Eagledad

Yes, your experience describes the Unitarian churches around here. But the religious awards is such a small part of the program, that families who valued the scouting program at all were willing to except that restriction. Members who claimed religious award was their reason for not considering scouts were likely not interested for other ideological reasons as well. The basis, I'm told, of the church is for individuals to find their own God. That is kind of an anti values approach to conservative spiritality anyway, so Unitarians in general struggle ideologically with the BSA program. Those accept the BSA program for what it is and represents in comparison with their personal spiritual beliefs would have likely joined anyways. This is what I learned from our Unitarian parents. Spiritality in the BSA is conservative in its nature, so it isn't as attractive to the more liberal ideological person. My fear is spiritual values, which are the foundation of the program vision, will be diluted over time from pressure of the culture. like the YMCA and Canadian Scouts, the BSA will turn into a weekend outdoor activities club for youth to just pass the time. Growth of character from a standard set value traits will be taught as anti individual and politically incorrect. Barry

I don't see how it helps, the only restriction on Unitarians was recognition of their church specific religion badge. We had a couple of Unitarian families in my troop. Any family that decided against scouting because of the restriction wasn't really wanting the scouting program anyway. Barry

I will take this since I'm one who tends to be more out spoken of unBSA program guidance on this forum. When posters start declaring standards BSA policies, procedures and guidelines as wrong or even hostel to the program, the scales have been tipped. When "one" suggest that SPLs are only good for scoutmasters who want to secretly manipulate the Patrol Leaders, I would say that is pretty much heresy material. When as poster suggest that the adult leader styles of mentoring, guiding and teaching taught in the BSA training only corrupts the scouting growth process, well that certainly isn't the BSA. I can't think of a single teacher/instrucotr from my early elementary years through college and then professional training courses where they didn't enhance the material with their own interpretation and experiences. So why is this a question here. Is it fair to ask a SM with 10 years experience not to color the material with some experiences? There is quite a difference proposing a scouting program that is counter to the BSA program as apposed to adding styles of context to the published BSA program. A simple test is to hypothetically hand all the materials to the Scouts and allow them to run the program with only the guidance of clarity, not direction. That is the true test of how much adults can influence their program. It would be one thing for a single patrol of scouts to decide not to use the SPL because it confuses the single patrol leadership structure. It is entirely different when the adult says SPLs are just spies for SM in adult run troops. I guess the real test of adding content to training is if the content helps the participants turn their program toward the BSA program, or away from the BSA program. That may be hard to judge in many cases, but it is quite obvious in others. I also believe that if a SM thinks they are being profound with the direction of their program, they likely have steered their program off the BSA reservation. We get into discussions of the best performing styles and policies on this forum. But that isn't really countering the BSA program. And the discussion can get challenging when some adults run their program purely by their personal theories. But when the adults are condescending to the leaders who are using the BSA program, then they have certainly tip the scale. Barry

Ah yes, well said. Barry

Oh, I don't know. Most scoutmasters don't set specific expectations for OA candidates like the PORs. Nether are OA expectations set in the unit leadership training or in the Scouts' Handbooks. Living the Scout Spirit is pretty much accepted as a constant all-the-time expectation. If the Scoutmaster feels the program has faltered in a minimum standard that should be expected for an OA candidate, he/she is not obligated to allow substandard behavior qualifications just because they weren't given a specific set of expectations six months prier. The Order of the Arrow doesn't want these types of scouts anymore than a Scoutmaster who doesn't want to send them. Barry

The scoutmaster exemplifies the character and integrity expected of the troop. Whether we like it or not, being the gatekeepers of Scout Spirit is part of the job. I'm not suggesting what you should do; age, maturity and experience must be part of the equation. I'm only saying that your actions are the standard by which everyone will know how they are to treat each other. Barry

