Eagledad

Your looking at this wrong. Don't shape the program to look like your ideal troop. Shape it for maximum boy growth. It is a lot easier to defend a program of growth than a description of appearance. I found the two most difficult skills to teach (boys and adults) are communication and delegation. Scouts grow the most when they confront with their decisions. So it stands that the more decisions they make, they more they will grow. Every unit is a little different in how they manage the boy run environment. Communication is especially challenging because it changes with technology and today that can happen simply by the introduction of a new phone. Barry

Well I guess the either/or is where we get lost in this discussion. The program I left when I retired was just a small skeleton of was started. We changed to fit the needs and issues that developed from previous techniques or styles. We changed our new scout program six times before we got one that worked for us. And because we were boy run was why it was a challenge. As of not too long ago, our policy was to move new scouts into the patrols when the number of new scouts wasn't greater than adding 3 to each patrol. We found through experience that more than 3 messes up the patrol dynamics enough that it is kind of starting over. The way we put them in patrols is let the patrol leaders each introduced themselves and gave a brief description of their patrol. After all the introductions, the Patrols mixed in with the new scouts to learn more about each other. Then the new scouts are instructed to pick th epatrol they want and the friends they want to be with them. They can pick as many friends as they want, but we ask they set a priority because they likely will not be with all the friends. What is interesting to me is in all the years we did that, the scouts always picked only one friend. I never saw it go beyond that, even though there were no limits. Also, new scouts were told they could start their own patrol and we were ready for that with Troop Guides, but nobody ever took that offer. I think when experienced scouts introduce themselves to the new scouts and invite them to their patrol, it just not something they want. Now, if the group of new scouts is greater than 2 to 3 new scouts per existing patrol, then we put them in NSPs. The patrol only last until after summer camp (which was just before the next SPL election), then we let the scouts choose the patrol they wanted to join. We encourage both the patrols to shop for new scouts and new scouts to shop for patrols. Ideally everyone knows where they are going before the break up. Each NSP has two troop guides that the SPL recruits. They are typically 15 and older and very experienced. We never much good luck with young TGs. We also use an ASPL who basically serves the TGs needs. And we have an ASM who basically works with the TG as their assistant. The main reason we brought the ASM in was for the new scouts and parents to see how the ASMs serve the scouts. It helps ease the boys and parents into trusting the youth leadership of a boy run program. It definitaly attributed to reducing the number of new scouts quitting. It works pretty good. The ASM also is the trainer for new parents. We ask that parents to visit at least three troop meetings and one campout so we can show them how a boy run program works. It is likely the only time the parents get to see a PLC meeting because adults don't normally participate without permission from the SPL. The ASM is the parents guide on campouts and points out the specifics of how the troop operates in a boy run program. The ASM for that job was typically the next coming SM so he could practice explaining and teaching boy run to the adults. The adults have a lot of fun on campouts. We don't have limits on adults camping with the troop. When the patrols are 100 years away, problems were rare. That is a very basic description of our new scout program that was shaped over years of trying ideas. For me, a troop program is measured by the older scouts on down, so the new scout program is a result of the quality of the older scouts program. Not the other way around. One other thing that hasn't been mentioned is the trickling of new scouts. It is actually rare for us to get all our new scouts at once because different packs have different agendas. We recruit and train about 6 senior scouts to be ready for the worst. But trickling dens can make the situation interesting. This works for us. Our goal for our program is minimum adult intrusion and as I said, NSPs makes that almost impossible. The method we use now requires no adult intrusion and gets us the best growth for new scouts of all the methods we tried. Barry

