Eagledad

What do the job descriptions say? Barry

I'm also confused, how is this different from teaching the scouts to take care of their patrol or team members. (scratching my head on this one) Barry

You know, this is a good point. I don't remember if I intentionally did it for this reason, but I recruited and trained my replacement CM so I could be my younger son's Webelos leader. Good advice Slowderby. Barry

I see this as a different problem. Our troop relies on the scouts getting their guidance from documented resources because adult guidance is inconsistent and changes quickly. So the scouts are encourage to use the Scout Handbook. But what happens when the Handbook isn't always the best resource? The scouts fall back to what the closest adult recommends (requires) or another document. I remember once walking by a patrol and a scout yelling at me, "SM Barry, I can't remember the order of the three pot cleaning method?". And just as quickly before I could say it, he followed "Oh ya, look it up in the Handbook". I love it when a plan comes together. Of course Philmont and just about all the other High Adventure camps do it different because using three pots in the wilderness isn't practical. So now what is an independent thinking scout supposed to do? Barry

Right! As was said, " help them understand and work within the limits and capabilities of the troop." When we go down the path of lecturing other people of our personal values, we quickly find ourselves coming off insensitive and condescending of other peoples values. Just because we have a different opinion of the honor of Eagle doesn't mean we try to force the opinion on them. One of our first Eagles was scout who wasn't supposed to live past the age of four. He had been through 6 open heart surgeries by the time he joined the troop and had two more scheduled surgeries between age 16 and 20. His family put a very high value on every honor this young man accomplished in his life. There celebration for his Eagle was nothing less than a Wedding. Not far behind him was our Deaf Scout. His family was no less enthusiastic about his Eagle than the previous example for about the same reasons. When these families speak about their sons' accomplishment, they weep. They have grand dreams and don't want to be told that the celebrations to be equated to some quicky like running to the court house. In fact, they don't want your opinion at all. They just want to know the limitations of the troop so they can plan. Another one of our scouts has a family tradition of Eagles. It's almost a family trait and one the defines the men of this family. Your opinion isn't important. Allowing them to respect and celebrate the best they can within the limits of their dreams is all you have to do. So with respect we allow the families to deal with the details. We politely explain the limitations of the Troops and patrols then we stand back quietly and let the family do their thing. If they step beyond the limitations of the troop, then we with deep respect point out the limitations of the troop and then step back again. I have witnessed and participated in many ECOHs and have never seen an unreasonable request. I'm sure it occurs, but most families want to show as much respect for the troop as the troop has shown them. In this case, it appears it's prideful unit leaders that are the problem, not the family or scouts. Barry

That being said, Eagle can be very very important and personal for families for a variety of reasons; as important as a wedding in some cases. We have to be very careful to respect the families in these things and help them understand and work within the limits and capabilities of the troop. Barry

So how does Philmont instruct their crews now? It used to be boil a pot of water, dip all the eating and cooking utensils and then use the the water for cooking. Barry

Sorry, Troop Committee Chair. But I think you have have added more explanations to the whole situation since my question. Barry

Well I'm not an expert on laws, but if a SM called me to ask my experience with a scout wanting looking to join their troop, I would be clear in what they should expect without being critical or denigrating of the scout. As some already said, some units are better with these scouts than others, they need to know what to expect. All that being said, I'm with CP, it sounds like the ASM couple is being vindictive. We have had our share of challenging scouts and I'm sure we don't know the whole story because working with them is complicated. It's curious that looking for another troop is the easier solution. However, whatever you decide to do, I personally would ask for the floor at the next committee meeting and present your side of the story. I would also ask that the DE and a District Committee representative be present. Dealing with difficult adults can be wearing and it needs to be nipped in the bud. By the way, does the CC know and understand the situation? Barry

Actually, you originally stated that you (the adult) are the the judge of all three requirements and could take over the scouts program when you (the adult) judged any requirement is broken. I remember because that seemed pretty convenient since Safety, Acting Scout Like, and Fun are very subjective.Is the adult the only judge of the adult created conditions? Which leads to the question: are Safety, Scout Looks, and Fun, adult discretion or adult control? Barry