You seem to be contradicting yourself by first agreeing with Stosh's point that all generations are the same, and then commenting that volunteers from older generations are better. I can understand your frustration with parents, but what you don' understand is that we have all been there; even the old generations. It's just part of the job. Of course we learn to become disappointed in our fellow neighbors, but that is the price we pay for being naive servants. In talking with my dad about scouts in the 30's and 40s, parents weren't any more involved in his generation than now. In fact they were involved less because the older generations didn't the 2 adult requirements. The SM was the only adult on most of his campouts. If there is a difference that stands, the youth in my dad's day (and myself really) had more independence from the parents. Thus there wasn't the helicoptering that we see today. Why is a different discussion. Maybe the frustration of todays volunteers is a result of them feeling the need for more help to run their boy run units. Maybe todays volunteers are more helicoptering than we realize. That thought leads to a whole lot of other discussions as well. Barry

What I was trying to do is help the adults understand when they were getting in the way of the growth intended during the scouting activities. First, they need to ask themselves what they think would happen if the adults weren't that situation. Most adults expect the worst and struggle to go forward even trying to get past their fear. Actually you see the effects of some fear in just about every unit. Common fears are allowing young scouts with older scouts because older scouts won't respect and even pick on them. How about the fear that older scouts don't like working with younger scouts, so the adults will go so far as to create a Venturing Crew to fix the problem. The fear may be as simple as adult checking each patrols menu because they don't trust scouts to do their own correctly. I was asked to help one new troop that was 90% female leaders. They didn't even let the scouts perform the opening ceremony at the troop meetings because they didn't feel like the boys had the maturity to perform it to the adults standards. So the adults did all the ceremonies for the boys hoping they would eventually learn by watching. Six months later nothing had changed. I help them through this by asking them to start addressing their fear bysimply teaching the scouts what to do and letting them try. It seems simple, but you would be amazed at how many adults would rather ignore getting past their fear and holding back the scouts. I know of one Scoutmaster who refused to let his scouts run a PLC meeting because he couldn't believe young scouts could run a meeting productively. He finally let them run the meeting when they were 14. The boys were so frustrated that they started dropping out. The Scoutmaster quit when he realized what was going on. As I said, all troops struggle with fear to some degree. A little bit is healthy, but when the program is held back as a result, a little guidance to get past their fears can help. I know I keep repeating myself, but typically the adults who where never scouts as a youth are the worst offenders. They just don't know what boys are capable of doing. So I gave them some advice encase they found their activities stalled. Barry

Good observation. I teach the whole syllabus as presented. But also I try to enrich the presentation with personal experiences to help the participants understand the objective better. However, I am very careful to not contradict or take away from any part of the syllabus or the intended purpose of the material. Barry

Adults restricting the scouts program by their fears is such a pervasive problem that I added a section in my Scoutmaster Specific class syllabus of how to recognize it and prevent it. Even in this discussion there is a hinting of immorality for using a toy weapon in a youth program ceremony. No wonder our children grow up confused to how they should respond to their fears. Their parents don't know the difference between fun play and aggressive hostility. Even worse, parents don't know how to teach the differences to their kids. I can't count the number of times the arrow was used in our cub ceremonies. I will never forget a few of the parents reaction on our first Webelos campout. One boy ran strait for a tree to climb, three others ran for a stream. Other boys were doing boy stuff. I admit I was caught off guard when the moms (I know I know, but it really was three moms) ran up to basically ask me to stop their sons from the dangers of the camp site. I was so struck by their concern for their son that I had to think a minute for the right reaction. I politely asked them to relax, all was ok. I learned over the years that every Webelos campout was more about working with the parents than their sons. Barry

I'm not sure exactly what answer everyone is looking for, but Philmont training is typically developed for the volunteers, and they used to encourage the whole family to go as a vacation. I had a friend who grew up going to Philmont every summer with her whole family while dad trained and instructed. Imagine a camp where the family camped in tents and played boy scout in the outdoors for a week or two. It's really a great family vacation. Plenty to do in the outdoors and I think she said they also have planned programs for the kids and spouses as well. I was asked to teach a course once, but I couldn't make it work in my schedule. Barry

