Eagledad

I'm with most everyone here, we ran our prgram like Scouter99 describes. But I had a friend in another troop who ran an experiment over a couple years. He counseled a MB class of 30 scouts (I don't remember the badge) where the class met one hour before each meeting until they finished the badge. Then a year later he introduced the same badge, but didn't hold any classes before the meetings. He encourage the scouts to work on their own and call him. He started with about 30 scouts in that group as well. He signed off almost all 30 scouts in the first group who attended weekly classes and 9 in the second group. I'm am not suggesting one way or the other , I'm just pointing out this MB counselors results. I'm so fanatical about the personal growth part of the MBbadge experience that I was kicked off the District MB College team for insisting we use the same standards our troop uses with the scouts. By the way, Horsemenship is a very cool badge. As for communications, I think you will find it a lot more fun and rewarding for both you and the scout when working with each scout individually. The badge itself is a great personal growth and confidence building badge when done correctly. Barry

Master and Commander is one of my favorite movies. What I mean by biology is that the human mind isn't really ready for independent responsibility until puberty. We are wired to run in groups because it is safer and leading makes us vulnerable because we are seperated from the group. That is why you can see such a dramatic change in leadership behavior after puberty. As for the sqeakers, privledge has it's advantages. Those boys were given the expectation of leading from the day they were born. Barry

Back when our troop was young, we kind of hit a plateue with the patrols. We were trying some ideas to help them in their responsibilties and it wasn't until we adults performed a skit of the ideal Patrol Corners that I saw a light bulb turn on with a scout and a big "OHH!, I SEE NOW!. The problem with Stoshe's suggestion and with ours at the time is that we weren't in cluding enough training in the "Train Them, Trust Them, Let Them Go" process. We learned that there is a huge difference between shoving a scout into a dark cave without any tools and giving them a big enough flashlight (confidence) to move deeper into the unknown. Now, I really don't believe Stosh send his guys out in the woods without any training, but I think he doesn't recognize what he does give then so that they have the confidence to move forward. We found that training gets both scouts and adults past stalling performance. But it is difficult to know how much training is too much or too little. I teach to give enough training to give the confidence to do the job, but not so much that they are only mimicking what they learned. Mimicking can be a problem. One of the reasons National created a new Wood Badge course in 2000 was because adults in the old course went back to their units and mimicked what they experienced in their course. Well that doesn't work so when boys are added in the mix and it was causing a lot of problems. The first lesson I give a new SPL is writting a simple meeting agenda. Thats all really. You would be surprised how much better a PLC meeting goes with just a simple four or five item agenda. It gives just enough confidence to help the scout get through the meeting without any help from an impatient adult. I'm also a little surprised at Stoshes discovery of everyone having a job, that has been encourage from the begining of scouting. Barry

That you even start off with "white" takes away any credibility that you might have had for the rest of your post. Your anger as well as your prejudice precede you. Give it break, your passion of hate can''t be good for the health of you or those around you. Barry

Of course, but a broad brush painting all 17 year old Eagles as so called deathbed Eagles isn't accurate at all. Quite frankly we brag about the age of our older Eagles because it shows that we have an active program where boys like to hange out. A trend of deathbed Eagles is red flag of problems in the program. Barry

That's rediculous, our troop averages one Eagle every 2.5 months at the average age 16. That means we have a lot of late 17 year old Eagles. These guys are just busy running a troop, that's all. You want to guess how long the average 13 year old Eagle hangs around? Barry

I'm with Brewmeister on this one, we don't have enough information to know why the Scout is motivated to earn the Eagle so fast. I was reading the other day of an 11 year old who is going to an Ivy league college to become a doctor of something or other . The article didn't say if his parents are behind the boys motivation, I just assumed he isn't a run of the mill kid. Our job is to provide a program where every scout has the same opportunities to the activities as all the other scouts. If we do that correctly, the scouts follow their own vision, not ours. If the program is developed correctly, advancement and leadership are just two of the eight methods. The other six should keep the scouts busy and balance their experience in the troop. Since I have this T-shirt, I can say that a boy who is capable of earning Eagle by 13 typically has a lot of other special talents that a well meaning SM can tap from the scout. Still, my experience is the best a SM can expect is a one year delay. Also we can talk about leadership all we want, but biologically, 13 year olds aren't mature enough to understand the value of leadership. Maturity is really what is at stake here. Maturity of physical and mental health, maturity of character and maturity of citizenship. I'm guessing this 13 year old is not practicing enough of one or more of those areas of the program, or the program is failing all the scouts. Better check their camping program. Barry

OA isn't about honor camping anymore, its about another patch on the shirt, that's all. Only 10 percent of OA members last a year anyway. It's a great program for that 10% who hang around, but it still doesn have the prestige it carried back when I was a scout. Why do you think OA change the qualifications of the candidates? Barry

