Eagledad

You just described the number one reason why units loose their older scouts. If the program were left totally to the scouts, First Class would be way down the list and fishing would come way up. But let's be fair to ourselves, we talk idealistically, however, realistically the adults have to instill some expectations depending on the maturity of scouts. If a scout doesn't know what they don't know, the adults have to at least give a starting point. The problem is that adults don't know how far is too far. Learning the line that can be crossed requires reflecting on experience and courage to step back. Cubs is still an adult driven program, so it's easy for adults to push their ideals on the scouts to far without taking away much from the program. However, Troop level scouts is the real character building level of the program, so adult intrusion has measurable effects on a scout's growth. The problem for us scouters is that we don't see our negative influences instantly, sometimes it takes several months, even years. Reflection and evaluation takes a lot practice. The key is keeping the eye on the prize of developing youth who make ethical and moral decisions based from the scout law. Barry

You might be surprised to learn that I think the desire by the girls is even less than "not that great". Based from my experience of life, I believe most of the Eagle push here is the adults. I don't have the experience of working with girls in advancement, but I have worked with them in competitive sports and their motivation to participate was more about fun than winning. The difference isn't obvious when the girls played girls, but quite obvious when they played the boys. Barry

Maybe, but ambition should be guided into scout actions, not shoehorned by adult actions. Even your own words suggest the question is directly intended for the girls. Is that modeling "Servant Leadership"? It could be me, but after so many years of observing human nature, I'm cautious of the motivation to adorn the unit for adult vanity. I said in another thread that we should consider giving all the girls an Eagle now so the program can move on. Barry

A one legged Scouter at our Council Scout Show had a wooden leg loaded with unit brands, countless signatures, and many clever quotes burned in the wood. Pretty cool really, but I often wondered if that leg led to scouts getting patrol and troop tattoos. Barry Side note: My oldest son once mentioned an interest in a tattoo. I told him it was his decision, but it better say "Mother" if he hoped to ever eat dinner at our house again. Still no tattoo 15 years later.

This isn't new to scouting, Navybone. ""I've been on this forum for 20 something years and the subject of advancement has been discussed a 1000 times. In every discussion, the traditionalist consistently expressed that each scout's advancement journey is the scouts choices and responsibility. Barry""

I enjoy observing human behavior. I'm curious how program dynamics would change if all scouts were given the Eagle now. Barry

I've been on this forum for 20 something years and the subject of advancement has been discussed a 1000 times. In every discussion, the traditionalist consistently expressed that each scout's advancement journey is the scouts choices and responsibility. Barry

Welcome, I'm excited to me you. You have no idea how much influence a person your age has with scouts. From an old guy to the new guy; scouts are inspired by actions, not words. You won't go wrong if you guard your words and be humble with your actions. Barry

OK, that makes sense, but the water is still in the lungs. Wouldn't emptying the lungs first raise the probability of success? I'm sure there is good reasoning, I'm just curious. Barry Edit: Just read elitts's post and that seems to answer my question. Thanks all.

I think what you are saying is that so long as the patrols aren't mix gender, there is hope to make the traditional program work for both genders. And I can see that. However, my other concern is that the pool of volunteers is getting diluted with adults who never experienced the advantages of the traditional scouting program (primarily patrol method). I believe the challenge will just be keeping a desire to present the traditional program. I like your vision of the better future. Thanks. Barry

I have a question: when I was a scout, we were taught to turn the drowned person on their chest and compress the back a couple times to force some of the water out of the lungs. Now we are told to got strait to two breaths then CPR. What about the water in the lungs? Barry

Yep, my complaint about mixing genders is that it takes away the leverage to force boys to do what they don't naturally like to do. I guess it's the same with girls, but I don't have as much experience there. I think your observation is interesting. I appreciate your being candid because many here are afraid that any mention of differences acknowledges those of us who appose the change. Accurate observations are always good for developing and improving programs. Barry

Good post qwazse. I like how you found your numbers. I'm not sure of your reasoning for scouts not feeling welcome if they weren't Eagle motivated because 97% of our new scouts couldn't really care less about any rank. And, with today's adults, scouts actually have to go out of their way to resist working toward Eagle. I'm also not sure about your bold 1st Class opinion. Oh I agree and understand that scouts should be given the freedom to chose their own path, but I need confident campers. The First Class rank used to indentify a level of skills confidence required for surviving in the woods. Even if a scout is insistent they don't earn rank, I would still insist they prove themselves after a certain time frame. It's just a lot easier to look at a rank patch. I think that is where National went wrong, they have turned skills levels into indicators of stature, not skills confidence. Next to advancement, leadership is the most abused requirement because scouts today are expected to lead for the tenure requirement, not growth of skill. As a result, there are a lot of PLs running that couldn't lead their own shadow, much less a patrol. Barry

