Eagledad

Seems you have a lot of anger there stosh. Someone sure stepped hard on your toes. Barry

For a person who doesn't put much stock in Eagles or military hierarchy, you sure have high expectation in their hierarchy of rank in the BSA. I know the answers to all your questions because I have observed all those situations. If you want any credence to your skepticism, then stop referring to Eagles by some systematic hierarchy of expectations. In the world you describe stosh, the Eagle isn't the problem, the Tenderfoot is. If the Eagle is truly the last of the scouting experience as you keep hinting, then the only way to raise the bar of the Eagle in your program would be to raise the bar of every rank before it. Not a bad idea really, but the Eagle isn't the highest or end-all to a boys scouting experience. It is just one step of many. The problem with the BSA and adults is they focus on the method of advancement instead of the quality of experience of the scouts growth using all the methods. Sadly, we adults look for easy measuring sticks to view progress. Rank is the easiest of the methods, so we put a lot of focus on the method. But remember I said in another thread that the methods are the scouts responsibility, not the adults. Imagine if we put the same focus on each scouts growth in character, fitness and citizenship. Then the Eagle would be a by-product of the growth, not the goal. I know this because I've watched it work. So how do we get away from the Eagle focus? Focus on a scouts growth of associating with others in all his scouting activities. Bring to focus the traits of character. Don't make the Eagle the end result of those traits, but just one step in the growth. A lot of folks are stuck on 14 year old Eagles, but what about a 14 years olds ability to contribute in the patrol method. How does the maturity of a 14 year old boy compare to a 17 year old? Don't worry about any scouts progress toward a rank, watch his growth of personal skills that we want of a mature father, husband and civic leader. Measure his growth of character and mental fitness. Do that and the Eagle AWARD, not rank, will be a natural acknowledgment of his growth as a man. Strangely I saw this very thing last week while on vacation with my wife. We ran into a couple from the east coast and the husband told me a story about himself without even knowing my scouting background. He said he regretted never having kids because he wanted to get involved in Boy Scouts to give back what scouting gave to him. He said that scouting gave him the confidience to be independent. That was it, but isn't "confidence to be independent" really what it is all about. Can't we as adult leaders of a Troop just set "confidence to be independent" as our goal. Can't the step of growth of mastering all the skills required to survive in the woods for a weekend be a successful step of growth toward that goal? Can't leading a five mile hike be worth the acknowledgement of a great day? If you really want the Eagle to be worth something, then quit thinking of it a the final step in a series of recognized statures. For each boy, the Eagle is something different. If they reach their vision of the Eagle, isn't that enough? The reason we have a debate is because we have our own personal vision of what an Eagle should be and want each other to accept that ideal. Instead, try to find what the scout thinks the Eagle should be and then let him go. In the mean time focus on his growth of using the scout oath and law in all his activities. Then you can not only feel confident that he will be recognized for his hard work to getting the Eagle Award, you will also have confidence that he has done the best he can in maturing toward character, fitness and self-servanthood. And then whether the scout leads new scouts or decides to be a JASM, you know that is only his next step toward confidence of independence. It isn't his final step of growth. I can assure you that once you serve the scouts in that way, your biggest challenge is keeping each scout's maturity challenged because they grow a lot faster than we can keep up. Quite Frankly, some scouts will grow to have better qualities than their scoutmaster. That is a very humbling place for many reasons. Barry

The BSA teaches reflection, or was teaching it. Have they changed reflection to AAR in the last couple years, or is it just Army lingo some folks like to use?

Hmm, where did you say in your post the scouts and adults negotiated when the adults would take over? It is a lot easier to simply not make up new rules and instead learn to work together. Over the years I learned young scouts tire quickly of personal responsibility and have to develop into it. It is hard on 14 year old SPLs too. It's new for them and it requires a lot of effort. That is why I advice new troops with young scouts start with two or three month leadership periods instead of six. I know you like scouts to switch off when the feel like it, but I teach the BSA recommended policies because that is what most troops use. What is AAR? Barry