Yes, that's fine if that is their choice. My experience is that young scouts don't like missing out on stuff the other scouts are doing. Barry

There is very little you can really do about the way the troop has it set up presently. The BSA doesn't encourage this practice, but a surprisingly large number of troops administer their rank advancement program the same as yours. It is easy and takes the burden of responsibility off the troop. Sadly, it also reduces the quality of scout skills in the troop and doesn't give the scout much practice with independent decisions making for his own advancement process. He is basically stuck with a system that drives most of the scouts at the same speed. And what if the scout misses camp for whatever reason? During training I guided troops to develop a program that doesn't get in the way of a scout's personal ambition. But as I said, a surprising number of troops do most of their advancement at summer camp and MB college. There is one way you can help fix the problem. Become the Troop advancement chairman and develop the troop program to where scouts can advance at their speed. Basically get the scouts to work with Patrol leaders and older scouts to schedule meeting times before or after a meeting, at a patrol meeting like the one the set up for the MB, or during free time at camp. You can be an important difference here. Barry

I have had to aggravatingly deal with more than one first year scout parent on this very issue. I'm at a loss to why they want their 11 year old son to earn this badge at their first summer camp. So I can fully appreciate the camp wanting some prier BSA documentable proof the scout is qualified to sign up for the badge before the troop arrives to camp. It saves time and hassle in the long run. Barry

The problem with all that Horizon is understanding how doing any of those actions (non actions) benefits the scouts. The perception of scouting is easy in that by going camping grows a boy's character. But when the adults get into the nitty gritty parts of the program, they lack the vision and wisdom as to why allowing a scout to fail develops positive growth. I've use the example several times of the Uniform method; how many adults can give a scout an explination for uniforming that makes sense to him? A parent does everything in their power from the day their son is born until now to protect him from struggling, now you want the parent to change that habit? Adults have to be willing to understand what they are doing and why they are doing it. Then they have to be willing to continually change so the unit doesn't develop habits and traditions that hold older scouts to expectations of young scout maturity. Honestly, we are asking a lot of these parents. We are asking them to change everything they know about raising children and start learning how to develop adults. So you can't just simply say, "Ah, chaos is part of patrol method, ITS OK!". That simple explanation not only doesn't make sense, it also makes you look incompetent for taking their son out into the wilderness. A better explanation is something like, "It's not chaotic to them, It only looks chaotic to us adults because scouts react slower to situations that are new to them while the reaction is obvious to us experienced parents. You will see them get faster and better as they practice more.". Scouting is the real world scaled down to a boys size so that they scouts learn real world actions to real world situations in a safe environment. Safe meaning that it is not only ok for a scout to make a mistake, mistakes are actually welcome because we know human nature drives us to learn through adversity, not security. LOL, I actually taught a course for helping unit adults get past their fears of giving scouts the independence to make their own decisions and live with the results. I developed that course for a new troop that had no adults with previous scouting experience (all women). They wouldn't even allow their scouts to perform opening ceremonies because they feared that failure of not doing a perfect opening would hurt the scouts (their sons') self esteem. We need to help adults understand the goals of building character and how every action contributes to that goal. Once they get on track to understanding how independent thought and decision making leads to better character and decision making processes, the adults jump on board accepting the challenges of a patrol method program. Barry

It's an interesting visual of Scouting, I counted a full third of the participants at the last WB course I staffed to be grossly over weight. I think grossly is being fair. Obesity seems to stick out at multi-unit scouting events (at least in Oklahoma) and I worry about the image it leaves on the public. Fitness is one of the three Aims; does scouting have some unique attraction with out-of-shape adults in a program that is supposed to set the example of taking care of ones self both mentally and physically? I don't know, but we lost a Council leader at Philmont a few years ago as a result of his health and I know some very good scouters who can't sleep overnight in tents because of issues associated with their weight problem. It is a difficult subject to even discuss. Barry

