Eagledad

Yes, we do that at district patrol leader training where we are teaching team building. But the course I was referring to was a Council level course where focus was on management skills. Not that team building isn't important for managing a troop patrols, we just assumed they had that kind of training. Personally I believe is one of the most challenging team activities in the program. Barry

Pride Ignores quality of performance. Barry

The Scoutmasters certainly liked the results their scouts brought back with them. The problem was finding like minded adults to continue the course over the years. I had plenty of support from the council professionals, but not the council level volunteers. We treated the participants as students attending a profession training conference. But many adults use to the old NYLT courses just wanted the scouts to be patrols on a troop like campout. Our thinking was senior age scouts have been camping in patrols with their troop for 3 or more years. Why did the course of learning new managing skills need to duplicate what they already knew and experienced? Many adults wanted the scouts to cook because that is what boy scouts do. But we found cooking took up almost 15 hours of additional prep time that could be used for learning instead. I had learned from training in our own troop that learning skills in an entirely different atmosphere raised the awareness and excitement of learning new skills. We treated these young men as adults in a professional training environment learning only new skills to help them manage patrols in a boy run troop. That was it. I have helped a lot of units and districts develop training courses and the first point I made with all of them is to first list the goals of the training, then build your course around obtaining those goals. Don't get locked into developing a course that doesn't really apply to the goals just because that's they way it's always been done. If you want to teach patrol method, then develop a course that pushed the participants to practice patrol method, whatever that means to you. But a lot of folks get confused that developing a course with a lot of camping and scouts skills activities will teach patrol method. Actually it just teaches camping and scouts skills, that's all. If you want to teach patrol method, then create activities that forces the group to make decisions the effect the whole group. One of the better simple quick exercises forcing a group to organize and make decisions for the group I've seen is giving the group of a sack of ingredients to make sandwiches. The group is force to organize and develop a system to make sandwiches for everyone. Actually our troop does it with icecream and the fixins for banana splits. Much harder than sandwiches and more tasty after a long hard physical exercise outside. Time is critical for learning from group decisions. The faster a group has to respond to a situation, the faster they make decisions that teach them from the repercussions of that decision. That's why I like tight agendas on our campouts. Time is a great teacher of living by the scout law because we humans learn best under stress. The point is focus on the objectives and build a fun program toward your goals. Think outside the box so the scouts don't know what comes next. There's a lot of pleasure in the unknown. But more importantly, treat your scouts as adults. That will be a new experience for many of your participants. They will be immature, but the course will help them grow up a little. Good luck and have fun. Barry

Three contacts for something like this the Scout Executive (SE), District Executive (DE) and the District Chairman (DC). In the back ground, the SE will contact the DE to learn of the facts as far as how the camp was planned to make sure all the proper procedures and paperwork were performed. The DC will contact the DE as well to make sure everything is official and get advice on how to proceed. Nip it in the bud as it were. Depending on your Key 3, the District Commissioner will be asked to help. If all is in order, BSA insurance will likely cover the windshield. The issue of how this happened will likely follow. But just like in this thread, don't let the "Why it happened" distract from the "how to pay for it". Some folks just can't help themselves. Insist they deal with the two questions separately and the windshield cost promptly. You may have to repeat yourself in the matter depending on the professionalism of the players. Barry

Hmm, I have not seen "that's the way we have always done it." used in this discussion. Barry

