Eagledad

So you are basing your whole opinion on your personal approach to your sons program. I have dozens of parent discussions stories where I, as the SM, had to draw a line in sand to enforce the direction of the program as long as I was the SM. I have seen parents join the committee because they assumed it give them more stature to push change over the SM. You only need to go back to helicopter parent discussions to understand the struggle of keeping a program on track. Adding "family" into the program gives other members of the "family" a lot more power to suggest changes. It's not a theory, I have the t-shirts. As I write these responses, flashes of discussions with impassioned parents keep running through my mind. At least back then, I had the leader-parent barrier to give me some advantage. Barry

As I mentioned a couple months ago, the number one topic of a couple SMs I ran into was helicopter parenting. I believe the term "family scouting" in of itself will give parents more power to control the whole program. How could it not. It's one thing for a SM to tell a parent that the SM directs the program, not the parents. Now parents will feel they have more skin in the game. It's our human nature. It's inevitable. Barry

It's inevitable. The motivation to put your son into a program for building character is different than what ever motivation for the whole family joining. There are plenty of helicopter parent stories to support that reasoning. Barry

So I'm wondering, now that the boy scout program is changing into a family camping program, what activities, organizations, or groups, can boys join without their families tagging along. Sports? I don't know much about 4H, is it a family program. Are there other programs where boys make their own decisions for the purpose of learning from the consequences of the decision? Barry

The future struggle of Patrol Method is evident just in the discussion. Can a group of youth grow from their experience of working together? Of course, I have experienced it as a youth and monitored it as an adult. But in both experiences, I know what I was looking at, and looking for. I'm not sure the BSA can do much toward encouraging Patrol Method practice to future generations that haven't experienced it, much less know what it looks like. Books! I've suggested on this forum many times to letting scouts run their patrols using only the BSA handbooks, only to be judged as an adult telling scouts what to do (I guess because the books were written by adults). If adults here don't trust the handbooks (and why are they even in the BSA), then how can we hope for some kind of national consistency of applying Patrol Method. Probably 50% of my posts on this forum go toward balancing theories of applying Patrol Method. For example, I am amazed at the pontification just for how scouts should select their leaders. If the adult has that much invested just for leader selection, imagine their struggle with the rest of a scout's experience. The guidelines for selecting leaders are clearly given in their handbooks. I just don't see how the BSA can bring the adult membership as a whole together on Patrol Method without some great effort at a national level. And since Patrol Method isn't viewed as political, I don't see National giving it a lot of attention. Barry

Yes, the thread is kind of scary. I have in my scouting career been involved with removing several adults at both the Cub and Troop levels because risk toward the scouts. I'm not sure what advice to give because times have changed just in the last 15 years. Start by at least talking with the adult first. But, anyone who doesn't think the simple steps being suggested here won't give the adult a black eye is fooling themselves. I would be very surprised he would come back. Would you? I hate this part of unit responsibility. I have had many sleepless nights over the hard choices we have to make in keeping the program running strong and safe. I am sorry for all of you scouters who have to deal with these things. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. Barry

Ah, how many pages of policy, procedure and guidelines are required to handhold adult leaders to one single way of scout leading? And, would that still be enough to satisfy the cynics? Growth is a continuous and unpredictable process where different methods of scout leading are required for ultimate results. Being a good scout leader requires as much experience and growth (if not more) as a scout growing into a better scout. But, as the saying goes, the adult doesn’t know what the adult doesn’t know. The program, as a whole, is only as good as the adults willingness to grow and learn. Barry .

Then growth wasn’t considered in the process. Barry

I struggle with extremist debates on this forum because that leaves the other 95 of realist and pragmatist bored and searching google for something more interesting. There are two considerations that should drive changes, especially in a patrol method program. One is simplicity for duplication. Simplicity generally requires a need for change to simplify another process or processes. If the change contributes to more complexity for the same outcome, well because boys generally take the path of least resistance, they will change it soon enough. Second, growth. My struggle with nonconforming ideas is that, more often than not, growth was not considered in the decision for the change. The troop program is a program of learning and growth. What's the point of change if nobody gets anything out of it. I personally like handbooks because that is a good starting place, and a good fallback as well for the scouts. If the adult leader doesn't want to get blamed by the scouts' frustration, then give them a handbook. One of the extremist points that I grow tired of is that the boys must make all the decisions. On this discussion, it is my opinion, that if the adult directed change results in more growth of character and decision making, than that is the direction the program should go. As much as it hurts some folks here to read, this is an adult program designed to develop boys into better men of character. Program changes should "Do No Harm" to that effort. I believe in boy run patrol method because it is the BEST method for developing growth. That being said, boy run without monitoring growth is a program of boy-run-into-the-ground. I do believe that sometime temporary changes are required. I have learned, and as a result teach, that shorter election cycles work better for new troops with young scouts because the PORs can burn out young scouts quickly. Scouting is supposed to be fun for all the ages and most 11 years olds cannot handled the demands of a mature troop. Independence is stressful for 10 and eleven year olds, so give them a break. Our scouts have found that they will add PORs to help large groups of new scouts. There are some basics to glean from there somewhere, I hope I didn't rant off too far. Barry

