Eagledad

Agreed. It hints of an emotional bias that takes away any integrity of reasoning. Barry

I have not read them in the last 10 years. The 50 year old ones are better, I used them to develop trainings. But the ones I used 20 years ago were fine for a basic starter to running the program. The challenge will be with the adults because they will want more. And eventually so will the scouts. But, the handbooks are purposely basic so different unit characteristic will fit in the model. Once everyone has the basic understanding of the model, then they can make changes and additions to improve the program. The best part is the scouts and adults work together as a team to determine the changes and additions. Not adults pushing their ideas on the scouts. Barry

This is what the scout learns by observing routine leadership before becoming a leader. We've had long discussions here defining leadership. It's complicated to define, but very simple when basically duplicating what has been observed over and over. Scouts don't really care what leadership is so much as they want to make positive decisions in each situation. They know what the goal looks like and they know how to get there. They just simply do what they've observed done before. Where leadership gets challenging is when the scouts are confronted with a situation they haven't seen before. That is when they often make the wrong choice. That is when they will need someone to discuss their decision. Someone who just basically listens, ask a couple of questions, then leaves the scout to think it out alone. A mentor. Barry

I agree with the disconnect of training. There are resources, or were until recently, the scouts could use to run their program. The BSA published the Patrol Leaders Handbook and SPL Handbook 20 years ago that was pretty good at giving scouts direction in leading and managing their program without additional training. Strangely, I never saw it encouraged by National, Council, or district in adult training. But, I knew their value and I required the adults to purchase those handbooks for my adult classes, and I even purchased several to give out to new Scoutmasters. I also required them for our troop, district and council level Junior Leader Training courses. Don't tell my wife, our finances were tight at the time. I have said here many times that I believe that both the adults and scouts could run the correct troop patrol method program if they used just the PL Handbook, SPL Handbook and Scout Handbook as the program guideline. Imagine the PL or SPL giving the SM a page reference in the Handbook they all use of why they doing what they are doing. They handbooks have pretty clear instructions for the basic framework of the program. They may give the scouts good direction for their unit or patrol, but they also hold the adults in check for their part in the process. Adult leader training could fill in more of how to work with scout behavior in a boy run troop environment. The two most asked questions in my courses requesting help in of dealing with scouts was discipline of bad behavior and uniform. At first those two questions seem like a strange pairing. But both are dealing with scouts making independent choices. Giving young inexperienced adults the freedom to make their own choices is challenging for adults because parents in general don't like their kids making bad choices. The adult instinct is to confront bad decisions head on and quickly. The problem there is that when the adult confronts a scouts bad decision without dealing with they why the scout made the bad decision, they are telling the scout they are a bad person instead of encouraging them to look at why they made the choice. Of course had behavior has to be confronted, but the person should admit the behavior and make their own choice to change. And you know, once in a while the adult finds out that the scout didn't make a wrong choice, it just wasn't the choice the adult would have made. The uniform is actually much more challenging because the scout has decided wearing a uniform properly isn't important and a wrong choice is acceptable. The leader has to reason with the scout's acceptance that some wrong decisions are acceptable. It's not about the uniform, it's about the acceptance of purposing making wrong decisions. This is the area where adults could use additional training. Barry

It's one person's opinion. He may be right, but it is much more complicated than virtues taking the organization down. Through the whole process of challenges the last 25 years, the core of the organization, the volunteers, were never pulled in, queried, or even told what the folks at National were thinking. Even now they are a mystery. As some have said here, when they threw out the new Aim of leadership recently, they exposed their ignorance to the principles and virtues of the program. What are they thinking? How can there be compromise if the guardians of the program don't even know the idealistic structure of the program? Who are these guardians? How did they get in the position of being a guardian? Most importantly, how are they held accountable for their performance? Barry