Barry

My wife was our troop Treasurer for 10 years. It was a challenge for her to takeover from the previous treasurer who kept no records. Keep really good records with the next treasurer in mind. In our troop, all adult responsibilities can have scout assistants if a scout has an interest. So keep that in mind as well and when you get your feet under you, make and announcement that any scout who would like to learn book keeping can be your assistant. It's rare, but you may find a scout who is thinking accountant in his future. As for the assumptions of the program that you are observing, give yourself at least six months. The troop may appear to be an advancement troop simply because that is how they start with new scouts to get them up to speed with skills for their first couple of campouts. And just because an adult made an announcement doesn't mean they didn't get permission from the SPL first. Adults make announcements all the time in our troop, but they first have to call the SPL to get permission and time. Our treasure made many announcements to remind the scouts about camp fees and due dates. That is not the SPLs responsibility. Our SPL rarely makes any announcements because he is encouraged to practice the skill of delegating. Give yourself some time. We don't ask anything from our new parents for six months just for this reason. Barry

As I've said in earlier post, the main reason adults get in the way of the scouts and their program is their fear of what could happen. Scouts sticking together at the beginning of their Boy Scout experience is such a small small thing in the huge picture of the scouts whole experience. Just how long does it take for boys to make friends? If this is the only reason for defending NSPs, then blw2, you aren't being open minded of what other experienced scouters are saying. And I'm not saying you need to use mixed age patrols, I think some adults just are NSP types. But please don't imply troops using mixed age patrols have less programs, the BSA used mixed age patrols very successfully for 80 years before the NSP was brought into the program. There is no evidence to show that the NSP has improved first year losses, which is why it was implemented. Can you explain that? I can and have many many times. All I'm saying is that someone with no experience either way shouldn't be selling their soul telling others who have the experience that their program isn't as good a program. Barry

You're going to look back on this one day and laugh. Barry

Because I think some folks were trying to have a discussion of how to teach or convince others to switch to Patrol Method and it seemed like you didn't like the discussion. I'm sure it's just me, but I really wasn't sure what you were trying to say. Well-oiled machine, GREAT! I like the vision. I'm good to go. Barry

Those two bolded points show me that Sentinel has the experience and knows what he is talking about because they are both consistent with all the programs I observed or guided to boy run and patrol method. Getting all the adults on board in a troop that was not so much patrol method is a huge challenge because while the theory sounds great, old habits are hard to break and there is always the little question of it the gain is worth the pain. Once the troop is a patrol method program, then it's not so hard to bring new adults on board and train them. The older scouts are always the hard part. They are so challenging that I tell adults up front they need to weed out the resisting older scouts and let them do their own thing. They will hang around long enough to get what they want from the program and move on. At first this bothers the adults because they want everyone on board, but they eventually figure out that longer they try to get these guys to change, the longer it will take to change the whole troop. I have never seen a program switch over where the 13 and older scouts bought in 100 percent. So I think it is fair to talk about the typical road blocks of going to boy run to prepare the adults for the challenges. Barry

I'm not exactly sure what TAHAWK said, but I too have taught patrol method with some acceptance of the idea. Enough so that I was brought on board the Council training committee to encourage patrol method through JLT courses. But I have also work with units to develop the program and it isn't as easy of going cold turkey overnight. So I ask TAHAWK, have you actually switched a patrol overnight successfully? If so, I have questions. Barry