Well said. Barry

Well sort of.. Based from our own personal life experiences, we all have different opinions of what we want the scouts to get out of the patrol method. As a result, there are several different aspects of experience of patrol method in this forum. For me, patrol method is giving the scouts the "independence" (meaning little or no outside influence) to make decisions as a group and learning (growing) from the consequences of those decisions. It's all about growth for me. As a result of my experience as both a boy and adult, I find same age patrols don't provide a good atmosphere of growth because the old scout mentor is missing. Without that experience, growth is much slower and more narrow. Outside influence is required to speed up or even sometime start growth. However, several forum members here are very pro "same age patrols" because the scouts all know each other. The interpret self-selected team of friends as their Cub Den or same age friends. That is an example of a different outlook among members on this forum. I was in your shoes a few years ago and your challenge is that the course is still so structured in scheduling that it's hard for the groups to make independent decisions that wouldn't have an effect on the other patrols. Your course was designed with decisions already made. So while you could put them in patrols, experiencing Patrol method in the limited time of the course would be next to impossible. Since we looked at our course as a senior level leadership course instead of mid level patrol leader course, we created groups of PLCs instead of Patrols. Then we had all PLCs meet twice a day to review past troop performance and plan the rest of the week, once after lunch and once after dinner. Each PLC had a list of activities that had to be attended by the scouts. The activities included classes, three meals a day, unit meetings or camp fires each night, and free time or leisure time. Each PLC was asked to create a schedule for the week with the activities left to be completed. Then one schedule each day was selected randomly for all the groups to follow the next day. The selected PLC was responsible for managing the schedule and contracting the staff for teaching and cooking. If they weren't contacted, there was no class and no meals for all the participants and staff. They were truly responsible for everyone's (including the staff) lives during the week. When the first PLC schedule wake-up at around 9:00am, everything kind of fell apart and supper wasn't ready until 7:30 pm, AS SCHEDULED. And they suffered the anger of hungry scouts. They also still had one more class to attend that day along with a Troop meeting. You can bet the next PLC rescheduled the next day a little better, and the next even better and so on. The scouts were totally responsible for the how the course was presented by the staff. The staff was told not to do anything each day until the acting PLC contacted them. By the end of the week, each PLC had done 12 PLC planning sessions and managed one course day. They learned how to structure and prioritize every activity of each scouts day. They learned how to communicate "clearly" to each group and each staff member on the course, otherwise nothing happened. The minimum age of our participants was 14 and 95% of them had never experience the level of decision making, planning, and program management as they experienced all week. Not only were they confident that they could go back and lead their troop, they were a bit cocky about. You have basically five days with the scouts. What do you want them to learn? Keep asking yourself that question and form your course around that answer. Is a patrol method experience necessary for your goals? Maybe not. As I said, they don't really have the time to experience enough patrol method lessons in a week to take back to their troop and make a difference. But, they do have time to experience making choices and working from the consequences. Our goal was to teach organizational, management and group communications skills. Those may not be your goals. Hope that helps. Barry

Just the opposite, liability is restricting a lot of our volunteerism. Barry

Agree 100 percent. Because of that fear, we work with all our new scouts on their telephone skills just to get them confidence in calling their first counselor. We also advice the parents to listen and guide them as well. This is a big fear for many (most) scouts, but we found that they pretty much overcome it by their third MB. It's and important skill because our scouts are also expected to make calls for setting camp reservations, asking for demonstrations and just plan asking for help. As has been said, if they can't get past that, they are stuck in the mud. That being said, cell phones were just becoming common when I was the SM, I think what scouters are dealing with today is all that more challenging. Barry

Yep, us too. I don't believe there is a right or wrong between the two styles, it's just personal styles working within their environment. Barry

This is where our styles are completely different. All I wanted to know was who the counselor was. On an official level, I could care less about the scouts interest, his history or whatever. I'm more concerned that he is developing skills of initiating a polite call to the counselor and making a plan to meet for discussions on the subject. The scout wants to invest some of his time on a subject that interest him for some reason, that is good enough for me. Honestly, if it weren't for the the required signature, I would have little knowledge of what the scouts was doing with merit badges. At least until a Scoutmaster conference and finding out in passing, which is more my style. Our troop program encourages scouts to make decisions based from their ambitions and dreams, then shown how to put those ambitions and dreams in action. Trust is a big part of that. Giving the independence to make those decisions without having to check-in with the Scoutmaster is to me a big part of that growth. I learn it on back end in casual friendly conversations. But I do understand adults today want to keep a close watch. I'm old school and I get that. Barry