Well I’m not sure what you are trying to say because it kind of sounds like the adults made up the rules for when they can turn off boy run and tell the scouts what to do. All troops do it to some degree, but you can understand why one adult’s boy run on this forum can be another adult’s not so boy run. That is why it is important to use the BSA structure for the program. A troop that uses the Methods to define the scouts roles and the Aims to define the adults role makes it easier for each group to hold each other accountable and explain the program to outsiders. A visiting Webelos parent may ask how the SM gets the boys to earn their eagle. The SM responds by explaining the roles of the adults and the scouts while showing them the Aims and Methods in the SM Handbook. Then the SM master finishes by saying, “that is why the Scout is responsible for earn the Eagle, not the SM or anyone elseâ€Â. And it is not a mystery, anyone can look up these things on the internet. The SM isn't working in a vacuum, they are following a published format. And that doesn't mean the SM has to use the SPL, there is room for some personal perspective as well. Still, the farther a program wanders from the basic structure, the more dangerous it becomes for the boys. Of course it’s not always clear cut either, how can a SM influence a scout to think about living the scout law without intimidating the scout to live the scout law just to keep the adults off their back. We adults need to develop the skill of explaining the virtues of the Eight Methods so that we can justify why they are important for a positive scouting experience. How many here can explain the virtues of the uniform so that a scout believes it will enhance his personal scouting experience and character. That is mentoring and it is a skill that takes lots of practice. But, the more the adults can support their program with BSA documentation that defines the responsibilities of everyone, the better the program can maintain integrity with accountability from the outside. I think even the SPL Handbook explains Aims and Methods. Every time and issue comes up where the adult feels the need to intrude on the scout side of the program, have the SM sit down with the SPL and open the handbook to discuss together where to go. In that way the scout and scouters become equal partners in coming up with solutions. That is all boys of all ages want, to be an equal with the adult leaders in working the program. I do agree that your scouts failed to follow their agenda. I love to use time to hold scouts accountable because they can’t blame anyone but themselves. Your scouts hopefully learned something from their choices. Barry

I agree that this is better handled at the Patrol level, mainly because it keeps the Patrol activities at the Patrol level. But this is one area where someone, usually an adult, also has to keep track of the adults at the troop level to make sure the tour permit is filled correctly (PLC responsibility in our troop) and know who will be staying overnight in the adult camp site. We found an ASM working with the PLs or SPL does very well. Our ASM tries to communicate with the PLs at the meeting before the campout to develop the adult list. It's not a big deal with a small troop, but making sure transportation for big troop as well as adult accommodations requires some coordination between the adults and scouts. Scouts can do 90% of the work, but don’t forget the other 10%. Barry

I Don't have one around to look at, but I believe the BSA SPL Handbook provides a meeting structure for the scouts to use. Something like, reading of minutes, old business, new business. Barry

All the RR of order does is apply a systematic discipline and structure to the meeting. It is not supposed to be used to hold back bad behavior, at least not in scouting because Scouts are supposed to follow the law and oath. However, our PLC uses a basic RR of Order only for a meeting structure. The reality is the meetings are run like qwazse describes. Our PLC meetings are only 30 minutes long, a lot of business has to get done in that time. So a systematic process has to be applied to have a productive meeting. I don’t have a problem with RR of Order in scouting, but it is a bit much for the needs of scout and scouter meetings. Barry