Sorry folks, I've been busy all weekend. I did create and teach a Patrol Method course. It was a two hour course that was required for Scoutmasters of participants in our Council Junior Leader Training Course (today's NYLT). The syllabus started with a quick discussion of the Scout Law and Oath being the heart of the program. Then it went into the BSA Vision and Mission. I wanted the adults to know that there was a general purpose or goal objective to their program. The Mission and the Vision are the "purpose" in the game (reffering to the game with a purpose quote).That is very important because I wanted to work down to the importance of the 3 Aims and 8 Methods. This is where I draw the line between the adults' responsibilities and scouts' responsibilities. Specifically the adults are responsible for Fitness, Citizenship and Character while the Scouts' are responsible for the Eight Methods of Outdoors, Leadership Development, Ideals, Patrols, Advancement, Adult Association, and Uniform. We discussed in some length how the adults are to use the 3 Aims as the tools for scouts growth instead of the Eight methods because the Eight Methods are each scouts responsibility of application for making decisions and growing from the decisions. Then I gave my interpretation of applications for each of Method, which I tied to the Scout Law and 3 Aims. Again, they didn't conflict with the BSA materials, they just enhanced the definitions more pointedly at scouts applications in the boy run patrol method setting. I spent a little time explaining that adult resistance toward letting scouts have independence in the patrol setting is typically based from fear of harm and I gave some examples how to move past their fears to give the scouts more room for a safe place to make independent decisions. But the reason I think this course had as much affect as it did at the time was because the participants went immediately after the class to sit with their scout and discussion how they would work toward the scout's ticket items. We didn't really call them ticket items, we had another name that I can't remember. This was the last day of the JLTC course and each scout participant had three to six ideas (ticket items) they created for improving their program based from their JLTC experiences that week. The JLTC course was a Boy Run course the council brought me in to experiment with. The course was designed where the participants organized, planned and manage the weeks agenda with the course staff standing back waiting for direction. So, the scouts had a week of a boy run type of structure and my objective was to encourage the SMs to allow and encourage their scouts make the changes they proposed and see how the changes worked in their troop. That made it easier for me to teach the Patrol Method Boy Run class and then have the adults apply what they learned. Most of the resistance for giving scouts the independence in making decisions in the course came from the experienced Scoutmasters. They were also the most resistant to the Boy Run style JLTC course. But most of the challenges of how give the scouts more room came from the new leaders that just had a hard time seeing the safety side of it. Growth wasn't the hard sell, it was safety that most adults struggled with. That is why I spent some time in giving examples of how they could push out their fears and concerns. As I said before, patrol method is a situation where most leaders don't know what they don't know. I harp on visions and goals a lot because through my years of working with adults in moving to patrol method and boy run, they basically don't understand how making independent decisions advances a boy's growth. 90% of adult leaders think that setting up camp is a skill of character. I know it doesn't make sense, but they don't understand that its the decisions scouts make in setting up camp that develops citizenship, fitness and character, not the skills themselves. Most adult leaders think that the better a scout is with a skill, the better their character, so to speak. That is why I harped so hard on the Three Aims and linking the Aims to the Vision, Law and Oath. Not the Eight Methods. It's a tough change of view for the adults to understand that the more decisions a scout makes during the process of cooking gives a scout greater growth than the skill of preparing perfect eggs. Leadership is really tough because most adult think that the title of leadership instills the character scouting is known for. They struggle with the idea that the decisions made from the stress of taking care of the patrols is where real character comes from. Most of us adults want to protect our kids from that stress, so it is a hard change for us to understand that the more we lets scouts struggle in their decisions, the more they grow. And interestingly, over the years of discussing and debating the challenges and virtues of the Eight Methods, the Uniform method is by far the most challenging for both the scouts and the adults. It's kind of funny, but I can show adults how to use each method toward scout growth in character, fitness and citizenship and get agreement from them except for the Uniform Method. It is the one method that is driven more by emotion than reasoning. That one just takes a while for adult to let go of their personal opinion of. And Boys, well it is an identity thing that 13 and 14 years olds struggle with. The other ages aren't really a problem, but change in body chemistry really makes a mess of our minds. The course worked to some degree, I got more positive responses from that course than any other course I participated in. I don't know how much it helps on this discussion. The challenge of patrol method is helping adults feel good about letting scouts make dangerous decisions and living with them. Dangerous being that the scout will struggle with the decision and the results of the decision. But if those adults can be convienced that the good far out weighs the bad, then they are willing to give it a go. Barry