Yes, when I was a scout in 60s-70s, most scouts held Arrowmen with a higher respect of stature than the Eagle. During the five years I was in the troop of 80 scouts, we had two Eagles. A lot has changed with both programs. However, when I started back again 1992, there was a big marketing push to use Eagle as a big reason for joining Cub Scouts, not to mention boy scouts. I was so taken by the heavy push that I asked our district representative to tone it down on Cub recruitment night. I'm not sure why I was offended with the heavy Eagle marketing , but I was. Working with curves and data is part of my job. The trend change in 1992 is more sudden than a reflection of a gradual culture shift. My opinion is the change reflects a planned intentional effort to set a specific expectation at the parents for our sons. Parents who eventually become unit leaders. That is not to say that setting an expectation of Eagle is a bad thing. High goals don't mean bad programs. And I'm not sure the Eagle requirements changes really had that much affect on the increase of Eagles. My observation is that adults are more tuned toward an Eagle program than in the past as a result of the marketing effort. I never heard of an Eagle counselor, guide, ASM, or whatever the troop calls them when I was a scout. But today many troops and districts have them to help scouts on their path toward Eagle. It makes more sense to me that the rise in Eagle numbers is more a rise in adult interest than the change in requirements. I am not criticising one way or the other, just an observation. My only concern with the higher emphasis of Eagles is that it has overshadowed the traditional priorities of the values and outdoors. I am a patrol method character developing zealot and national has made that more challenging in my opinion. My problem with the criticism I hear of Eagles today is the admitted lack of respect for todays recipients. Disrespecting today's Eagle with terms like pencil whipping dilutes the overall reputation of the award for all Eagles, including my dad who earned his Eagle in 1944. I understand a discussion of the differences, but some folks seem to want to punish today's recipients for not working toward yesterdays expectations. I don't think that is fair Barry

Well said. This also applies with Scoutmasters who are often confronted by parents with questions and opinions. Most of the time parents just need a little education to understand the bigger picture. Once in a while they make a point worth pondering. Barry

This has turned into a funny thread. It's well known that National wanted more Eagles and structured the Eagle program toward that goal. But the discussion should not be limited to easier Eagle requirements because the plan for more Eagles was "A Lot" more in depth than that. New Scout Patrols, troop guides, First Class in First Year, and Venture Patrols were all part of the overall design toward more Eagles. The BSA wasn't looking at more Eagles as the ultimate goal; more Eagles is an indicator of success of the program design changes. So when we have these NSP, aged base patrols, FCFY and other recent program change discussions, likely some of the Eagle bashers here are in a since supporting the new Eagle program. Barry

Or it depends on who they talk to. During the mid 1990's, we polled a lot of Tiger parents about the Tiger program trying to understand the high drop out rate. One thing we learned was that 80 percent of parents liked the Tiger T-shirt because of the low entry cost into the program. To our surprise, the Blue Cub shirt became part of the Tiger uniform in 2000. The only reason I could see National making the change was because most of the new leaders in the pack came from that 20 percent of Tiger parents.They certainly didn't represent the average parent, at least by our own polling. I don't know how National polled their data, but I believe most of it came from den leaders rather the parents. Barry

While I was a Cub Master and Scoutmaster, National added the AOL requirements to visit a troop, talk to a SM and fill out the Troop Membership application. I was disappointed with National because being a Scout purist, advancement should be for boy growth, not clever attempts to improve membership. I will admit that National has challenges with membership as the culture changes. But I still don't feel they talk to enough leaders to understand the depth of the challneges. I can see teaching the Webelos leaders the 4 Steps of Boy Scout Advancement for the reason qwaze described. But I would really like to thin out the Webelos handbook for the boys so that it is more adventure and less promotion. Barry

At the adult level, sure. But what was National thinking would be gained by teaching it to Cub Scouts. It's not very fun. Barry