OK, we have different philosophies, "We don't do advancement at Troop meetings". I didn't do advancement at troop meetings when I was a scout in the 60s and 70s, and we don't do it now. It wasn't just you stosh, a few others mention doing advancement as well. Advancement is for "Advancing" in rank. Rank is each scouts responsibility to do outside of troop meetings. Advancement is left to the scouts and patrols to figure out. The scouts arrange that at their patrol meetings or on camp outs if the PLC builds it into the agenda. We believe scouting is an adventure, the same adventure for new and older scouts. If maturity or skills have to be adjusted for the general activity, then the scouts make arrangements for those considerations like reducing a backpacking hike for new scouts to a shorter distance and a more experience patrol, but how would that change the troop meeting? And honestly we are a pretty active troop and it is rare that not all scouts can partcipate at most levels. Before you assume some answer to slam us old timers that do more traditional scouting, we just don't do it your way. All our scouts participate in the same activities. I don't even believe in sending younger scouts to a different summer camps. Patrol Method works best when everyone participates together. And it works very well. We don't even have age restrictions on our high adventure treks. If the scout has the maturity and skill to participate, he can sign up for the trek. Only Philmont and BSA Boundary Waters sets that limit for us if we participate in their treks. But we do our own Backpacking and Canoeing Boundary Waters treks anyways, so age rarely restricts young scouts in our adventure treks. Barry

Our troop has not run a Summer Camp, but we have done other things like it and it does take a bit of planning. Program is easy because it is basically the same thing as camp outs, but more of it. We try to find the right property that can handle some of the activities like hiking, biking and fishing. A lot can be added if you are near the right areas like horse back riding, boating and shooting sports. All depends what activities the troop wants and where you go. But by far the biggest logistical challenge is food and meals. When you start to realize how much food needs to be keep at safe temperatures for a week, you understand the day to day planning required for safe food handling. Very difficult to be handled at the patrol level and requires a team to plan and execute. However, I have never known a troop that didn't come back from its own summer camp that wasn't excited to do it again. There is a certain level of bonding and growing maturity with all the scouts and adults that is hard to reach at Council camps. It really pulls a troop together. Barry

What? So why are the younger scouts left out of the fun stuff? Barry

Jungle boots are what our crews used also. The Academy boots are cheap and held up ok 15 years ago. Take duct tape just in case. A couple scouts did fine with running shoes, but they wore wool socks. I was worried about their ankle support. I have sinced used low top fishing hiking shoes and the are the best. But these aren't typical water shoes, the are high quality hiking shoes designed for water, mud, rocks and tough hiking. My shoes have been on two Boundry Water treks on the Canadian side, as well as other tough hikes around the world. I just recently used them to hike up a 2000 ft muddy trail in Hawaii with my wife. I admit we have never used two different types of shoes for Northern Teir like CP suggest. Never even thought about it. But I can't see doing a trip without any shoe getting wet and muddy, so I don't see the advantage. Some portages are only 30 seconds long and can get backed up with several crews waiting to cross. When it's your turn, everyone behind your crew expects you get out and move out fast. Not a lot of time or space on those entry points to change shoes, but we have not tried it either. The key to comfortable feet are the wool socks. I like to use thin Coolmax liners as well. No matter how wet they get, the feet feel dry. Take two pair, one to dry while wearing the other. Have a great trip, Northern Teir is a lot of fun. Barry

I can't tell if you are being clever or or nieve, but that is not at all what he said. Barry