When I was active as the District Membership chair 15 years ago, the average longevity of a crew was three years before they started breaking down. I would say three out of five crews die within 5 years of their start date. I did quite a bit of research on this and it comes down to the adults, or should I say adult. While Troops typically hand down adult leadership from one generation to the next, crews suffer from a much smaller pool of replacement adults. I also want to add that many of the crews started in our district were a reaction to a troop trying to provide a more adventurous program for the older scouts in the troop. There are two problems with that reasoning: first trying to save a broken program with an additional new program doesn't provide a long range objectives and tends to struggle with short sighted struggles between the two programs. And second, and in my opinion a deeper problem, adults who lack the ability to provide a quality older scout troop program also lack the skills required to make the additional crew program successful. And they burn out in three years. Crews that are successful in our area are generally sponsored more by an organization or business. For example a scuba shop sponsors a scuba crew. Police sponsor a crew as well as a medical emergency crew. A few hi adventure Troop/Crew are successful, but in general, they come and go typically. How would I support the district crews if I had to do it over again, I would work to get the troops improve their older scouts program so that the crews provide additional program activities instead of the main older scout troop activities. I would strive to train the crew leaders on how support the troop instead of taking away program from the troop. I know that is not what crew leaders intended, but that is what typically happens. Once the crew program starts down the path of troop support, then the two programs can work better together. That doesn't mean the crew program would change much, it only mean that the objective would keep the programs working as more of a team. Those crews typically last as long as the troop leadership last and don't rely on the full support of the crew leadership. There are typically very good crews. As for crews that were created outside of a troop program, adult support is critical. I would check on that crew several times a year to get a feel for it's progress. Then I would try and find support for what ever the needs. Barry

My concern with PLs younger than 13 is the maturity to learn and grow from the experience. The norm is scouts of this age are doing it for other reasons than learning or growing. As a result, they have had enough after two months and have to be dragged to the finish one way or the other. If the adults don't understand this, than can make the scout sour to leadership for the rest of their scouting experience. In this case, the scout appears enthusiastic, so I', would likely encourage her to be a PL and watch from the shadows. Barry

My youngest son is 31. Probably not. However, I will look for it on a floppy somewhere in the closet. Hope I can find a computer with a floppy drive. Barry

I consider myself a Stars Wars fan, but I almost fell asleep during this movie. I realized as I was walking back to my car that the story has run it's course. It needs to fad away like Luke. I would like to get excited about the next Indiana Jones movie, but the last movie with aliens did me in. Harrison is too old and todays writers spend too much time developing the characters with dialog instead of action. Barry

Wow, Eagle94, I could not have posted a better response. Very well done. I've posted this story before; we had a mother dragged into our troop by her son who would not join any other troop. She had him visit our troop 5 times hoping that he would see that the well uniformed Eagle Mill down the street was a much better fit than our ragtag disorganized patrol method program. Our families are friends (and still so today 20 years later), so I felt for her struggle and left her alone during her visits. Her son joined and she reluctantly followed, but she kept her distance from the adults as she attended all the activities. Mom is a type A personality doer and she wasn't going to let go now. She even set up her tent by herself away from the adult camp site, I think it was her way of saying "I am not part of "them". But something happened at summer camp during a quiet morning while she was reading in her tent. There were only two of scouts in camp because the rest were out doing scouting stuff. One scout sitting at a picnic table near the moms tent was a new scout reading his up on skills in his handbook. A 14 year old scout from a different patrol on the opposite side of the camp site walked over and asked the new scout what he was studying. He really didn't even give the new scout time to answer before he grab the book and started teaching the new scout the skills. This mother was floored, as she put it when she was telling me the story that led to her conversion. An older scout, a stranger to the new scout, just walked up and offered to help. It was a simple jester to most of us scouters, but the unsolicited unselfish action some how put everything about the troop program in context. She told me, "I pushed my son into scouts to get him an Eagle, but I now realize that scouting isn't about the Eagle". She still didn't understand how patrol method worked, but she and I spent a lot of time at campfires the next couple of years talking about. She became obsessed with "patrol method" and took it on herself to visit Webelos leaders to sell them on our program. She wrote a detailed Troop Parents Guide that explained the hows and whys our troop functioned. It took her months and she had me review it dozens of times to make sure it was exactly what new parents needed to understand our troop. Yep, she referred her sons embarrassing ragtag disorganize program as "our" troop. She eventually became our CC because she wanted to guard the program from helicopter parents. Only we didn't call them helicopter parents back them. All three of her son Eagled in our troop. Of course she will tell you it wasn't about the Eagle. But, she is still a Type A mother who wasn't going to let such an honor slip away from her sons. Nobody is perfect. Eagle94, in his great wisdom, asked the right questions. What is patrol method? Why is it so important? Barry