The crossover ceremony can celebrate Webelos graduating the Cub Scouts program instead of crossing over to Troops. The pack could still use the bridge to symbolize moving on by recognizing every Webelos with a hand shake before crossing the bridge. Have the troops meet their new scouts after the meeting. I think a new scout getting their neckerchief handed to them by the SPL at their first Troop opening ceremony in front of the whole troop would be more fun and appropriate. AOL award is a little harder if the packs insist on doing group awards. One solution is award each scout the AOL after they earn it like all their other awards. The award will have a lot more meaning for the individual scout standing by himself and the other scouts who haven't earned the AOL yet don't stand out. Barry

Yes, that one simple noun seems to be a distraction in discussions where it's identity has no relevance. Barry

This is an interesting discussion when experienced scouters of 30 years join forums to ask ideas for streamlining their girl program to get Eagle in 2 to 3 years (Eagle Mill?). Strange times. Barry

Eagle Mills area programs primarily designed to turn scouts into Eagles. Patrol method boy run programs, on the other hand, can be designed so well that scouts intuitively find themselves with the Eagle simply by participating in the program. One troop that always amazes me is Troop 232 in La Junta Colorado. Their program is based on the theme of the Koshare Indian Dancers. La Junta is about 3 hours from Philmont and they provide a place for troops to stop overnight for a small cost, and to watch their troop dancers in action. Well worth the visit. But, their list of Eagles is very impressive, and likely one of the largest list the Nation. Is that troop an Eagle Mill? Boy! it would be hard to find a troop where scouts work harder to earn their place of stature in that program. It's no gimmy. I'm not sure what good or bad we should say of Eagle Mills. I use to be an fierce anti-Eagle Mill person until I volunteered at the district level. Eagle Mills are basically adult run programs that set goals agendas for the scouts. Most Eagle Mill programs I've seen design the program to get the scout his Eagle by age 14. Our "put the adults out of business" program philosophy was at the opposite end of that spectrum. But, through humility, I learned that Eagle Mills do provide a place for families that would otherwise not participate in scouting. Is that so bad? That was the question that still challenges my idealistism of traditional scouting. On the positive side, Eagle Mills generally have well run programs. The scouts and the program look sharp and uniform. The adults are usually well trained and have a good reputation with the District and Council. There reputation is so good in fact, that they often set the standard for the district, which is where I struggled with them. District set the standard for units, and if the district standards are being developed by Eagle Mill programs, well it can hurt all the units as a whole. The only reason I still monitor and participate on this forum is to help units build a patrol method program where scouts can reach whatever dream they have for their scouting experience. Truth is that reaching the Eagle is just a matter of crossing off a list of actions. As some have said here, it's really not that big of a list. But, looking from a distance at all the requirements to earn Eagle, the goal appears daunting and a lot of work. Not what most boys want from their scouting experience. I was told by a lot of scouters that I should set the goal of Eagle into every new scout. But, is that fair for an 11 year old? Our program encouraged scouts from their first day on, to take one step at a time. Set one goal to learn one knot, when you reach that goal, set another goal for another another knot. Don't look at the bigger goal until you want the bigger goal, until you feel ready for the bigger goal. Write that goal in your book if you need. One small step at a time, that is all we asked. The scouts learned a process of planning small steps to reach larger goals. Not just in advancement, but in the goal of planning the next meeting, the next hike, and the next campout, the next high adventure trip, and on and on. It's a process that most successful businesses use. In fact, it's the same process that Eagle Mill use. The only difference is that the process in a patrol method program is controlled by the scout, not the adults. Developing a plan of small steps to reach bigger goals became woven into the fabric of leadership and running the troop. I didn't understand the success of this approach until the district OA representative visited a troop meeting. When and I asked why he was visiting us, he said that the last three sets of leaders for our OA came from our troop. He wanted to know what we did differently. I was on the inside and couldn't see how, or even if, our scouts were different. But he said our scouts were good at setting long range goals and creating realistic plans to reach those goals. The Scouts from the other troops were intimidated by long range planning, so they always voted for our scouts. Reaching big goals by setting small goals is exactly how our program developed our scouts, so that made sense to me. That was moment that I though, "hey this really works". Five years into our program, our troop had grown from 17 scouts to 70. Far larger than we wanted for a patrol method program. I learned that we were producing the 3rd largest number of Eagles in the district that year (we were averaging 1 Eagle every 2.5 months). The other two troops were mega Eagle Mill troops of more than 200 scouts. I guess what I'm trying to say is what some others here are saying, if the troop encourages scouts to dream and provides a program that doesn't get in their way of their dream, Eagle is just part of the program. One last thing, I always like to express my observations of the topics we discuss here. The one difference of Eagle mills compared to other troops is they don't typically have a good older scout following. Even the mega troops in our district had to add a Venturing Crew to entice the older scouts to stay on. Our troop that was 1/3 the size of the Mega Troop Eagle mills had more scouts over the age 14 than any unit (Venturing or troop) in the whole Council. 40% of our troops were scouts 14 and older. That is why I always say that the success of a troop program should be measured by the older scout program, not the younger scouts program. Build a program that challenges scouts through age 18, and they will stay long enough to trip over the Eagle. Over 40% of our Eagles pass their EBOR at age 17. Barry