Only Seven percent of all ASMs I polled at Wood Badges admitted they had read the whole Scoutmaster Handbook. Sadly the truth is most adults don't really care about the details of building character, they just know it's part of scouting and would rather leave the details to the SM. When you explain it, they start to fall asleep. Character is the SMs job, the rest are fine with the SM telling them what to do. But, it is important that the SM be able explain why they are doing what they're doing so that there is buy in to the SMs program. Does that make sense? That is why the SM is the gatekeeper of the vision. As long as the SM can consistently repeat the same vision and explain how what they are doing it is going in a positive direction toward the vision, the other 95% are perfectly happy to follow the plan. The reason for knowing and understanding the Aims and Methods is so the SM can explain the roles of scouts and adults in a scout run troop. After every election, I explained to both the PLC and ASMs that the adults were responsible for: scouts fitness, citizenship and character (three aims). The way the adults achieve the Aims is by the scouts actively: using the the Scout Oath and Law, using patrols, camping outdoors, advancing, a mature relationship with adults, reflecting on personal performance of Doing A Good Turn, leadership and uniform. In other words the "Eight Methods". As long as the scouts take personal responsibility for the Eight Methods, the adults will not interfere with their program. Pretty simple really. That is how I taught and defined the roles for the adults in the boy run troop. The adults are supposed to be passive to the scouts actions as long as the scouts are working toward "growth" in the Fitness, Citizenship, and Character. "Passive"means stand back and stay out of the scouts way. The scouts are on the other hand working "actively" with the Eight Methods. That is where the line is drawn. But, for that to work successfully, the SM has to be able to define how each of the eight methods work toward any or all of the three aims because many challenges will come up In the grey area. In fact I challenged each PLC that if I (SM) couldn't explain how a scout activity or action worked toward any Aim, I would let them take it out of the program. It also protects the scouts from the adults. If the troop has a low performing SPL and the adults start bulking, the wise Scoutmaster points out that character spawns from adversity, not prosperity. The other thing not being discussed here is the factor of maturity. It doesn't take much reasoning to understand that a 17 year old Scout is more capable of making decisions because they have more experience and wisdom. So the responsibilities or roles of the adults and scouts boy changes as a scout grows from his experiences. A responsible adult isn't going to drop off a new NSP by themselves without training, but a patrol with scouts of several years experience in most cases shouldn't be a problem. But boy constant growth and maturity "requires" that the adults grow and mature with their responsibilities well or they will find themselves in the way and restricting scout growth. Just like we wouldn't give an 11 year old SPL the same responsibilties we give a 17 year old, we also wouldn't restrict the 17 year old SPL with the same independence we gave the 11 year old. The adults have to continually grow and adapt to the scouts growth. I've said before, as adults we screwed up a lot, but we were humble And made adjustments so as not to keep repeating those mistakes. Guiding the adults to change and adapt along with the scouts can be a difficult responsibility for a shy SM who struggles with directing adults. But the SM is the guard of the vision, he/she must keep that in mind. I've gone way too long, hope this helps. Barry