It's really more complicated than that. As the creator of a Patrol Method Council level youth leadership course, the real problem is repeatability of presenting consistent quality courses. As much as many of us harp on Boy Run and Patrol Method, we don't discuss what that really is. Patrol Method is for the boys the independence of making their own decisions and dealing with the consequences. Trust me, that is really really hard to write in a course curriculum. One Scoutmaster working with several patrols over several years works because the program is held together with one consistent vision. But try a new course leader every year. The challenge of finding like minded adults of the same basic vision was so great that our course was dropped after three years even while the troop leaders deemed it a huge success. The challenge of boy run and patrol method is having a consensus of how to apply boy independent thinking. 'm open minded, but youth level courses are very limited by the course directors. After being a course developer for both youth and adult leadership courses, I personally would rather develop a patrol method course for adults so they can take what they learn back to their units because what the scouts learn really doesn't matter if it isn't supported by the adult leaders. Because the success of what a scout uses from a course is mainly dependent on the Scoutmaster, the better youth level courses teach techniques for troop management and operations, not leadership. Leadership requires repeated experiences of decision making and courses just can't provide those kinds of experiences. Barry

Last Frontier Council in central Oklahoma had been doing something like that called Scout'o'rma since at least the 60s, maybe longer. It may have gone every other year, I don't remember. But they would give a theme for the units to develop a scouting based activity around. Ironically, our troop did a demonstration of the Scouting Information resources from the Internet in 1997. One of our brainiac scouts set up several computers so we could help Scouts and Scouters surf the Web for scouting sources. Scouter.com was one of our lead sites. The Council hasn't done it in several years, but I think I heard they are trying to bring it back. Barry

We've had the discussion several times of taking the troop completely out of the mb process. Then it's just between the Scout and the counselor. But I think the fear of abuse and manipulation of the system motivates some kind of check on the process and the SM is the best person for that responsibility. Same reason patrols can't camp by themselves, adults have too many fears. What does a a SM signature at the beginning of the process prove has been done anyway? The MB cards our council uses, or did use, doesn't even have place for a 2nd signature, so ew at least had that going for us.

I spend a lot of my time as a youth in the woods and I never saw a tick until the 1980s. I don't know the facts, but I also never saw a deer until the 1980s and now they are a road hazard. Barry

I wish you luck and I always look forward to good instructional videos. But a word of caution, the guidance, instruction or advice I gave after I finished my ticket in many cases would have changed a lot after three years experience. Not to mention a career of years. I'm not saying don't do it because I think many folks will find value in your videos, including me. But don't be surprised if you find yourself adding correctional text to them as you gain experience down the road. Unfortunately for us humans, experience is the hardest teacher, it gives the test first, then the lesson. LOL Barry

I don't know, everyone has a theory. What I am told by the experts is that prepubescent boys are instinctively drawn toward groups because they feel safer. If a boy chooses to be alone, it's because he feels safe. Barry

I came from a very competitive troop in the 70's. Very boy run with an average of 60 active scouts. We ran our troop as adults under the same model and are successful as well, but district level competition is much more challenging to organize today for the reason MattR stated of units not getting excited about it. The one difference between most troops today and the troops in the 70s is mixed age patrols. The older scouts drive the enthusiasm for competition. Today's patrols of younger scouts don't see or understand it's draw because the older scouts aren't there to get them excited with stories and continued training to sharpen skills. In fact, I believe the introduction of crossing over Webelos basically killed Camporee and Klondike competitions because skills training went from a week to week activity to an annual activity. Before groups crossed over in the winter like 99 percent of scouts do today, scouts joined around their birthday, so training all the scout skills occurred all year long. Now since all the new scouts have the same level of skills, skills training is more class room like occurring only once or twice a year. How TAWHAWK's district managed competition in 2007 is interesting to me. Barry

