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Training requirements for Wood Badge


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It seems to be the case that a troop Scouter must have completed SM/ASM Position Specific and IOLS before taking Wood Badge. http://www.scouting.org/filestore/training/pdf/Trained_Leader_Positions.pdf

 

This requirement is not being uniformly honored.

 

Are there any consequences when councils allow untrained - some totally untrained - Scouters to take Wood Badge?

 

Any contact info for someone at National Council who should know?

 

(Yes, the basic training courses are not always wonderful, but they seem hardly likely to be improved if deemphasized.)

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My WB course was the least Patrol Method, Boy-Led scouting I ever experienced.  I pointed out during one of the PLCs that the Sm was supposed to intervene only in matters of BSA policy and safety, and

I find in my OA Lodge quite a few of the WB folks copping an attitude with us just plain long serving Scouters. A bit of a turn off. I am tempted to make some woggles and a song just for fun. Our rece

I agree with Stosh! One good thing about getting older is I am OK with disagreeing with other people. And I am getting pickier about where I want to invest my (decreasing) time. Woodbadge or that inte

Sometimes folks will get waivers.

 

I know of one instance, the person served in multiple roles. 1 role he completed all required training and BALOO. One role was missing ITOLS, and a 3rd was the online training. he got  in under his CS role.

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OK.  Waiver. Any knowledge of where that is authorized?  I know more than one council expressly states that "Because of the advanced nature of the training, these requirements may not be waived."

 

 

I also know of one patrol that had four members with no training of any kind - zero, nadda, zip.  They had a tad over six years in Scouting as adults - combined.  The other two patrol members were wonderful about sharing their experience and training.

Edited by TAHAWK
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Not true.

 

Look at the list again.  There's nothing that says Woodbadge is limited to SM/ASM positions.  The CC, COR, and MCs can attend, and they have a different training matrix.  The requirement is trained for your position.

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Not true.

 

Look at the list again.  There's nothing that says Woodbadge is limited to SM/ASM positions.  The CC, COR, and MCs can attend, and they have a different training matrix.  The requirement is trained for your position.

I was not remotely clear.  (What? Mind-reading weak today?)  I meant SM or ASMs.  

 

But whatever their position in a troop, as you suggest,  they are to complete the basic training for their position.  Yet, many are being allowed to take WB with no, or incomplete, training.  It is one of those "open secrets: - i.e., not secret all all - a wink and a nod.

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It seems that courses don't always fill up, so "exceptions" are made...

 

I think this is true.

 

Pragmatic approach:   an untrained but interested scouter with a completed application and signed check is worth two trained scouters that have no interest.

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I suspect that the desire to fill the class is going to be the driving force, and really what difference would it make.  You could have a class full of Committee Members whose sum training is YPT and online Committee Challenge, if WB would work for them why would it not work for a SM or ASM with roughly the equivalent training or lack thereof.

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So let us add the fact in our "theoretical" that the participants know that they do not meet the supposedly invariable qualifications for WB.

 

They know they don't have the qualifications, but they are at peace with it.   What's going to happen?   Are they going to be fired from their volunteer position?   Not likely.    The positions are too hard to fill.

 

As it relates to WB sign up, they may deduce they can sign up, though untrained, and no one will say a word.  Or be told wink/nudge, just put in your app with a check and you are golden.

 

Serious question from a non-WBer:   is the lack of position training a true detriment to the program?   Seems to me that WB is an entirely different deal from the old days when it was by invitation only.   Even if the candidates have had position training, they can be the greenest scouters in the BSA and still be eligible to attend.   Does this slow down the agenda?

Edited by desertrat77
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Those four Beavers mentioned above (one Sm and three ASMs) who had no training needed to have many things explained to them that they were assumed to know - such as the Aims of Scouting.   Explaining things took significant time away from focusing on the WB materials they were to absorb.  They didn't have a chance to understand the supposed  "teaching of the Patrol Method by demonstration" because what they saw was that the staff (adults) had all the power and the patrol members -- even if understood to be surrogates for Scouts -- had no power to plan anything and little opportunity to run anything beyond the "patrol meeting" between weekends.   (This second problem would have not been helped much by basic training for SM/ASMs as that training, like WB, does not  have the learning objective of teaching the elements of "Scouting's Most Important Method" and does not do so - just bits and pieces.  Prior to September, 2014, much less about the Patrol Method was taught in basic for SM/ASMs and nothing in the Patrol Method section of the syllabus. 

 

Cheating to puff up numbers would not seem to model Scouting's Values.

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They didn't have a chance to understand the supposed  "teaching of the Patrol Method by demonstration" because what they saw was that the staff (adults) had all the power and the patrol members -- even if understood to be surrogates for Scouts -- had no power to plan anything and little opportunity to run anything beyond the "patrol meeting" between weekends.   

My WB course was the least Patrol Method, Boy-Led scouting I ever experienced.  I pointed out during one of the PLCs that the Sm was supposed to intervene only in matters of BSA policy and safety, and I was told well maybe that's how you do it in your troop but that's not how we do it here.

 

That was the moment I realized I really shouldn't have been there.

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My WB course was the least Patrol Method, Boy-Led scouting I ever experienced.  I pointed out during one of the PLCs that the Sm was supposed to intervene only in matters of BSA policy and safety, and I was told well maybe that's how you do it in your troop but that's not how we do it here.

 

That was the moment I realized I really shouldn't have been there.

May I ask what year you attended?  

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