Yes, exactly. What we found is the troops would attend the MBC and the scouts would come home with a hand full of MBs. That was easy, a lot easier than managing a program where scouts searched for a counselor, called the counselor, filled out the Blue Card and got the SM signature, and then set up a series of meetings with the counselor. Taking a path of least resistance, the adults got in the habit of letting the MBCs and summer camp do the hard work. IN THE PROCESS of going this route, scouts didn't learn how to search for counselors, didn't learn how to communicate with the counselors and didn't learn how to set up meetings. They didn't even know how to fill out Blue Cards. Actually our council doesn't use Blue Cards, we use a different card that only requires the SM signature before the scout starts meeting the counselor. That was how I learned the units weren't doing their job. The SMs had developed the habit of signing the cards after the scout completed the MB requirements. They were doing the whole MB program Wrong. So I approached the committee. It was the District MBC example that led the troops off into the weeds. I felt the district needed to fix the problem. But MBC is very popular, as you can imagine by 2/3s needing it for their advancement. I lost. Barry

I'm not sure when the trend started. MBUs didn't exist in the 70's when I was a scout, and they were running full speed in the 90's when I came back as a scouter. I don't think National started the trend, so I'm at a loss. I would say it fits in with the helicopter parent environment of todays generation, but we really didn't have the problem in the 80's and 90's. I fought against them while I was on the district committee because not only do they go against the program structure of developing men of character, they also develop bad habits in troops. I learned that 2/3s of the troops in our district provide only two MB opportunities each year, summer camp and MBU. I tried to bulk that trend in our district committee and was asked to stand down. The committee didn't agree with my big picture analogy. Barry

WB was never intended to be a leadership course. The course was always intended to be an adult troop leader skills tune up course for "experienced" scouters. Problems occurred when the course staffs allowed the perception to become a leadership development course. Eventually the course marketing morphed into a leadership course, but the syllabus was never changed to reflect leadership development. The original intention of the new course (WBIII?) was neither a leadership nor management course. It was supposed to be a team building and team management course. Most unit problems are the result of unit staffs not understanding the unit goals of the BSA as well as the duties for specific positions. So, the course pushed participants to understand the goals and objectives all the way from the BSA Mission and Vision down to expectations of each volunteer. It also spent time in managing the team to become efficient and productive. The hope was the scouts would get a better experience from adults who stayed within the boundaries of their understood goals. But, reputation of the old course and the desires of new adult leaders have kind of morphed it into nothing really specific at all now. Where I believe National failed is by giving this course the Wood Badge title. Nothing about it reflects the old WB design, but National tried to make a reflection of the old course by simulating patrols and typical troop organization. It shouldn't be a long camping course that it is. That being said, my observation is the participants gain the most value from applying their lessons to the Ticket Items. The one size fits all wasn't BSA indifference, it was intentional because the goals of team management for the program were equal for the Packs as well as the troops. I personally believe, National's mistake was trying to make this a WB course. Barry

My apologies Cubber. I over reacted to your post and find myself not being very scout like. I will try and set a better example. Barry

You asked the question but the answer completely went over your head. I don't think you really wanted to know. You just have and agenda. Not very scout like. Barry