Well in that context, I agree with you and Ynot. Barry

I don't agree at all. Fist year scout dropout rate is the highest of all ages, but not from leadership, it's from the sudden cultural change of following adult guidance to self responsibility. I certainly don't agree that the organizations disjunctions are from boy led scouting. I'm not even sure what that means. Leadership development is not about developing great leaders, but developing leaders to use the values of the Oath and Law in the decision making process. Basically a servant style leadership. Barry

The technique of learning leadership, whether naturally or actively doesn't matter if the mentors, coaches and role models are bad leaders. Watch the youth leaders of any troop at your next summer and notice how much they mimic the adults. Actual leadership experience only improves leadership skills when the leader has to change a habit as the result of a bad decision. I found that leadership skills learned by passively observing other leaders pushes program maturity because new scouts observe the good habits learned by previous leaders who change their habits made by bad decisions. New leader are generally starting with a better set of skills than their previous leaders. That can be a constant challenge for adults to make sure each scout is growing from their experience. I became the Council youth leadership development chair because our troop developed the reputation for good youth leadership. Ironically, I shouldn't have gotten the credit because it was the boy run program itself that lead to our program leadership maturity. We adults just stayed out of the way. That being said, we fully understood that leadership is the most stressful action in the scouting program for developing character. I find that units with toxic leaders don't mature much, if at all. Barry

I guess I can't take this discussion seriously because nobody mentions taking out Advancement and Adult Association, which are the conspirators that drive adults to teach leadership. Taking out leadership will only make units more adult run. Barry

Well, my PLC insured we had elections and clear expectations of leadership. They also took responsibility in giving leadership opportunities to all age scouts with all maturities. For example, our PLC looks for young less experienced scouts to lead small service projects with PL and SPL Very impressive actually. I'm wondering how your PLC does for leadership? Barry

And when was leadership- a marketing problem, 1933? As I said, a scouting experience was a valued resource in WWII because of the leadership image. I think you are wrong to look at leadership as a skill for scouts. LEADERSHIP IS AN IMAGE of scouting. In fact, it could be argued that leadership is as much of an image as adventure. If the problem isn't enough adventure, which I might agree, then lets fix the marketing of adventure. Barry

How many new adults come in with the instincts of "train them, trust them, and let them go." The whole reason for this discussion is adult instinctively take over. So, I feel the idealism being presented here is missing the point. Adults have to have a goal and a plan just to keep the program out of the gutters. My point is if you take leadership out of the plan, the adults will take leadership out of scouting. Leadership has always been part of scouting. IF you want to keep leadership in scouting, even if leadership is a by-product of just participating in patrol activities, leadership has to be in the plan. The solution isn't taking leadership out of the design, the solution is figuring out how to keep adults from abusing the design. Barry

Well, changing Methods is another difficult discussion. Take out Leadership Development, I am all for taking out Adult Association since that seems to be the real problem here. The problem here is that the public does believe leadership is part of the program. I know of several single parent moms that put their son in Scouting to get that development. If you take leadership out of the core of scouting, who is to hold it accountable. Maybe the problem is that adults need to learn not to take any responsibility for the methods. Methods should be a checklist for PLC to insure they are following the BSA program. Barry

Taking Leadership Development out of Scouting would be like taking the creamy white filling out of the Oreo cookie. Barry

This reminds me of a campout the PLC planned where the patrols would went on a course with a 3 mile hike, 5 mile bike ride and canoeing navigation course. The patrols had 15 stops where the had to do a skills competition. Very complexe and we thought it would take the whole Saturday. All the patrols carried lunch with them, but in the end, all 6 patrols completed the course by noon and eat lunch in the camp site. But, the story in the story is I got a call from a pack leader a week before asking if their 3 dens of 23 Webelos could camp with us to check out the troop. I wasn’t sure how we could add 23 scouts and their families to the weekend, so I gave the pack leader our SPL phone number. He said yes, assigned some some scouts to organize each patrol to share in helping take care of the Webelos and their parents. The webelos and parents participated in the triathlon activities and had a blast. But the real fun came after lunch. Since the triathlon went much faster than expected, the rest of the day was free time. And just about everyone rode bikes all over the camp for several hours. The web parents were very impressed by the scouts planning and taking full responsibility and care for them. They were also surprised how little they saw any troop adults. The funny part of the story is that everyone was sore and tired the next day. Our troop still had several hours of planned activities they typically plan for Sundays. But the Webelos parents were so tired and sore that they just loaded up their sons and left before breakfast. We worried that we scared them away with too much outdoor stuff. But 2 months later, every scout joined our troop. That was a very memorable campout for many reasons. Barry

