Eagledad

>>And I'd be stunning, too! Now if, say, Eagledad (sorry, I feel like picking on you for this...no special reason) suddenly found himself single and attracted to me. Would he be gay? Should we be allowed to marry? Or do we just 'live in sin'?

>>Healthy is not limited to nor does it define heterosexual. Look at all the child abuse, spouse abuse, cheating, fornicating and lustfull heterosexual men and women. Look at the preists who had their jollies with the young men. All were Hetero no?

>>Sheesh, how many times do I have to write this....there ARE gay scout leaders. There always have been.

There is some misinformation and confusion here. The Judeao-Christian movement that was the basis for setting the moral standards of western civilization defined marriage as the covenant union of a man and woman. It's not about law, it's about a committed relationship that is the source of a healthy moral family. Key words there are healthy family. Marriage laws were created by the government mainly to protect children, not to make money. Back in the day it was to prevent family members from making families with family members and so on. I really don't think they thought that Billy would want to play mommy and Bob play the daddy. We have advanced? LOL Gay activist don't care about marriage, it's of no advantage to the cause, they are pushing to repel the laws to sway future generations into using mans morality to make moral decisions instead of Gods morality. But it is a big step toward defining text in the bible as hate speech. One that's done, freedom of religion in The United States is gone. It's already happening in Canada. Oh by the way, I learned this from an gay activist way back before the Supreme Court decision with the Boy Scouts. Going after the BSA was part of their attack against religious doctrine. The decision was a big setback for them, but hitting the marriage act was already in action anyways. I remember the activist saying they could really care less about Scouts or religions, it's all about the gay movement and anything that professed homosexuality as anything less than moral was a target. Oh, I read where Europe views attacking the marriage laws as stupid and purely political because just like in the US, gays have equal rights to non gays. Barry

I think its much more complicated than that. My kids did the best with teachers that cared. And I could certainly tell the difference between the few that cared, and the ones that didnt. All our kid's teachers knew my wife and I by name and they knew we watched grade trends because we called them now and then. We found not all teachers want that much of the parents participation. I personally blame the system that doesnt reward good teachers and sorts out the bad ones. Could that improved? Not without a dramatic change in the union. Do parents make a difference, you bet. Even as scouters we know a scout will get more out of the program if the parents are part of the team. But how many teachers even encourage that. Well you have to admit the other parts of the system like litigation beats them up pretty good. While I know its frustrating for teachers dealing with uncaring parents, I know that the school system beats them down even more. My older Eagle son is in his third year of teaching High School English. In his first year, he taught in a school that was 40% Hispanic, 30% Black or African American, 10% Asian, and the rest every other culture. He came home scared for his life everyday and almost quit teaching that year. Now he teaches in a school that is 80% Hispanic, 10% Black and 10% everybody else and he loves his job. The difference between the two schools is the Black culture. He said they as a culture are angry, lazy and hold no respect for any kind of authority. Not only do they not want to do school work, they get mad at the teacher trying to make them do it. The school he teaches at now is considered one of the most difficult in the state. But he said he enjoys working with the Hispanics because they do respect authority. AT least enough that he doesnt fear for his life. The point Im trying to make here is the Hispanic and Black community (culture?) dont have respect for education. They see it mostly as something they have to burden with because of the law. But they (parents and students) dont see themselves needing or using education because they dont view their future needing it. My son says out of his five classes of thirty students, he would have at most six parents visit on parents day for each class. So that leaves the white and Asian communities. And that is interesting, Asian communities are known for their strict discipline of education and my son agrees that the first generation children from Asian immigrants are very strict and very disciplined. The parents are part of the teachers team to the point of pushing the teacher. But he said the second generation is less disciplined with the 3rd equal to whites. And that is doing the work to get the passing grades, but not excelling to be the top of the class. The 2nd and 3rd generation have figured out just how much than can get away with. The parents are also not as involved. There are a lot of things that will have to change, but the top of my list are a reduction of litigation threats to the schools and teachers, and a noticeable accountability of good and bad teachers. Then, I think we can start going after the parents. Barry

Stay the same. Barry

>>Never had to skip lunch. But we had heard stories from the older scouts.