From the pack perspective, the AOL ceremony should not occur on the same night of the crossover because combining two ceremonies for one Den makes for a very long boring pack meeting for the other 4/5ths of the pack. From the Den leaders perspective, planning one AOL award ceremony for a whole den at one time forces the den leader to perfectly time the program to get all the scouts AOL advancement completed to that specific date. Otherwise, forcing scouts that finish early to wait for the rest of the den, and that's not fun. What we did when I was CM was award the AOL "patch" to each individual scout after they completed their requirements. Then , as kind of a last respects ceremony for the Web IIs, we awarded all the Webelos together the AOL "Pin". Scouts loved it and that ceremony can be done at any meeting, even Pinewood Derby if need be. Then the pack can do the crossover at any other pack gathering/meeting of their choosing. Breaking up the ceremonies has it's obvious advantages, but I liked not obligating the crossover to a specific night because some Webelos Den Leaders don't like to be forced to crossover their scouts on a specific time. The bridge can be pulled out anytime at any meeting. I miss the old days that The Latin Scot talked about, mainly because crossing over all the Webelos at once creates the problem of forcing pushing troops to advance the scouts as a group, and discourages the idea of giving scout individual independence for making decisions. It also intuitively drove the troops away from mixed age patrol to same age patrols. I believe that one policy change did more harm to Patrol Method over the last 60 year than any other policy change. Barry

This one sentence tells me that your troop is on the right track. Based on my experience. the most difficult challenges for an SPL is less hands-on and delegating. And these are two great skills for scouts to learn for the rest of their life. I agree. I teach adults to push their patience to the point of when the scouts aren't having fun. That is when the program has to pulled back a tad. And, that is difficult for younger troops because the scouts (and adults) don't know how to change the program before it reaches that point. For example, I learned that most scouts advertise they will make a bad decision before they make a bad decision. We had a scout walking barefoot through camp. All the scouts saw it. Then he took off running and broke his toe on a tree root hidden in the shadows. I asked the scouts why they didn't warn him to put on shoes. They basically said they didn't know they were supposed to. Well, we all learned a new skill that day, everyone has permission to stop bad decisions before they happen. Not only do they have permission, but stopping bad decisions is expected of everyone. And if not, those who could have stopped the bad decisions will likely have consequences. That is one small lesson, but you get the point of how a young troop grows into a more mature troop. The scouts need to be trained (more importantly given permission) to speak up before things go too far sideways. They will do it after a little practice. One myth about scouts is they like chaos. Nope, they hate it just as much as adults. Our PLC hated large groups of new scouts because it meant chaos. But, once they developed a few lessons on controlling young scouts, they become more independent to prevent bad decisions going too far. The best troops have adults who keep pushing out the line to find the limits, and readjust. The key is that the line never is stagnate. One the scouts learned they were expected to stop bad decisions, there was no need for adults to monitor situations to prevent bad decisions, the scouts were in control. Now the adults push the line out a little farther. So long as the adults keep moving the "gone too far" line out, the program will grow and mature. And it is amazing to watch. Barry