I disagree, almost 1/2 of the SMs never had a scouting experience, they don't know what honor camping is. And, OA pushes really hard for troops to send as many scouts as they can, at least around here. Barry

Yes, my first ordel as an adult in 1995 was quite a shock. Compared to the Ordeals of the 60s and 70s, I am now ashamed of the OA. For those who don't understand, some of the requirements differences are that OA candidates in the 70s had to be at least 14 years old and only two scouts could be elected by their peers from each troop. Eleven year olds can go now and a troop can send all their scouts if they want. As a result, most scouts going to Ordeal have less than a year experience. Hardly enough time to earn the honor of honor camper. I don't know when OA changed the requirments, but I'm sure the pressure to change was a reflection of our culture. Barry

Adding to the discussion, but not answering the question directly, the number one problem I find with units trying to deal with discipline is they don't teach the scouts to work as a team. Generally scouts misbehave in groups, not just one on one. Why then does the group not take control of the situation? Boys of this age are so use to adults taking control that they don' t have the experience (or permission) of reacting when they see bad behavior. They also don't have experiences of dealing directly with their peers (best friend) either and are shy of telling a buddy to "stop". They wait until someone of authority deals with the problem, which sometimes never happens and translates to the offending scout that his behavior is OK. Our scouts learned quickly that not only will the offending scout be held accountible for his behavior, but everyone who saw and didn't do something to stop the behavior would be held accountible as well. Bullies don't do well against groups. But another more typical example is we had a scout cut his foot badly running barefoot through camp. The accident occurred right in front of the SPL and several older scouts, but he had run almost the whole troop before he got hurt. The troop has a no running and no barefoot policies, so when I asked who attemped to stop the scout, the PLC found themselves developing program for the next couple of weeks teaching "The Whole Troop" accountibility of behavior. As Nike said, scouts don't like bad behavior either, they just need to be taught how to deal with it. Barry

Like the government, once you start making policies, you can't stop because new policies will be created with each new issue. For some scouts, policies are goals, not consequences. Three strikes rules are bad because they don't deal directly with the behavior. Should a scout only have a SM confrence when he pulls a knife on another scout? Nike gave a great reply, teach the scouts to deal with their discipline, when the problem behavior is beyound the maturity and experience of the scouts, then let the SM deal with it. Replace the three strikes with Oath and Law. Teach the scouts to be accountible for scouts bad behavior. The more severe the behavior, the higher up the ladder it goes for accountibility. The troop is supposed to be the real world scaled down to boys size so that they have real life experience when they go on their own. There are no three strikes in real life. Barry

Hey, hey, hey, don't let the ramblings of hypocritical discontents taint reality. Anyone can become a hater if they get obsessed with their anger. Despite the many false accusations that have been said on this forum the past few years about scouters, the program and especially it's members are very welcoming all over the country. I have never seen anything close in reality to anger and hate I've seen here. Barry

Culturally and ethnically diverse youth had a lot more opportunities today with the BSA than in the 1950s. Followers of activism were warned and have historical evidence that forcing moral diversity on values baised programs would be liken to throwing out the baby with the bath water. But Activist have their own scortched earth agenda and the followers are sheep who are led by emotion. Trail Life is a logical conclusion for creating a program where none other exist. I don't know much about the program, but the few folks I know considering it will except all culturally and ethnically diverse boys. But they will still be choosy about the adult roll models who lead these young men. Barry

I was pretty sure you were quoting the article, but without quotation marks, it was safer to quote your post. Thanks for the clarification. Barry

Well, ok, I'm enjoying the context of the discussion very much. It's rare to get in deep philosophical and intelectual discussions on this forum because emotions tend to take over. Brewmeister's post is profound to me because it says the issue isn't about tradition and trying to get back to the old ways, it's about understanding why some of the old ways worked. At the root, boys of today are the same of boys of yesterday and we need to understand what makes them tick to understand why the program is more prissy (sissy) or not. I do appreciate Kudus part of the discussion, but sometimes quotes without reasoning just aren't enough. Because of the challenges of WWII, my dad was not only an Eagle, but also a teenage Scoutmaster of his troop back in the early 40's. Through him I can learn what actual scouting was like at least that far back. When I ask him about hiking 14 miles for 1st class, well he laughed. Mind you my dad's troop rarely used vehicles to go camping because of the cost of fuel, they met at the church and hike out of town to their camp site. So it's not like they didn't hike. They were literly a back packing troop. I have a lot of respect for Kudu's vision of scouting and mean no disrepect, but how far back do we have to go to not be prissy or sissy? How far do our sons have to hike alone in the woods over night to prove themselves? As Brewmeister says "We go camping because it is the most useful way of achieving the aims of Scouting". Everything else is just clutter that slows down or even stops that process. I really think that is what Kudu is also trying to say. I would love to ask more questions, but my pragmatic nature sometimes pushes discussions off the edge. So I will just watch and enjoy. Barry

Then we agree, but let's not discuss it here and highjack the thread.