That only makes sense at a political correctness level. Lets keep the discussion pragmatic if we could please. After working with youth of both sexes for 30 years, mixing the genders at this age group is definitely a distraction. You only have to ask them how much of a distraction they are at school. Now you can argue that the distraction isn't a deal breaker in mixing the groups, but the distraction is there. My two issues are: first, I believe young teenagers need gender role models to observe the behavior of the adult gender. As I said, the Girl Scouts strongly believe in adult gender role modeling, so it's not like it is only a man hangup. Second is that admitting girls will further increase the number of adults leaders who have no experience as boy scouts. I believe the quality of any youth organization is dependent on the quality of the adults who administer it. Adults who don't have any experience as a youth struggle to perform at the level of adults who do have that experience. There is a lot of whining in this forum about the BSA getting away from the good-ol-days of outdoors and patrol method focus. I believe that is a direct result of the increase of inexperienced adult leaders since female adult leaders were allowed in the troop program as leaders. I know that sounds sexist or gender biased, but I'm more mature and pragmatic than that. The only reason I could see a national youth program make dramatic membership changes would be to increase the membership. First off that is a huge risk, Canadian Scouts and Campfire have never had the numbers they had before their membership changes. But lets just assume for a second that the BSA numbers would improve, then we should discussion how much increase is worth the loss of quality. Is it really worth the risk? What are the possible gains? From my perspective, why take the risk. I know what the program does for boys now. For that matter, I know what the program has done for boys for over 80 years. Why risk a good thing. Barry

As I said before, admitting women into the troops has diluted the out door boy run program. Adding girls will dilute it that much more because experienced adult leadership will be even more diluted. Parents have to eventually decide if they character development program for their sons or camping entertainment. That is exactly what happened to both YMCA and the Canadian Scouts. Lucky for us, the Girls Scouts are firmer in their belief that gender role modeling is important for proper growth and will likely never merge with the BSA. Barry

Why does the BSA think this is important for 10 year old scouts to learn? Barry

BSHB, PLHB and SPLHB are required for our trainings because they set the baseline for expectations. The materials may or may not get referenced by the instructors (all scouts), but many of the answers to questions are. I also required reference materials at district and council training as well. I learned a long time ago that training is where the minimum level of expectation is set for all the participants. Many of the bad habits that units and districts develop are a result of ignorance of what is provided in the materials. The patrol method discussion in the Patrol Method forum is a good example of minimum expectations. Patrol Method is not being taught much today because there is very little BSA material on the subject. And as a result, less troops are using patrol method properly. Barry

I can believe this. I met one of the three authors of the 1999 Scoutmaster Specific Course syllabus and he said all three authors sent their completed sections to National without comparing each others work. National combined the sections and published the material without any help from the authors. I can see the three assuming Patrol method was explained or highlighted somewhere else, and leaving it out. And it would be an example of how small mistakes can have huge unexpected consequences. Barry

Then the SM is doing it wrong. Older scouts are the refection of the quality of the whole troop. If the SM is truly teaching "take care of your boys", then most, if not all, the scouts will display the same quality; not just within certain ages, ranks or leadership positions. As was said in a different discussion, why would a SPL who learned and practiced "take of your boys" in the patrol behave any different in the SPL position? Barry

I also spent some time on patrol method in my course. It's kind of interesting to see several of the forum members who are obviously passionate about patrol method are, or were, teachers in the Scoutmaster Specific Course. I don't know if that says more about active members of forums or the impact on the experience of using patrol method. I practiced explaining patrol method a lot to develop the right words and phrases that had the most impact in the least time to the listener. I talked to a lot of visiting Webelos parents about the differences of troop programs in the area and I found myself talking a lot about patrol method. Barry

Times don't change. We had a young ASM in our troop during the late 60s who 4-wheeled a lot in a CJ5 before 4-wheeling was a thing to do. He would find a few trails on our campouts to challenge his Jeep, but the SM never let scouts ride with him. A few older scouts got to ride to the store with him now and then. We always wondered which road the ASM took to the store. Barry