We tried several patrol guidance practices in all sorts of ways. What I personally liked best was the SPL actively working with the PLs to learn how they were doing and observing any struggles. If just a single PL was struggling, then the SPL (and SM if needed) worked with him personally. But, sometimes we found that our patrol method process has a general flaw that caused most of the PL to struggle in a specific area, so we did a training session, usually about 15 minutes long. Sometimes the SPL might notice a general issue that doesn't require a training session, but could use some SM advice. Then I would do a SM Leadership Development minute at the PLC meeting specific to that observation (typically about 5 minutes). Where we struggled with patrol advisers is their knowledge of problems that crop up. More often than not, they came to the SM for advice of advice to give the PL. For us, Patrol advisers turned out to be just a layer of oversight that didn't add an any advantage or value to the patrol method process. And it required a lot of adults, which was never our goal. As I said, our troop was pretty large for a patrol method boy run program, so we tried ideas mostly to help the SM. But, we found a mature program doesn't really require constant oversight. Rather, the scouts need to trust avenues for advice and guidance, which is in the SPL and PL handbooks. You can tell a more mature program by the quality of the SPLs. Our SPL are expected to run meetings and serve the PLs. Serving the Patrol Leaders is understanding their needs and making their path to those needs easier. It's the ultimate practice of servant leadership. I'm not suggesting a specific path because the skills and experience of the adults may require an approach that is step toward to a mature boy run program that I would never consider. As long as the adults have the goal of patrol method being the main vehicle for scout growth, the adults should make changes to keep that goal clear. Barry

I think you are right. Including the ASMs in the PLC meeting could work in a mature program where the adults and scouts understand their place. Adults have some good ideas based from experience, and sometimes getting the information first hand would remove a level of communication bureaucracy. But, the meetings would require a mature SPL confident enough to not be intimidated by the adults' respected stature. That maturity doesn't require the SPL to be confident in running a meeting, but confident enough to engage with the adult in a mature friendly manner. That level of confidence requires some development of the program. The "No ASMs" allowed meetings are generally a reaction to bad experiences, it certainly was with ours. But, as the program matures, the expectation of the SPLs will mature enough to control the meetings. Maturity means the scouts and adults respecting each other as equal partners in the program. Something that just can't be said, but practiced until attitudes and habits of respect are developed in both groups. In reality, very few parents can just switch off their parent roles the day they become a troop leader. Same goes with new scouts, adults hold a level of respect that is hard to get past without some practice. Both need time to mold into a trust relationship. I also agree that a large portion (at least 50/50) of the SM's responsibilities are to train and guide the adults for their side of the program. One other thing, I realize that our program was 100 scouts strong when I left as SM, a troop of 20 scouts could be a different discussion. Barry

Before National turned Eagle into more of an association goal, around 3 percent of scouts earned the award. That is very close to the same statistic of companies that reach the Fortune 500 status as well as the natural leaders and visionaries in the population. I would expect that the ratio is about the same for above average BSA units. I'm not sure how an above average unit would be measured, but I expect growth or consistent high output performance as a function of program would be on the list. Our program motto was "Put the adults out of business", so we had to constantly change parts of our program to move toward that goal of maturity. I would expect that average performing troops don't have high performance goals that require constant evaluation, so they don't require much program change. High performance is subject to leadership, more to the point, usually one dominant leader. So, there is no surprise that those units loose some of there performance with leadership (Vision) changes. I can't recall a single high performing unit that didn't suffer from a leadership change except for troops sponsored on military bases. I imagine that the discipline of leadership and subordinates of the military carries over into the units, making the program during leadership changes more consistent. Barry

Yes, fact of the matter is that we are just humans. I came to this humility when I started volunteering at the district and council levels and realized most adult leaders are just doing they best they can. Many of us here preach idealism so that readers can see the vision or goal as a compass to work toward. In truth, our troops don't look near as idealistic as our preachings. I certainly don't mind (I in fact rather enjoy) telling stories of our not-so-perfect program as we trudge toward the idealistic goal. But then I would be typing for hours. So idealism is easier and faster to make the point. Barry

Good point and I agree. This level of independence certainly pushes for above average maturity for both the adults and scouts, but is more fragile to both adult and scout leadership changes. Still, it's fun and rewarding to watch. Barry

Jameson, I always enjoy and look forward to reading your posts about your troop because it is a well oil machine. But, the adults handing over all those bullet points to the scouts (including your last sentence) is the next step toward stepping up to a new plateau of scout growth and program maturity. I have the t-shirt. Barry