Our PLC planned at least 2 hours of free time each afternoon on weekend campouts. I once got a call from a new SM with no youth experience ask me how to keep the scouts busy on campouts, He had run out of advancement activities and needed ideas. My first advice was two hours of free time. His reaction was that it was two hours where the scouts would get themselves in trouble and immediately discounted the suggestion. Adult leaders without a youth scouting experience are 3 years behind adults with a youth scouting experience. Even then, they need to see patrol method in action during those 3 years. Many don't, and that is why Patrol Method won't recover to it's original design intent in this day and age. Barry

When made adventure and patrol method the two highest priorities of the program. We started with 15 scouts and 10 years later our troop of around 100 scouts was producing an Eagle every 2.5 months. The average age of the scouts going through their EBOR was 16.5 years old. Like your troop, advancement was not a high priority. But, when the scouts enjoy a fun program in the outdoors, advancement activities are a natural by-product of a healthy patrol method program. Most of the Scouts didn't even realize they were close to Eagle when they started to look at it seriously. When puberty matures the mind to more adult thinking, the scout starts to look at where they fit in making the the world better and search to find their place in their small world. In a program where the servant habits of the Scout Law are primary to making decisions, the mature scout will naturally start serving their patrol mates, the patrol and the troop. It is an amazing thing to watch. They have become adults who want to make their world better. And, when given the tools of patrol method habits, they do amazing things. Where else can a young adult get the opportunity to improve the community? The program works very well when it fits the maturity of all the scouts, but adult leaders more often push the young immature scout to be a leader when following is their best course for growth. Then, at the age when the scout is ready to lead and make great things happen, the scout is burned out by a program of advancement. They are told by the adults that they need to separate from the troop program and find more adventure to satisfy their mature desire. In reality they need the satisfaction of teaching, mentoring and leading younger scouts in their adventures. They should have had their adventure as younger scouts. They should be leading the young scouts in their adventures. Barry

I always struggle with this explanation because it's not about female that set the program back, it's the large influx of adults without any scouting experience. I was there, so I know the passion and enthusiasm moms brought to the troop program. I personally trained many female Scoutmasters. But, like just about all male and female leaders without a scouting experience, they didn't have the experience as a youth to guide them into what drives youth to scouts, ADVENTURE!. Adults by their nature look at stature as the goal of their adults decisions. Adults strive to be better at everything they do. Make life better and improve their lifestyles. It's just our nature. The simple pleasure of being in nature without a show of better position just doesn't fit in the adult mind. So, adults read the books and see how they use the program to show improvement. Unfortunately advancement and rank fit the mature adult psyche perfectly. The adults who didn't go fishing, hiking and play around the campfire don't really get it. They certainly don't know how to plan it. But, a program that gets to first class as fast as possible fits that adults drive perfectly. So, they drive it. The program always had adults without a youth experience join, but their numbers were small enough that their ignorance of the program didn't take away the priority of fun and adventure. The sudden influence of the unexperienced wave was so great that National introduced completely new training courses in 2000 that were intended to help adults without a scouting experience understand better how a patrol method program was supposed to function. Actually, the training didn't do a good job of teaching patrol method. The course put more effort in teaching adults how to fun a unit as a team. But, the motivation behind the new courses was from the surge of leaders without a scouting experience. However, Patrol Method was never the same after. Barry