Coaching, guiding and mentoring are explained in several training courses and leaders handbooks. Spreading skepticism of the BSA program with parents (anybody really) only reflects badly on the skeptic because parents naturally trust a program that has existed successfully for over 100 years. The skeptic looses integrity and parents gain nothing. Adults by nature are protective of their children. They act and react out of fear of the possibility of harm. We help adults help past their fears buy teaching why and how they don't need to be concerned. We educate them. An instructor maintains integrity by teaching within the BSA program materials, not counter to them. Education should be adding color inside the lines drawn by the BSA. Add the details that help bring across the objectives trying to be taught without changing the broad instructions of the BSA material. The worst that can be said of the BSA on Patrol Method is they don't provide near enough guidance. So we actually have a lot of room to fill the gray area. I was part of the most boy run patrol method method troop in Oklahoma. I was also a instructor, coordinator and training chairman in the various troop leader courses over the years and I never once had to run down or counter the BSA materials to teach patrol method, which I was pretty good at. We maintain our integrity by not trying to take away the BSAs integrity. We on this forum are better than that. Barry

True, but I found in most cases even the adults who came from troop with a bad patrol method experiences were still about three years a head of new troops that had adults with no experience. The reason I found is that when adults have no knowledge of scouting (no vision), they start with the simplest most obvious approach, "advancement". Skills for advancement are taught in training and the requirements for advancement are easy to read and understand in the handbook. How many discussion have we seen on the forums over the years of scouters wanting more "more" scouts skills training for adults? How often do they ask for more patrol method? And, we adults by human nature are insecure and need constant checks (gratification) for our hard work. Advancement does that quite well. And these aren't helicopter parent types looking for ways to pump up their kids self esteem, they are normal folks like you and me wanting to do the right thing with the troop program. They just don't have a vision for a starting place. That is why even scouters with a poor background of the patrol method have a big head start on adults with no experience. Scouters with some experience remember the comradery of sitting with buddies at campfire telling stories and poking the fire with the stick, or cooking the fish they caught earlier that day. They know that advancement is not the starting place or vision. Some experience more often than not trumps no experience. Funny story, I have friend who decided he wanted to be a SM. So found a church to support him and started one. He had zero knowledge of scouting and took off in the direction I just described. He was trained all they to Woodbadge, so he was ready. After about nine months, he called me and asked how I kept our scouts interested because his scouts were burned out and started hating campouts. I asked him to describe a typical day on the campout and he said that he gets the scouts up at 7:00 to prepare breakfast. After breakfast they work on advancement. Then lunch and after lunch they work on advancement. Eat supper, have camp fire and go to bed. Well we had quite a talk that day. He eventually saw his lack of skills was hurting the program and stepped down to let his Eagle buddy take over. Interesting thing was that while he by his own admittance a terrible SM, he was a great salesman and recruited 90 scouts in one year. The DE loved him. Barry

Again, well said. As I've said before, I think the biggest problem the BSA is dealing with today is that the vast majority of new scout leaders and parents didn't have an experience as a youth. You and Eagle94 are an example of the value of the youth experience giving the troop a head start in a productive direction. I have spent thousands of hours in trying to teach and guide inexperienced adults on the subject of patrol method and boy run. I have experimented with dozens approaches to helping adults see the light and I have concluded the best way for them to get it is to see it in action. We are in a difficult place to where the best way for adults to learn patrol method is witnessing it in action, and the best way to witness patrol method is to be in a Troop that uses it. But because fewer volunteers with a youth experience of patrol method are joining the program, I can't see a growing trend of patrol method happening. I'm not trying to negative, rather just pragmatic. It haunts me to realize that unless the BSA makes a dramatic shift in their expectation of the troop program, Sentinel, Eagle94 and my sons may be the last generation of patrol method leaders in scouting history. Barry

Well said Sentinel. This is exactly what I mean when I say "adults have to learn more faster than the scouts to keep up and stay out of the scouts' way". Your words are more elegant and clearer. I don't know of a single great scout leader that started out great. They become great because they were humble enough to learn from the experience. Barry

Our guys don't hold hands when they go to the latrine.