I have worked with many really great scouts in my scouting career, but one scout sticks out above the rest. Sadly this scout taught me a lot about my role as a scoutmaster in a hard lesson of him quitting out of frustration. He knew scouts skills better than any other scout and was one of those leaders that everyone (even adults) loved to follow. He was very creative in finding solutions to problems and was a great motivator for working toward goals. He loved to camp, fish, hike, backpack and whatever else the outdoors had to offer. He was a scout's scout. He is the model of the saluting Scout on some of the Boy Scout Handbooks covers. What he didn't enjoy (actually detested) was working toward rank advancement. If it were left up to him, he would have never advanced past Tenderfoot. But he was such a natural scout that all the adults wanted him to make Eagle because his natural persona IS the Eagle. He made it clear that any work toward advancement was just to appease the adults. Nobody else, just us adults. After he earned Star, he told us no more and to leave him alone to enjoy his scouting experience. But the all knowing adults didn't leave him alone. We kept throwing hints here and there because we would be committing a crime for such a scout to not be Eagle. Then one day he quit showing up. When I called him, he said that he might try again under the condition that he was not working anymore advancement. And he did come to a couple meetings, but scouting wasn't in his heart anymore. THE ADULTS beat it out of him. That experience brought me down to my knees and I had to reevaluate what the program was really about for each boy and my role in that program. I changed a lot almost overnight. Advancement is just but one of the Eight Methods. Add to that that each scout requires different levels of method experiences to grow to his personal best, and we find that one size cannot possibly fit all when it comes to scout growth, satisfaction, and success for each individual scout. So when the Scoutmaster defines the ideal vision for the scout program, some boys are going to be left out or driven out. The better route to helping each scout grow toward his best potential is to help them envision their own ideal scout self. Then give them a program that at the very least doesn't get in their way, and better yet supports their endeavor. I was never a fan of using the Eagle as bait for raising membership. I find it almost detestable now. I made a promise to every parent who visited our troop. I told them that if your son just came to one meeting, he would grow in character because everything we do in our program is driven to that purpose. The challenge for me was justifying every activity and action to have purpose. And the program changed as I found some policies and proceedures to either not add character, or actually drive character away. That is why I stay with this forum. I learned a lot in developing our program. I want to pass those lessons on, whether or not you decide they fit your program. Barry

This all started by the suggestion of using the Eagle as a Gold Standard to represent Boy Scouting. Flag suggested that by raising the qualifications for Eagle, the Gold Standard perceived by the public would raised as well. One issue I have with that idea is that the Eagle should not be the Gold Standard, character should be. And character was the standard until National decided to push the program to get more Eagles. All scouts develop character no matter what rank they reach by the end of their scouting career. But using Eagle as the Gold Standard implies success and failure of a scouting career. How many people can relate to the Boy Scout helping the little old lady across the street. Nobody ever said that scout was an Eagle. As for the team analogy, teams work toward the goal of one. A scout may need to develop a team to reach his goal, but my point of this discussion is that the individual scout sets the goals and creates the paths toward those goals. Not the SM. I believe the SM responsibility for each scout is to guide them to develop skill of making decisions and to learn from those decisions. Part of that is guiding the scout to be creative and to initiating the actions toward goals. I use the analogy of a golfer, swimmer, tennis player, and sprinter who don't work as part of a team for their individual success. They make decisions to direct, manage and lead resources to develop the skills and materials required for personal success. All scoutmasters are different and as a result use different styles for working with scouts. My style of Scoutmastering was never take any credit for any of my scouts growth. I never thought of myself as a team member for the scouts, instead I was on the outside looking in as a mentor. I also did my best to build a program that got out of the scouts way of their growth and a big part of that was getting the adults as far away from them as possible. I am their biggest cheer leader, but not a team member. Maybe it's a flaw in my character, but I admit to struggling with adults who want some credit in their scouts success. Because it is so hard, I think just getting out of their way should be our greatest contribution. Barry

The Scout Law is: “ A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent. The Scout Oath is: On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight. The Scout Oath mandates the individual scout (I) to help others at all times. The Scout Law gives the individual Scout (A Scout is) gives the scout the outward traits to act toward others. Guiding scouts individually toward their personal dream and developing personal skills for reaching their dream is a lot more challenging than pushing a team of scouts toward the one Scoutmaster's dream. Barry

Apples and oranges to me. Teams makes choices for individuals on the team to benefit the performance of the whole team. The Eagle is an individual accomplishment that doesn't require a team to succeed. Scouting has always had the advantage that individuals can set and work toward their own personal goals within set published requirements. Lone Scouts is an example of that advantage. Barry

This discussion started out on the pretense that the rewards from Scouting activities are equal to all other competing activities. Human nature is to go towards the most rewarding activity. If a unit struggles with scout participation (at any age), the program likely needs some changes. Barry

The moderators are as human as the rest of us and sometimes let their emotions drive their actions. Barry

Take a look at this, and then go read the "Iconic Mayday Scout image" discussion in the Issues and Politics section. For all the uniform options discussions we have had on this forum, I found the picture striking. Anyone in the world knew at first glance the organization to which she belong. I wish the GSUSA was so bold. http://i.imgur.com/9UKDt6W.jpg Barry