dont know how to talk on the phone. Oh, they can talk to friends in a language that resembles babble, but Hello, my name is Bobby and Im with Troop 22. We are looking to do"" is not a skill we teach anymore.

 

We learned to teach phone etiquette in our first JLT. But, you see what Im talking about. Planning is mountainous size task that requires some basic skills for what is really an adult age activity. Develop planning into several small task so that the scout can see himself mastering the small task and eventually surprised that he completed the big task. Small steps.

 

As for the whole suffering from the few, so long as the whole are also learning from the performance of the few, you are doing OK. It is when the few havent a clue and cant see why the program is stumbling that gets everyone frustrated.

 

And then make sure that the scouts are seeking changes to improve performance. Nothing like being stuck in the mud and nothing changes. Get the scouts to review their performance and to come up with a few quick ideas to improve performance. I had my PLC spend five minutes evaluating every meeting and campout and come up with a few ideas before they went home. Every one. So long as they develop the habit of trying to improve performance, your program will always move. And it is a good personal habit to develop as well.

 

I love this scouting stuff.

 

Barry

 

[allangr1024 71]

I am a new scoutmaster but a scouter and scout parent of 5 years. I have been upset in the past about the level of knowledge retained by scouts of scouting skills. Most of our star and life scouts could not tie a square lashing, much less a taught line hitch, if their life depended on it. But to be fair, in the age of shock corded tent poles, they do not get to do much of it. In my scouting days (I tell the boys i remember when dirt was invented) our pup tents would not stay up without a rope tied to a tent stake. I am now requireing that the patrols put together some sort of camp gaget with rope at each campout.

 

Cooking is in a similar straight. The old regime did not emphasize it. I want them to do one campfire meal or dutch oven meal per campout. The results are sometimes comical, enfuriating, or sad.

 

I am coming to the place where I will teach a scout skill lesson in a troop meeting, with the SLP or PL watching, then turn the demonstration of the skill over to the SPL or PL and watch what they do with it. The boy leader should then gather the scouts under his care together and do the activity. Cook french toast? I will do it during a meeting, then have the boy leader lead the boys in it in the out of doors.

 

When will they learn? On the campout. By trying to do the thing. Under my watchful eye. They will fail or succeed, but the demonstration will help them.

 

I had a boy who was appointed by his patrol to do the Grubmaster thing for the patrol. They planned a complicated breakfast casserole, and appointed this boy because he had not been passed on the first class requirement. I did not see this happen in the meeting. This boy is working on tenderfoot and had never been part of a cook crew at all, an probably never cooked scrambled eggs before. The disaster was complete. My fault for not watching out. Now, I am going to bring a skillet and some eggs and demonstrate breadfast prep for this and other young scouts. I will have the PL put this guy on a cook crew. I will watch this guy cook over an open fire on a future campout. I will watch him creep, then step, then run, as we all develop.

 

 

[Eagledad 2779]

>>The disaster was complete. My fault for not watching out.

[allangr1024 71]

"Did none of the other scouts see it coming? You cant watch everything, so teach the Patrol Leaders to watch out for their scouts and all the scouts to watch out for each other. Its just my style, but I would have a scoutmaster conference with the whole patrol. " Barry.

 

 

This is one of those crazy situations where the patrol leader has been absent a lot, and the rest of the patrol was new and young. We just had elections and I think I have a good leadership team in place in the PLC. One PL is has our "Pinetree" leadership traning under his belt, and the other is a natural leader that I need to guide in seeing to his patrol. As I said, I am a new SM and am pulling the program back together. In the past we handed out titles and held elections without giving the "leaders" much of a job or much authority. The leaders will have to learn to lead by me giving them specific tasks like "have a patrol meeting and produce a campout menu". Then I need to examine the results to see if they are of sufficient quality.

 

 

[Beavah 205]

Yah, there are lots of challenges, eh?

 

I think yeh have to first be proficient in a skill before you can teach it in a hands-on, fun way. Yah, sure, we've all seen teachers or trainers who stay "one chapter ahead", but all they do is drone a lecture or (worse) make things up.

 

So question one is: Are your scouts truly proficient in their skills? Or at least competent?

 

If not, expecting 'em to teach is just being mean and settin' 'em up for embarrassment. Teachin' does help people who are competent become expert, but it won't do a thing to help a novice become proficient.

 

If your scouts aren't proficient, then remember that's your duty in the BSA policies for Advancement. They shouldn't advance unless they are proficient. Catch your PLC up with an intense, skills-based JLT, and rethink how you're usin' Advancement Method.

 

Now, just because someone knows how to do something doesn't mean that they know how to teach it. We all remember da teacher who was an expert at math but couldn't teach at all, eh .