LOL, well I’m going to have to put on my trainer and mentoring hats to respond to your post. You are sending me back a few years, but in just about every adult troop leader class I taught, the questions of dealing with behavior always came up when I asked for questions the course didn’t answer. I tried to give a direct answer as much as I could, but here is the basis of what I feel is the answer. First my training hat; I use to teach Scoutmaster Specific and a class called Boy Run during the same time period and I gave the same basic point in both classes. I learned to give short lists to scouts and adults so that they could remember what was important. Here is the number one short list I think ALL Troop Scout Leaders need to learn and understand. There are three points that Troop Leaders need to understand to run a successful boy run program. One - The main objective or mission of the adults is the BSA Mission statement: “The mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.†Two - The way the adults achieve that goal or mission is with the Three Aims and Eight Methods. Three - The adults are responsible for the Aims, and the boys are responsible for the Methods. The Eight Methods are what make the troop program boy run. OK, that is the short list that every adult needs to carry around until they understand how it all fits together. Now I will put on my mentoring hat to get to your quote. Adults tend to struggle the most with boy behavior when they ignore the most important point of the list, which is point one; the Boy Scout Mission to prepare scouts to make ethical and moral choices using the values of the Scout Oath and Law. Apply point one first, and the other two points will fall into place. OK, that was my mentoring hat. Now I’ve taken off both hats and will summarize. The main objective for adults is for scouts to learn to make ethical and moral choices. Stop, that’s it, plain and simple. We do that through the scouts doing activities where they practice character development, citizenship training, and personal fitness. The adults are responsible to insure that every scouting activity is practicing one or more of those objectives. And the best way adults insure that is by guiding the scouts to do those activities within the boundaries of the Eight Methods: Ideals, Patrols, Outdoors, Advancement, Association with Adults, Personal Growth, Leadership, and Uniform. As I said, the boy run part of the program is the Eight Methods. I’ve also said I have never met a SM who didn’t have a boy run troop. BUT, the degree to which a troop is boy run depends on how much the adults shift their responsibility of the Three Aims to the Eight Methods. AND, taking responsibility of the Scouts methods also means taking responsibility away from the first priority of developing moral and ethical decision makers. Methods equate to “making choices†and choices are how the scouts develop into ethical decision makers. When adults get into the methods, they take away the opportunity for scouts to make choices. I hope that makes sense, I will give an example in a moment. As you pointed out Matt, character is how we deal with people, which is basically scout behavior. I try over and over to get adults to understand that dealing with behavior is what we scout leaders do. Don’t be afraid of it, embrace it and learn how to use behavior to get a boy closer to the BSA Mission. When adults get hung up on scout’s bad behavior, they are forgetting that all the scout is doing is making bad choices. Oh I know it sounds obvious, but what adults are doing is letting their emotions of the bad behavior drive them into an emotional over responses. I have observed that the adults in the better boy run troops approach the scouts choices pragmatically. They are less judgmental and more systematic in how the program applies to the scouts’ choices. They are focused on scout growth. There are no good or bad choices so much as how the choices effect those around the scout (character). Negative choices effects are good opportunities for growth BECAUSE growth in making moral choices is the GOAL. Where adults go wrong is they take their eyes off the ball of growth to emotional drive of forcing change or punishment. When a scouts behavior gets bad enough that the adults want to force their own change instead of letting the Aims and Methods help the scout to grow, then the game is over. It is no longer a scout program, much less boy run. So what are adults supposed to do with negative behavior? Well first, what is negative behavior? Negative behaviors are choices that fall outside of the scout law and oath. Who judges those choices? Usually the judges are the victims of the bad choices, which should be scouts. So the scouts deal with bad choices by teaching and encouraging each other to make good choices. But we all know that boys are limited on their skills and need help from the adults. That is adult association. But then sometimes even the adults struggle in helping a boy to understand their choices. So they need to seek help from other adults, typically the parents. Where the adults get lost in how to deal with behavior is loosing sight of the first point on the list, the BSA Mission Statement. Adults lose sight because some don’t really believe it. Others think it corny while others just don’t get it. But, when we confront the behavior, we need to remind everyone involved at that time that growth is changing bad choices into good choices because that IS our goal and our job. How many scout leaders reading this have told the parents of the scouts that their goals is to help their son grow to be a better moral and ethical decision maker? How many have told their scouts that while they, the scouts, or responsible for the Methods part of the program, the adults are responsible for growth in decisions making? If you haven’t, and most have not, why? The thing is that when a scout continually chooses to make bad choices, he can effect the growth of the scouts around him. When a scouts choices get that bad, he needs restrictions to prevent his choices hurting others. This is where adults struggle because restrictions aren't typical and are extreme for developing growth. It is extremely important that everyone involved, especially the parents understand that the troop programs goal of developing eithical and moral decision makers so that the restrictions are not only applied without prejudice, but also accepted by everyone for the purpose of scout growth. The reason the better boy run programs perform better is because everyone understands that the main goals of the program are not leadership, advancement, camping or fishing, the main objective is growth for making better decisions based on the scout oath and law. And if anyone wants to know how the scouts are supposed to judge those choices, refer them to the Oath and Law. Further more, the adults of those troops also understand that so long as the scouts stays within the boundaries of the Eight Methods, the adults aren’t going to interfere with their activities unless asked. The adults job is to stand back and evaluate how the scouts are doing in Fitness, Citizenship and Character, not camping, advancement, uniform, leadership and so on. Oh of course the adults are supposed to help scouts when they struggle so much that they aren’t growing. The adults do that through teaching skills and mentoring the principles of their choices. They don’t tell them what to do because that takes away opportunities for the scouts to grow from making choices. As I said, generally the more the adults guide the scouts in their eight methods, the less the adults understand the goals of the program and the less boy run the troop is running. Let me give to quick examples of where adults really really struggle with this whole concept and where you can judge your troop. Uniform and advancement are the two methods that adults struggle the most to leaving the scouts responsible. There are plenty of guidelines in the Scout Handbooks to guide the scouts on their uniform and advancement, but the adults have an emotional perspective with these two methods and feel a need give the scouts additional guidance in their choices. Lets face it, we are insecure about how the scouts will choose and let our pride drive the performance of these methods. Once we adults let our emotions get into play, we lose sight of our number one goal and crossover into the scouts responsibilities. Less boy run and less growth are the results. OK sorry, my teaching and mentoring guidelines are much shorter, my summarizing tends to get way too long. I hope it made some kind of sense. We had some lively discussions in my courses. Barry