Part of the problem of talking about our programs in these post is that we leave out the failures that lead us to change toward a much improved program later. In other words, our text is more idealistic than the reality. It is important to understand that adults have to grow from the experiences more and faster than the scouts to keep up and stay out of the way. It is even more important to know where you are trying to go so you can recognize when you're doing it wrong and need to change. I am not bashful in saying that we did it wrong more often than we did it right. That is why I can give opinions with such authority and confidience. But we did learn from our mistakes and make changes. You take from that what you can, but adults should always be dicussing the performance of their program to see if they are going the right direction. Do your adults have some kind of plan, goals, or vision to measure the program? They may be growing a lot, you just haven't been there to see it. Barry

This makes sense to me. What I have noticed about some troops with the older scout issues is that the program hasn't really matured beyond a first class program. In other words the program repeats itself over and over so that young scouts are always advancing with the older scouts always teaching. The problem isn't that older scouts are tired of working with young scouts, rather they are bored from repeating the same old program over and over. They only resent the younger scouts because they appear to be the cause for doing same activities that they have been doing for two or three years since they were new scouts. Even the adults who have been there two and three years are bored and that is where the notion of baby sitting comes from. The adults are bored and it doesn't take much for the bored older scouts to start repleting the babysitting stuff. This is main reason why Venturing Crew are created, which typically fail inside three years. I try to guide the adults of these programs to expand their 'Troop"program out to doing more outdoor adventures with less drive toward getting advancement credit from the experience. Just take the troop on a weekend back packing trip, or fishing, or biking. Give the scouts something new and different to experience. This gives the older scouts more patrol method leading and less teaching. And, try to create outings where advancement credits are a result of the activities in the theme of the outing, and not the theme itself. Then the older scouts are teaching skills for the theme of the activity, not for First Class advancement itself. It's a lot more fun to learn knots for a rappelling weekend. The older scouts and even adults will have a much more rewarding scouting experience in that kind of program. Then who needs to create a whole new program for high adventure. Barry

Different approaches to this scouting stuff stosh. Barry

I wasn't talking about punishment, that is a whole different discussion. Barry

This analogy runs counter to the "take care of your boys" motto because age isn't a factor in being a servant. We also have a "take care of your boy" type program, although we call in servant lifestyle, and we have the opposite results with our older scouts. Our older and senior scouts not only take an interest of a young scouts present experience in the troop, but they also take interest in helping the younger scouts prepare for their future experiences like leadership. The PLC often takes time recognizing younger scouts for their growth in maturity by asking them to take on advanced positions of responsibility. That is exactly what I expect from a take care of you boys program from beginning to end. As a result, our PLC is very mixed aged. And maybe the reason we have different results is because we do call the troop a servant lifestyle. Servant leadership is only one aspect of the lifestyle. Being a servant is a full time responsibility. I'm not talking about the comments here, but I must say I'm surprised that some adults assume attitudes of serving will change with maturity. I hear it a lot, "older scouts don't like to babysit young scouts". The troops I observed with older scouts that have attitudes of superiority got the attitude from their adults. As for scouts of the same age not taking charge, it's human natural to shy away from conflict, especially with your friends. The way we got through this was guiding the scouts to work as a team for being responsible to each others behavior. They understood the concept better when they found the whole team being held equally responsible for one members misbehavior that the team could have prevented. When the whole group is held accountable to one persons bad behavior, the risk of conflict is diminished a lot because the group is appreciative and supportive of actions to change the behavior. There was a humorous result of that team accountability concept; one of the methods our scouts used to deal with misbehavior is asking the misbehaving scout to leave and wait outside the room or area until after the activity or meeting. Sometimes the scouts are instructed to find the SPL or SM for conference about their behavior. Kind of a last straw thing, but I was always blown away when a scout walked up and asked for a conference because their PL sent them. It seems the scouts bought into the team accountabiliity so well that most are willing to accept consequences of their own misbehavior as part of the process. I can honesty say I never saw that coming. LOL Barry

The BSA made a decisive move to increase the number of Eagles. I was told that the FCFY was created as part of that goal. I was also told, but I don't remember, exactly what motivated National to go that direction. I'm sure it something to do with membership. Coordinators for life scouts is ok if the adult understands the real intention of the job. But I found most adults in the position used it to push the scout, rather than just advise. It goes against our parenting human nature not to push, and there is a fine line between advisory/cheer leader and coach/director.