Lots, but at the top of my mind scout independence declined because the adults didn't know how to implement the Eight Methods without directing them to the scouts. Instead of scout activities that required scouts to learn and use scout skills, they created classes to teach the skills. The adults started directing the scouts to follow specific patterns in their activities. One issue that grew from the old Wood Badge course was adults started forcing the scouts to follow the same agenda they experienced in their course. For example, the WB staff ate their meals with the Patrols in the old course. Suddenly scouts found themselves cooking for adults at each meal. Nobody really liked it. Certainly not the scouts, and the adults weren't excited about eating patrol food. But that is what they did at WB. You can't blame the adults, they didn't have a youth experience to base their program, so they used Wood Badge. Everyone assumes that Wood Badge is an adult Scout Skill training course, but that is not what Wood Badge was originally designed to develop. The old course used Scout Skills classes to teach different teaching methods, not the skills themselves. The designers assumed the participants would be experienced scouters looking to "improve" their leadership and teacher skills. I also observed that new leaders of new units tended to focus on advancement and leadership more than other parts of the program because those methods are easier to measure troop performance. Or rather, adult performance of running a troop. One of the more common ticket items of the 90s Wood Badge course was working the program so that all scouts earned 1st Class in their first year. Classes to teach all scouts the skills at the same time so they all advance at the same time. No independence there. I once had a new SM of a 6 month old troop ask my advice of what else his scouts could do on campouts besides advancement. I asked him how much free time they had scheduled in their program. He said they don't do free time because they were afraid the scouts would just get in trouble. The Same SM questioned me another time about how to get his scouts to run the PLC meeting. When I asked how the SPL planned his meetings, he said the SM plans and runs the meetings because the boys aren't mature enough until age 14. To be fair to this SM, when he realized he was not a good SM because of his lack of experience, he quit and brought in an adult Eagle. These are little things, but I could go on and on. As I said, the adults aren't being mean or negligent, they just don't know. So, they do what appeals to them as adults. But adults and youth don't have the same life experiences, so they don't have the same expectations or goals. Adults want the Eagle, scout want to camp and fish. Adults leaders by age 12, Scouts want to hike and build fires. Adults want all the tents set up neatly in a row, scouts want to sleep under the stars. Adults wants lights out by 10:00, scouts want to talk about their dreams until they fall asleep. All boy run patrol method programs are a 50/50 team effort of the scouts AND adults learning and growing from the experiences together. If the adults are humble, they start to get pretty good after about 3 years. But, they have to be open minded about learning and changing. Hope that helps. Barry

Agreed. The better CCs walk into the meeting already knowing questions that will be asked because they talked with the members before the meeting. That way they are prepared to control the discussion to keep it balanced. If a topic becomes complex and requires more time, it is scheduled for another time. Our SPLs are trained to manage meetings the same way. Barry

Parents are free to visit and join any troop they desire. The COR needs to sell their program just like all the other troops if he wants to build the troop back up. Barry

This is the reason I don't see the program with that addition of girls staying where it's at or ever going back to a more patrol method program. Eventually the adults without a scouting experience will level off to male and female adults with a scouting experience. But the experience will be from this generation, or next, view of the how the program should be used. The Canadian Scouts are already there. As for not picking on females as the problem, I agree. The only reason I used them as an example is because we saw the program change when they we brought in as leaders. Not because they were female, but because they had no experience as a youth in scouts to base some of their expectations as an adult. Barry

Says who! I was watching the discussion with Wisconsinmomma and Eagle94 and concluded that scouting is quickly changing from a "Game with a Purpose" to a "After School" outdoor experience program. I respect Wisconsinmomma for her intentions of expanding her son's youth experiences, she is no different than most of us. Just like most new leaders, the instinctive nurturing nature limits the "Game" part of the program. And it's OK because without the experience of the "Game", she doesn't know what she doesn't know. But in the past, it was the experienced guys with a youth experienced that basically kept the program somewhat on track of the "Game" and the "Purpose". So, why have I lost hope? I have said many time on this forum that units with adults who have a youth experience are at least three years ahead of all the other units. When the BSA brought female leaders into the troop program, that increased the pool of unexperienced adults around 70% through the next 10 years. It's been increasing even more since. Now it seems the adults with experience appear to be getting shouted down. Having a youth experience is becoming irrelevant because the "purpose" is what is really changing. And now the BSA is bringing girls into the mix for a family camping program, or something or other. I don't know what to say. I find it interesting that in 10 or 15 years in the future a troop program like ours 10 years ago will be seen as extreme. I'm shaking my head as I type. Those Adult leaders won't be able to imagine that that our scouts were allowed to camp without adults. And, after recent events, I have a lot of confidence that National will reinforce the will of the new generation of leaders making it even harder on those who want to follow the more traditional program. Barry

Well how old! It’s not like I remember the industrial revolution. My kids keep telling me I’m old, and my knees hurt on cold days. Isn’t that old enough? Barry