You know Matt, when three of us took over a dead troop, we basically started over by building the troops of our youth with simple goals of developing character and leadership. THEN we started going to training and reading the handbooks. Move forward a few years to where I was given the responsibility for training of troop leaders. It was much easier for me to start a successful troop program off the basic knowledge of my youth scouting experience than it was teaching adults how to run the same type of program using documentation provided by National. I have since come to a personal conclusion that introduction of women as troop leaders has led to a slow change of program simply because the number of adults who had a scouting youth background was cut in half. I think your question is rhetorical, but I don’t have a good answer. Barry

I refuse to believe that scouts can’t get the same level of growth with the todays program as with the program 30, 40 and 50 years ago. As I said, a good scout leader can achieve the growth with any program when they understand the objective. The problem today is that the average troop struggles to run a program as intended because they don’t understand how the program works. They see advancement, leadership, camping, character development and so on and so forth and try to make sense of it, but it is hard to put together into a single program. What I understand qwazse is saying is that adults don’t need to really know the fine details of the program if they would just take the kids out and let them camp and hike in patrols because those activities intuitively develop growth whether that was intended or not. In other words, the adults don’t really need to know the BSA vision and mission or even recognize boy growth if they would just let the boys do their scouting stuff as intended. Kind of goes along with the just give the boys the SPL and PL handbooks and let them figure it out. Then the average troop leader might have a better chance of managing a performing program. Barry

Sorry, I'm not sure where else to post this. I show that I have messages but there are no messages in my Messages folder and I can't clear it. Am I missing something? Barry

Well said quasze. I think you nailed it.

I hope you are right about the new Scoutmasters training syllabus because I have to agree with MattR that National just isn’t doing a good job explaining adult responsibilities. In reference to your quote above, I am convinced that if the scouts were given the BSA Patrol Leaders Handbook and SPL Handbook and told to go off and make a troop without the adults help, they would have a 50/50 shot at coming up with a better patrol method program than the adults. Imagine what the old PL Handbooks could do? In fact, I am so confident in those books that I purchased and gave them to all the Scoutmasters who came through my Scoutmaster Specific class with my instructions to start here. Not that the SM Handbook doesn’t have enough information, but I used to poll all the adults that went through Wood Badge and found that probably 3 in 100 adults had actually read the whole thing. Maybe 25 in 100 had read a 3rd. The SPL Handbook and PL Handbook give enough information to start a true boy run program in the right direction and they require less than an hour to read. From my experience, I would say 75 percent of Scoutmasters are in the program for the boys. The rest had no choice and are apathetic or they are trying to prove something to themselves. In both cases, the troop usually suffers. You will always have the extremes, but once in a while you get a gem. A unit that excels sometime shows what the district or council is lacking. Because of local training, general overall performance by all the units usually follows a pattern of expectations set by district, which generally follows council. So units that stick out get noticed, good and bad. Usually it’s because they are so bad, but sometimes the rare natural leader who gets it and knows what the program is all about can be the source of making big changes. I have witnessed these kinds of changes from just such people. But it is kind of like the Bible warning of false prophets, beware. Barry