The majority of alumni big donors didn’t stop their donations around 2000. Barry

I believe the pros at National did loose focus on the boys and the ideals of developing character. They lost the concept of scouting and it’s values, so they justified their existence with Greed for money and members and change the program in two areas that hit the program hard. First, they went after first graders to increase cub recruitment. That blunder brought in boys with a toddler maturity, which didn’t mix well with the advanced maturity of the rest of the age groups. The increased overhead pack management burned out the adults and they left. Second, National brought in female troop leaders. The problem there is that the Troop program at the time relied heavily on new adult leaders with a youth experience to carry on traditional programs. The sudden surge of adult leaders without a youth scouting experience changed the understanding of boy run and patrol method. Scouts wanted adventure, but adults without a youth experience wanted stature as the primary objective. Not sure of how that should have been done because the culture would eventually force moms to be leaders. But the way it was done hurt the boy run program beyond getting back to normal. When National created the 4th Method of Leadership, they exposed their cluelessness of the virtues and nobility of the scouting program they are managing. Ive settled in the belief that the misleaders at National didn’t have a scouting experience as a youth. They simply don’t understand scouting and relied on their greed and political sway to improve a program that was didn’t need fixing. The way they handled the political correction issues the last 20 years lost them the big alumni funding that once made the BSA the envy of all the other youth programs. When they needed the help the last few years, it was gone. While the political correctness activist continually attracted the BSA, National did the real harm. Barry

I agree, but the killer is Tigers. Most of the Tigers are still Toddlers and should be split from the Pack program. The difference of listening skills and reading skills is night and day. That one year of a classroom experience creates a night and day difference for behavior between the two ages. In fact, we did reduce our Tiger program to just two meetings a month and our membership retention rate went from 30 percent to 95 percent. Ironically, the Tiger program demands so much adult management that is drains the adults resource pool to the point that adult burnout is the main cause of membership dropouts from Bears to Webelos II. Giving the Webelos a more mature program isn't that hard, but that effort does require more adult effort. However, the more mature Webelos program also raised our Webelos retention to almost 100 percent. Barry

I'm not sure what you are saying here, but the discussion of this rabbit trail is about the ideological images of scouting, not the activities of the program. Most scouts also haven't heard the BSA Mission, Vision, Aims, and Methods. But, those ideals and program strategies hold the program on the ideological course of developing scouts to make confident decisions based from the Oath and Law. I do agree you that many scouts have been disappointed by a program that isn't presented in the FUN of outdoors as they were expecting. But, that is different discussion. Barry