Just checking! You passed. Lol

Yes quite so. There are two truths that most experienced leaders agree on: troops work to a size that fits the SM style of leading, and every SM has a different style that works for them. Also, each SM has different personal goals for their scouts, which is how they measure the success of their leadership style. As a scout in the 60s and 70s, we used mixed age patrols. I never saw a patrol of scouts all the same until I became a scout leader in 1992. All my patrol leaders had their drivers license and they took very good care of us. We all aspired to be like them. Our troop of 6 patrols was very boy run. Each patrol camped out of sight and sound of each other. That is a big deal now, but not back then. In fact most troops were like this in our area. So it makes since that as adults we tried to build the same troop for our sons. But National had just started this NSP patrol thing and was making mixed age patrols a challenge for us. Plus, our new troop of 18 scouts had 12 Webelos, so we gave same age patrols a try. Right off the bat we found that even with a troop guide that NSPs require more adult intervention for growth than we want to give. We found that without the constant. And consistent wisdom of older scouts, young scout growth either stagnates or comes from somewhere else, adults. National placed Troop Guides (TP) in the program to fix the problem, but we found over the years that TG direction is not natural growth for younger scouts and eventually peaks out at the limits of TG (6 months on average). From our perspective, TG direction is more class room style teaching where mixed age was more observational and natural to human behavior of boys this age. TG style of growth is more intrusive where growth from observing is more intuitive from our perspective. For several reasons, we had mixed age patrols working side by side with same age patrols and NSP patrols and clearly the growth of scouts in mixed age patrols advanced the fastest in character, confidence, skills and importantly for us, a servant attitude. As I said before in the discussion, we eventually developed had a high retention rate in our troop with 45% of our scouts being 14 and older. Our personal goals drive many of our decisions and mine are leadership development and character. I think anyone who follows me on these forums will agree that those two qualities are on the top of my list for developing a program that helps boys build habits that lead to making moral and ethical decisions. If your goal is a program of building character leadership, you share my passions. As adults, I think we made mistakes 50% of the time, but we were always trying to change those parts that work so as not to repeat the mistakes. To do that, the program has to have a vision of success to compare daily performance. Our troop had a reputation in district and council as wild cat troop that didn't follow the rules. Not that they thought we were bad, just the opposite, we averaged 2 new scouts a month from other troops. Some of those were local, but many were were transfers moving in town and were sent by the DE because of our reputation for fun and adventure. By the way, we had no desire to be a fast growing troop, our goal was about 25. But it didn't work out that way. However, as a district and council trainer, I took great pride in that weren't doing anything outside of BSA boundaries. It was the other troops that had fallen in bad habits which made our troop look so different. Eventually someone in council asked if I would created and lead a course of how to be a more "boy run" troop. In the end, the course wasn't much more than a review of Aims and Methods, and how to apply them. Short quiz: how many reading now can recite the four Aims and seven Methods? Lol The reason most troops struggle to define boy run is because they don't know or understand the program basics. I was once honored to be invited on a forum way back when with other scouters who had successful boy run programs. These guys made me feel small in their wisdoms on the subject. One of these guys said something that I have found to be very true, the best boy run leaders typically have an above average knowledge of the present BSA program and are students of Baden Powell, Green Bar Bill, seton, Beard and other source of traditional patrol method wisdoms. I used to poll our Wood Badge courses and found that less than 20% of SMs had read the whole SM Handbook. Less than 7% of ASMs had done the same. Not that I can't blame them, the handbook is a top notch snoozer. But I think it is indicative of adults with a higher level of passion. I guide new SMs to use the PL and SPL handbooks instead until they got comfortable. For me, it's not about mixed age or same age, it's very much about best growth with the resources of the moment. That is why I can explain the performances of different styles of patrols depending on circumstances. I did the same thing in Cubs to triple our retention rate. But after all the time and effort to build a prducing patrols using the BSA program and modifications to improve their performance, I have concluded that National implemented three program changes that I believe have caused the most damage to the troop program: NSP, First Year First Class (FYFC), and Venturing Patrols. I believe those changes are the reason adults today struggle to inject boy run in the program. Don't take that as being anti National, I am not. They are just pragmatic conclusions from years years of applying and observing the scout program at the unit, district and council levels. I also beleave that we can't go back to the great days of traditional scouting when boys were truly given independence to learn about their boundaries of making good decisions because we have too many generations of adults who only understand the newer less boy run program. But I'm here because I love this scouting stuff and I want to help other scouts and scouters have experiences as rich as mine. There will always be those few who want better than a mediocre program, so I'm here to share our mistakes as well as our successes to help them work toward a better performing patrol method program. And I will also be a balance for those who think they are the end all to scouting and feel they have to demean everyone else to make there point. If a pragmatic case can't be made, then it's just another egocentric theory. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

Sheesh, we get. You have demeaned, belittled, demonized any scouter who beleaves in mixed age patrols. You make up scary hyperbole of adults with successful troops and now demonize them to the point of bullying. If you converted anybody, it was long before your story of the scary mean old boy run mixed age patrol adult leader trolls under the bed. If it helps you feel better about yourself, I concede that stosh scouts is better than traditional scouting. Ok that is silly, nothing is better than traditional scouting; but your juvenile bullying is embarrassing for scouters in an adult scouting forum. MOVE ON! Barry