If I had a dollar for every lost book I collected...... At worst you just need to get the person who signed you off to sign it off again. Remembering the date will the challenge, but there are usally other witnesses to help in most cases. Barry

I'm talking about Kudu, not the average person. I think pure visionary leader’s who have passion for boy growth and only use the program as the means to an end are rare. We all have stories of hypocrites who make decisions only to get what they want in the moment. I know that good scouting is hard, but there is a clear difference between humility and pride. I gained a lot of respect for the professionals when I volunteered at the Council level because I had to work with adults that had no business working with our sons. But the problem with organizations that rely on volunteers to function is that they take what they can get to function, and only the very worst are sifted out. It’s very easy for those of little stature to fall prey to badges and recognition by piers. Incompetence of unit leaders is rampant in scouting organizations. That is why these organizations have to be somewhat simple to manage. Barry

This is exactly right. When you make it all up, you can justify anything. I have seen more harm come from units with narcissistic adults using the program to prove a personal idealism. Those units don’t last long because while the idealism may develop a small passive following, the body dies when the head is separated. Still, districts are left cleaning up a mess. I admire Kudu because of his passion for a program that turns boys into men of character. We’ve known each other for a long time and I am convinced that while I don’t agree with his tactics of persuasion, he has a genuine love for helping boys. You don’t confuse his passion for egotistical idealism because he backs up all his comments with quotes from the master, Baden Powell. Much like TAHAWK does with many text of true traditional scouting. However, staying within the intended design of the different scouting programs, I disagree with Kudu that one program is more superior to another. A good leader of one program can achieve the same level of boy growth performance with another. Where most folks get lost is by not understanding the vision and being satisfied with just mediocre methods. Once we understand the vision, then we only need to use the processes of the program correctly to achieve performance. It is silly to automatically discount the SPL and SM from the start as negative contributors to boy growth and then say “UNLESS, you do it my wayâ€Â. I have little patience for the advice of throwing out the book just to follow one’s egotistical aspiration. I agree with TAHAWK, these units tend to be even more adult run than normal programs because the scouts have to be directed to achieve the idealistic results. I have never met a Scoutmaster who didn’t think his troop was boy run. Barry

The Patrol Method is the method for developing a scout’s independent decision making skills and confidience by working with other scouts in a single group during scouting activities. The key characteristics I look for in successful patrol methods is the whole group functioning together to accomplish their tasks. The adults’ responsibility for the patrol method is to insure the patrols are being challenged for continued growth at the maturity and experience of the scouts in the patrol. The responsibility of the SPL and senior youth officers is to insure the scouts are growing through training and role modeling the scout oath and law. Barry

Wow, I'm impressed. I just walked my daughter down the isle yesterday and there is some honor in being asked to help change tradition. I have a feeling you will do well. There are a lot of cleaver U Tube knot tieing demos that might give you some ideas. Barry

I should have guessed, this was just a cleaver thread for a "more political correctness in the BSA" rant. Moderators need to move the debat to the politics section. Barry

Slavery was more of a social status back then and to be a slave was not necessarily as bad thing because the choice was usually much worse. God did not profess slavery and was then telling the Israelites how to keep their offspring pure. That was very important because he wanted the Jews to be His people. Merlyns text is a bit out of context and needs to be read in the context of the chapter. God

Sure, atheists don’t have an institutional reference of morality. At best they only have government laws that are neither consistent around the world nor are they never changing. Nope, I have stated many times over the years as I said a minute ago: “No, this is not about the children, its about the foundation of the BSA principles. The BSA vision is developing moral decision makers and God has been set as the reference the organization as a whole to be principled in the moral concept. If you don’t let God lead in morality, then who? You? The only other choice would be to change the vision to something without morality. At that point you have a camping program that is a lot of fun. But you don’t have a program of values as its goal". Barry