Hi All. I rarely, rarely ever disagree with Fred, but I believe he is not looking at the leadership image correctly. And I really don't think we are disagreeing, but I need to express my opinion on the Scouting leadership image. I will start off by saying that if one were to poll the average person outside of the BSA of the 3 most important traits a scout gains from the scouting experience, the majority of the that polling would say leadership is one of the three. Leadership IS an image of the scouting program. Leadership is the image of a Scout. The image is so powerful that the designers of the Normandy invasion for D-day were specifically looking for soldiers with a Boy Scouting experience to invade the beaches because those soldiers knew first aid and they had natural tendencies of leadership. The designers knew the casualties were going to be high, so they wanted soldiers that would naturally step up and continue when all those around them had fallen. I have personally witnessed those very actions among our scouts. They relied of the image of Scouting for their planning. The struggle here is the teaching of leadership. First of all, I think most of us agree that when the Patrol Method method experience is applied correctly, leadership development will take place naturally. In fact, just about all the decision making character skills scouts develop during their scouting experiences are learned mostly by observing the actions of others in the patrol method activities. Most scouts will learn the habits of good leadership if they simply just hang around their patrol for a few years. I can go into that deeper if you like, but my experience as an adult in a boy run program confirms that premise. I have watch even the most shy and introverted scouts make leadership decisions when they found themselves in situations that required them to step up. How did they know what to do, they just did what they had observed and experienced during their scouting experience. The problem isn't developing leadership without a direct leadership POR experience, the problem is adults trusting that the Patrol Method method does develop leadership decision making habits simply by participating in a Patrol.. There was a large Council about 25 years ago that was considering removing all youth leadership training from the council because many of the adults felt leadership courses didn't really contribute to their scouting program. The big issue wasn't about taking leadership out, but the adult takeover of patrol method by adults who felt they were taking over the role of leadership. I believe the council stepped back as a result of the problems they were seeing with adult run troops. If adults aren't trying to reach agreed goals, then they develop bad habits that dilute the rest of the program, especially patrol method. Leadership must be considered a priority program strength to insure integrity in the Patrol Method method and the development of character because many leaders would otherwise let their instincts of telling youth how they should run their patrols take over the troop. While we talk (at least I do) a lot about character development from the Scouting program, the natural image of scout development is leadership. See, most people think of scouts being prepared as stepping up when the situation requires. Being prepared is the mental ability to step up in stressful situations. Leadership is having the confidence to make a decision when the moment requires a decision for the good of those around. Leadership is making moral and ethical decisions in a moments notice. Scouts don't need leadership courses for those leadership decisions skills, they need to be exposed to many leadership decisions of a long period of time. If the troubling issue is adults ability of teaching leadership, OK, I'm with you. But, if the issue is that the leadership image is just equal among all the strengths a scout will gain during their scouting experiences, then I don't agree. Leadership, as an image of scouting strengths, is a higher strength along with character and should be marketed as such because it is each scouts leadership habits (even the scouts without direct leadership experience) that are learned in the program that set them apart from the habits learned in other youth organizations. Adults need to learn how to lean on patrol method for leadership development, not on leadership courses to achieve the method. Leadership courses have their place for reinforcing proper management and leadership habits, but not as the primary approach leadership development. I know this was a long way of saying that Leadership is very important for the image of scouting. It's not as simple as just saying leadership will come to those who play the game, it must be emphasized that leadership is one of the most important traits of a scout and the scout must play the game to develop the skills. Sorry for the long post. Barry

The problem with ideas like this along with Defund The Police is that proposals without details come off as emotional venting. What are the staffing positions? What are their responsibilities? How much do they make? Where is the real fat? Barry

Not at all personal. I don't harp on the visionary stuff because I think it will turn on a light, I say it often to make sure it remains as an idealistic principle. I also don't spend enough words separating the main goal or vision of the unit separately from the main goal of the BSA, the Vision. I believe success is based from a team agreeing on the same goals. Our troop initially set the goals that the scouts will be the leaders, it will be boy led and FUN. You're right Matt, making moral decisions makers doesn't really explain how the program makes good leaders. So, we made a checklist that is a little easier to check ourselves, the scouts make the leadership decisions, the scouts run the troop even if it is in the ground, and that they have fun. Of course those turned out to be challenging because in the end, adults struggle the most to do their roles in a boy run troop. But, that is the sun tan that was mentioned. I remember when this forum had over a 1000 active members on the forum with dozens of different discussions all across the forum spectrum. And, 95% of those discussions were about how to provide a better program for the scouts. Today 95% of the discussions aren't about the functions of scouting, they are about adults wanting to change scouting for their personal adult reasons. There are a lot of adults here who don't like the scouting program for one reason of another. In fact, I see basically two groups on this forum in the discussions last few months, adults who believe the program changes youth into adults of character (no change), and those who believe the program is basically sitting service (wreck it). I'm not sure how we make a step forward, but I think you are right in a sense that scouting needs to scale back a little. But, I don't think the program needs to scale back so much as maybe the activities need to lean up a bit. Less high adventure in Philmont and more adventure locally. A program where the patrols can get together more often as a patrol on it's own and not as part of the troop program. It would be a challenge at first, but is a day hike around town all that difficult? I don't know, you are right. But, how? I am convinced the Scouting will survive because some of us have seen it do it's magic and have the passion to make adults can change the world. The rewards are great. We just might figure out a way of taking a small group of youth and turn them into lean scouting machines. Barry