Yes, there does appear to be some easing of requirements. But from my observations over the years, the main influence for the eagle is adult pressure. A lot of troops and districts even assign adults to their life scouts for additional guidance for eagle. There is a lot of pressure on scouts today to get that prize. As I said, our troop leaders didn't apply that pressure and the results I saw is that most of our Eagle scouts didn't receive the award until they were 16 and 17. The average age of Eagles in other troops was 14 and 15. My son and a bunch of his friends did their BOR within a month of their 18th birthday. When scouts are busy doing fun scouting stuff, advancement isn't the highest priority. Barry

I was taught that a mentor is passive and that the mentee approaches the mentor for clarity. Leadership is aggressive and that leaders approach the team members to provide clarity. That helped me when I was guiding adults of their roles with the scouts. Barry

Yes, the drive for Eagle is bothersome. I'm honestly not really sure where it came from. It wasn't there when I left home in 1977 for school and life. But it saw it big time in 1990 when the UCs would do all the talks at Cub Roundup telling parents that cubs was the starting place for Eagle. First thing I did was take over that talk for our pack. I replaced the eagle part of the talk with fun and adventure. The units I was part of didn't buy into the Eagle drive because most of our adults came from a time of patrol method. But I spent "a lot" of time with parents trying to guide them on the benefits of patrol method over an Eagle program. I had to practice the speech that I gave to Webelos parents explaining the virtues of Patrol Method so that it made sense and had a value worth considering. As much as it appeals to experienced scouters on this forum, 300 feet patrol separation does not appeal to parents without scouting experiences. You have to explain at a parent level showing them how patrol method develops the growth and maturity of character their sons will use when they are fathers, husbands and community leaders. We had a few parents choose the Eagle mill down the street, but I guess the reputation of our troop was enough for parents to trust us because we grew from the smallest troop to the 3rd largest troop in the district with the single largest group of older scouts (14 thru 17) in the whole council. And we didn't want to be that big, after 50 scouts, boy run is very very difficult. I feel patrol method gets preached so much on this forum that it starts to loose the luster of it's true impact on scouting. Our troop was up front with everyone that advancement was only a small part of the program, not the main part and the scout himself was responsible for how far he took advancement. You won't hear adults pushing scouts to advance in our troop. However, when scouts like going to scout activities, they will hang around long enough that the earning an Eagle doesn't require all that much additional effort on their part. We also had the 2nd highest number of Eagles in the district next to the Eagle Mill. But, our troop also had more high adventure treks than most troops, which were pretty much organized by the scouts. We did so much outdoor adventure that many of the scouts, including my sons, didn't realize that not every scout in other troops had their levels experience. It took me a long time to develop the high points for selling patrol method to parents so that they could balance its merits over their brainwashed image of the Eagle. I fully respect the challenge today's leaders like Eagle94 have in selling patrol method. It's kind of like explaining God, you can't see it or touch it, so you have to be able to describe patrol method and boy run in a way that parents can visualize something tangible enough that the growth from the experience is the real gold ring they want for their son. I found that patrol method over Eagle is an especially hard sell for moms, but once you do sell them on it, you have dedicated followers for life. I believe what has hurt the troop program the most in the last 25 years is that between 50 to 75 percent of new troop leaders never experienced scouting as a youth and they can't see it except for what they get from the materials and training. Which doesn't even scratch the surface of the patrol method experience. Barry