 

Question Two is: Did you ever teach your kids how to teach?

 

Kids especially aren't comfortable with presentations. So yeh have to teach 'em how to teach and do presentations. Explain. Demonstrate. And then have 'em practice, and provide a good coach to work with 'em, same as you would with any other skill. Guide. And then give 'em feedback to help 'em get better. Evaluate.

 

I hope that before you let a scout use a gasoline backpacking stove on his own, you've explained it, demonstrated it, coached him while he tried a bunch of times, and then watched and evaluated him until you were sure he had it down. Just common sense safety.

 

Why would yeh do any less for a skill like teaching, where others were depending on him? Just common sense. Doin' anything else can also be a bad example to your kids, who might turn around and do the same thing, like allangr1024 describes. "Here, new kid. Make a souffle from scratch!"

 

Beavah

 

[anarchist 10]

Boy led instructionals can be and often are disasters...why?...Poor training, sometimes! Poor leadership? sometimes! Poor instruction technique...nearly always! IMHO, mainly 'cause most boys are just (like the rest of us) basically lazy!

 

As "boy led" program adult mentors, too often we "allow" programs to be "planned" and assigned and then go on auto pilot(as do the PLs and SPLs) expecting scout instructors to be natural teachers. I have sat through "thorns and roses" (post mortems) of failed classes and heard (hundreds of times now): "too much lecture and not enough hands on work".

 

But when it is the "complainers" turn to teach -he/they fall into the same trap..."lecture, without hands on activity"! And why? 'Cause "it" is easier to throw together at the last minute...no gear/materials to gather no real lesson plan...just stand up and read from the book ...or pull it from where the sun don't shine....

 

The number of times I have heard..."well, I sent out an email, but didn't hear back from anyone", when an SPL in explaining another failed meeting is astounding. But the Adult leaders need to remember that scouting has many competing activities and unless we are willing to go the extra mile..with guidelines, deadlines, call me back ticklers how can we expect it to trickle down? Sure it is more work but we must constantly stand at the scouts elbow and softly make corrections, hints and suggestions...even lending a gentle hand occaisionally to avoid setting the troop up for constant failure...as we train the older scouts we may find time to stand back but only rarely do we actually get to sit down to drink our coffee...And yes as it has been said hundreds of thousands of times...boy led is more work and more chaos for the adults than a Webelos III troop program...but if we really believe in the Boy Led idea we need to support it with the extra work...

 

This means the SPL must set out his requirements for completed lesson plans...even virtual scripts and the plans to "make it fun" at a date certain. This has to be early enough in the time line for "needed corrections".

 

It also means the program must be determined literally months before a training class is offered so the instructors can work out the kinks of their presentations-"practice makes, at least a bit, more perfect". It means the Scoutmaster must have his own set of ticklers in order to rattle the cage of the SPL at each point along the program path to be sure the SPL rattles the cages of his patrol leaders and instructors....and thusly, lots of email and phone contacts in addition to meetings....anything less opens the system to frequent failure...unless of course you have a troop of supper teachers...

 

You know, salesmen are always saying, "the secret to being a super salesman is making the buyer think that the idea to say "yes" and buy a product, is actually the purchasers own idea...and not the salesman's" Sometimes teaching is like that also...if we stand back - but close enough to nudge them and make quiet suggestions the teachers can "find" their way more often than not...and if we see a problem developing, often times we can step in along-side the teaching scout and with a deft..."another way to think about______, is to do it this way"...and the "deal" gets done -with just a little extra help....

 

The idea is much like being a Troop guide for the NSPs...it is not to doing it ourselves, but guiding the boys to be able to doing for themselves...and IF we do "IT" they don't have to do "IT". In a final not, we have found it necessary occaisionally to provide an adult mentor to literally teach the "ropes" to a couple of instructors..leading them through lesson plans, script writing and practice until they are ready to handle and audience...lots of work but particularly effective with younger scouts.

 

and Barry loves this scouting stuff....

 

anarchist

 

 

[EagleInKY 14]

Lots of good points here, and I'm not going to restate them. I agree with Barry and OGE's approach. It's an area where our troop has been slipping lately and I'm trying to fix it.

 

One of the big challenges is knowing when to step in and correct the problem "in real time" and when to deal with it after the fact. If no bad things are being taught, and it's just a matter of a bad use of time, I'll let them go. If, however, something is being taught in error, I'll step in. Depending on the severity, I may just ask probing questions to try and steer them to the right answer. If, however, I see something serious being taught in error (as I did once this past year to a toten chip class), I'll make sure they understand that I'm stepping in to correct a mistake.