Well guys whatever the program calls itself, if these folks can do a better job for the boys at achieving the same goals, you have to agree it's the right program for them. As for the laser tag restriction, I think that should be discussed in the "is scouting too sissy" discussion.

Your answer Moose may be that it's less about religion and more about freedom and independence to run youth camping scout program. I've talk to a few leaders, who I respect a lot for their boy run program, that are looking at this program with curiosity because they are tired of the burdemsome paperwork and silly restrictions like lazer tag and wagons that take away from building citizens of character and leaders of integrity. Some folks just want to do good scouting and feel that National is gradually pulling them away from it. Barry

LOL, are your familiar with Martin Luther? I believe for a person to grow holy with God, they have to believe ALL of the Bible applies to them. Once we start picking only those things we like, not only do we stray away from God, we encourage others to stray away from God.

I'll give you that the Scoutmaster is in charge of the advancement program within the troop but since the requirements for earning the Eagle rank/award should be the same for all troops - the Scoutmaster should not be setting the bar. I was a Scoutmaster to around 15-20 boys who earned the Eagle rank and I can honestly say that some stuck around to earn silver palms and remained active in troop (youth) leadership and some never returned after they earned the rank except for their ECOH. One of the best Scouts I've ever had the privilege to work with never got past 2nd Class and was a great PL and SPL. The Eagle rank doesn't make the Scout but it is a nice recognition for the Scouts who have completed the requirements. The Scout Spirit requirement is a bar.

I agree with you literally Beav. What I'm saying is a religious person who doesn't believe the religious book is the official guide of their faith is not a follower of the faith. Under that context, a believer doesn't have to be a biblical literalist to be a fundamentalist. It doesn't change the taste of the BBQ for the Christian. Barry

Likely not, that was around the year 2000 and the SE has been gone about 10 years. I didn't think to ask for a copy, I guess because I was still working with the scout. By the way, the last time I heard about the scout, he was an engineer on a nuclear submarine. Barry

We had a saying in our troop, "The Troop should be the kind of place where a boy says, I like myself when I'm here". One year during an annual council conference for district leaders, the SE started the conference by reading a letter from a mother of a scout with severe social disablities. The SE didn't give the name of the troop, but he did say the mothers name, so I knew he was our scout. The letter said something to the effect that her son had no friends outside of scouting. He was picked on all the time at school, and sadly some of the teachers were part of the problem. I did not know it until the letter that her family had to threaten litigation to force some protective actions by the school. The mother continued that the one refuge her son could count on each week was the troop meeting. She said scouting was the one place where her son was treated as an equal and was respected for his contributions to his Patrol. He was a Patrol Leader at the time, which was no big deal to us in the troop, but a huge huge deal to anyone who knew him outside the troop. I admit I felt very proud of our troop at that moment. I knew her son very well and while his personal issues were challenging, we never felt they were at the level his mother described outside the program. Both parents were very active and I finally understood why. After I settled down from patting myself on the back, I saw the bigger picture. It wasn't our troop that was special, it was the Scouting program. I have since tried to explain to adults in training and in forums that when a troop truly encourages living by the Scout Law and Oath, everyone is an equal among their peers. I look back at the challenging scouts while I was SM and it seems we had way more than our fair share. I'm not bragging, awkward and disabled boys are a real challenge and they pull on all our emotions. All of them, and sometimes too much. But there is something to a program where the over all vision hinges on outward actions using the basic traits of selflessness. I remember once reading that Badon Powel's vision for scouting was world peace. After that letter, I finally got it. Barry

Of course you are right. One of the reasons our nation as a whole and certainly many Christians struggle today with morality is because there isn't a central set of core guidelines to hold a person accountible with their moral choices. Didn't use to be that way. Up until around WWII, the average American child learned to read from the Bible. Families didn't have the disposable income they have today, so it was common to use what was laying around the house, which usually included a bible. Even without sunday school, sermons, or parental guidence, past generations inadvertently developed a common set of moral values simply from learning to read. But as American incomes grew, families could afford reading resources outside their homes and slowly the pop culture developed and grew to where youth today basically do what feel's right in the moment. They don't have a common set of guiding principles to hold each other accountable. A poster here once said that it was the moderate Christians who are encouraging our culture. But when he was asked to define a moderate Christian, he didn't answer. Of course not, either a person is a fundimentalist in their faith, or they not following their faith. And the moderates weren't encouraging the change, they were letting it change as a result of their ignorance of common moral guidelines. If a person doesn't know the rules of driving, they will not drive within the boundaries of the rules, even when that is their goal. Like the ignorant driver, a so called moderate basically make's it up as they go along. And since we as a culture nolonger follow a core set of moral principles, we can't hold a others accountible to bad choices. Barry