This is a very good question that most of us deal with at one time or another. There are a lot of factors involved in a troop program, but the vision of scouting is to develop men who make ethical and moral decisions based from the Scout Law. Sounds simple but Im not sure that simplicity alone motivates boys to action. We also need to keep in mind that for a person to change his habits, he must personally make that choice. Otherwise they will continue to make the bad choice, which sounds like your problem here. And this is frustrating for adults because what we naturally want to make the choice for them by just ordering them to do the chore. Which takes us back to if they dont personally choose to change their habit or attitude toward the task, they will repeat it leaving the adults or PLC to continue making the choice for the scouts. Rarely anything good comes from that vicious cycle. So we must learn and develop the skill of giving satisfaction to success and annoyance to failure. The troop needs to develop the program around rewarding right choices, and more importantly annoyances for wrong choices. No matter how big or small the task or decisions, the troop must provide constant conditions that tell success from failure. I know nothing about your troop program accept that the scouts dont feel part of a team and they dont feel motivated to succeed. What you have to do is change those two things. I remember when our young troop struggle with scouts that were in no hurry to help break camp. By accident, our troop got in the habit of stopping by a store somewhere on the way home for a junk food hit. We also always told the parents a time to pick up their sons back at the church. We, the SPL and adults, decided to let the lazy scouts be lazy. It because obvious at some point while just standing there and waiting that the troop was going to leave very late. When a scout ask the SPL about it, he explained parents would be waiting, so we would skip the junk food stop. I cant tell you how much that changed the atmosphere of breaking camp for years after that. It also changed how the adults approached the troop program. Once they started the habit of success, they seem to like and try to keep that success. While the junk food stop was the initial signal of success, the performance of completing the task on time quickly replaced that junk food motivation. Success of meeting the expectation of being on time was the vision of success and the scouts learned to work as a team to reach that success. I am a big believer in schedules as great teachers of making good choices. Our PLC had schedules for everything because shedules are clear indicators of success and failures. A schedule should be tight enough to force a patrol to work as a team and also clear enough for the scouts to see when they succeeded and failed. For example, our troop on campouts typically assembles for daily activities around 8:30. That means the patrol had to work as a team to get up, cook breakfast (we cooked all meals accept lunch), do KP and clean camp, and then assemble as a patrol by 8:30. If they failed, they missed the activity. Is your schedule allowing the scouts too much time? Will they know when they have failed? Will they be annoyed by failure? What satisfaction will they get if the succeed? Scouting is not as easy, especially a boy run program where the scouts are themselves supposed to learn from their choices. Good scouting takes practice and we adults need to always learn from our choices to get better at helping scouts grow from their choices. I blathered on a little long. Let us know how you deal with the problem. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

No Cherry Picking, I just didn't want to include the full text of both post. I read all your stuff again and I'm still unclear what Hondo has to do with EDGE and how that encourges youth leaders to step up. Isn't Hondo representative of no training. Or are you saying we should teach the scout to swim then throw him in to see if he sinks? Isn't that kind of a pseudo Hondo/EDGE approach? Barry

OK, I can see how this can become a confusing discussion. >> Your "Hondo" approach is pure leadership, literally sink or swim! If you don't know, you had better figure it out and figure it out quickly! These are leadership skills! I always use the Hondo approach first and if it doesn't work out in the best interest of the boy, I will supplement it with a wee bit of guiding suggestions, but I do every little with the management methods, including EDGE.> I'm a firm believer that most boys fail because they weren't ready/prepared in the first place. Boys will step up naturally if they feel themselves prepared and knowledgeable.

Still sounds personal and local to me. I do know of Eagles hired off the street because of their Eagle, but it was because of the person hiring, not HR. I am sure HR is also personal and local, but my experience with them is that they basically sort out applications and resumes to whittle the list down to the few most qualified. I have a lot of personal experience there. I dont know the Eagle ever helped at the HR sorting level, but once the application got down to the one on one interview, it makes a difference. We just have to agree to disagree. If it is a local thing, then Im glad I live where I live. Barry

>>The Eagle still does not have the pull it once did 20 or more years ago nationwide, that is the sad truth.

Hi Eagle Wow! You have been hammered with ideas, theories and wisdom, but I'm not sure you got your answers. Part of your problem is defining boy run. Write down in one short sentence what you want boy run to be. Does your SM agree with your boy run definition? Write down in one short sentence what you want the troop to look like when it has reached your boy run goal. Show it to your SM, does he agree? Now, there are a lot of suggestions here, some practical, some not. I think you have been overwhelmed and while some of the suggestion sound good, they can't all work together. So, Pick two simple ideas that can be applied at your next meeting, then watch and learn. just two, start simple. Boy run is hard. It's a lot harder to do than adult run. Boy run is a slow process, so you have to know if it is working, or not. Measure you progress by your vision (one short sentence above) and see if your are getting there. One thing I agree with is the scouts need goals. Goals inspire us to move forward. I told my PLC that goals have to be fun. If something isn't fun, change it. Scouts will work for fun goals, so if the meetings or camp outs aren't fun, well you know the rest. My I suggest just one book right now, the SPL Handbook. It is an easy simple guide of how the scouts should run the troop. It is a fast read and explains how to run meetings and plan camp outs. It can be your troops guide until you get your feet under you. this is the book I suggested that new SMs should use instead of the SM Handbook because I knew they would read it. I'm excited to watch your post and see how your troop grows. Building a true program is the hardest thing I've ever been involved in, and by far one of the most rewarding. You are making a difference and that changes your life forever. You are certainly something special. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>If you're in Scouts because you think Eagle will look good on a college application, quit. Stay home and spend the time studying. Good grades look even better.

Hi All Our view of the program is that outdoors, leadership and advancement are all just methods toward the goal of preparing young people to make ethical and moral choices. I taught both the scouts and the adults (at all levels of training from Council to unit JLT) that in my opinion, adults are responsible for the Aims of Scouting, and the Scouts are responsible for the Eight Methods. While I was Scoutmaster, I honestly didnt really care how the scouts used the methods provided they did use the methods to run the program for the intent of developing citizenship, character and fitness. In fact, I learned from another wise SM somewhere to ask the PLC plan the activities with an element of all three those traits. For example every campout had a service project to satisfy the citizenship Aim. But, as far as leadership or advancement, that was the scouts personal responsibility. We adults acted as passive guides and didnt take on a proactive approach to advancement except to insure that the program didnt have any barriers to hold a scout back. We did rely on leadership as a major part of character development because the leadership experience is the best way for a scout to see his limits of serving others. But, it was still up to the scout for initiating his leadership experience. Our approach to the Aims and Methods is probably the reason why 80 % of the scouts who earn Eagle are 16 or older. But we do have a pretty high average of eagles, so I think the approach is balanced. So I think the answer to the original question for us would be that we would encourage (even cheer) the scout to press hard for his goals and dreams, but we arent going to get upset if he gives up along the way. His parents might, but not the troop adult leadership. Barry

Im surprised that the responses are mostly either/or, but no compromises. I had the same serious chat with my wife, I am sure most of us with the passion have. But I worked it out with my wife. For her to allow me to be the SM, I got off the District Committee, I declined participating or leading in anymore adult training. I promised at least one week of vacation with the family every summer. I did not stay overnight with the scouts in lock-ins or overnight JLTs. I basically cut out any activities that didnt require the SM. I became a lean mean Scoutmaster machine and peace was had in our home. Even with cutting all that fat, I still wore my uniform on average four days a week, and averaged 50 nights of camping a year. However, I did get a lot of calls and made a lot of promises to the District and Council to volunteer again when I retired from the SM job. That was a mistake because I was burned out four years later. But if one is willing, you can have your cake and eat it too. There was one either/or situation my wife would not compromise and that was the way toilet paper should unroll. Inny or outty? Barry

>>Hands off is the way most unit leaders like it and the flip side of that is their relationship with their CO is minimal at best.

>>In answer to your question you either live in a council that is in perfect working order, which I highly doubt, or you base your statement on your own unit or very limited exposure to other units. The truth is most units want a cordial relationship with their CO just as long as the CO allows them total control in running the program and "interfers" as little as possible.

>>Bottom line you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you want an involved and active CO you also run the risk of them telling you how they want you to do things, and if they observe something or hear something they don't like they will tell you what changes they want the unit to make. Active CO's play an active part in the running of their units, period. Unfortunately the majority of them are not and do not want to get involved with your unit< Let me play the role of a member of the district committee who works with units and COs. I cant think of one unit that thinks in the way you describe. Most units need a good relationship with COs so they can have easier access to property and assistance. In fact, I would say the majority of complaints are from units requesting help to get the CO more attentive to the unit. Truth is that most scout units function fairly smoothly compared to other parts of the CO programs. The COs put their valuable volunteer efforts toward the fires, so they typically leave the units alone. Our troop finally worked out a solution where we were invited to the church council meeting once a month and the COR visited a Troop meeting once a month. The COR was once a scout and really supports the program, but since he wasn't involved in the troop, he said attending a meeting was fairly boring and we didnt seem him much after six months. We found the same problem with the church council meetings. Eventually the agenda was adjusted so that we could give a report first then leave because the rest of the church council meeting was, well boring. I will say the way we got our CO to give us any kind of attention was to threaten to look for a new CO. As I said, our troop was one of the few programs in the church that didnt require any volunteer effort on their part to maintain, so they wanted us to stay just to look good on their reports. Barry

>>How about the Lad who might agree with the Supreme Court ruling that funeral picketing is free speech?

>>I find getting a chartered orgainization more involved with the unit one of those "easier said than done" issues.

>>I tried as District Chair to cut back on the number of District events. My thinking was that these events got in the way of Troops following their own themes and programs. I didn't win that one!

I've never seen one. My high school buddy's dad colected corvairs which include a couple of converibles, but I've never seen a station wagon. Ill bet that is worth a lot now. Barry

Fscout is right, units individually should only attend distict activities that are good for the unit program. A unit should not be expected or plan to attend a just to support the district. Likewise a troop shouldn't attend a local summer camp just to support that camp. Competition forced a our Council to fix its camp program a few years ago. That being said, the district committee is being led poorly. A district annual calender should come out and in the Spring in time for packs to plan their next year. Barry

>>Eliminating local control is not da sign of a real conservative, it's a sign of a fellow who wants to be king. And legislating away peoples right to bargain just crosses da Oath and Law line.