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@@UncleP After reading your response to my post, I would like to offer up a suggestion you could do to help your nephew with this Scouting experiment. THROW AWAY ANY AND ALL PLANS! - Scouting is not just a mental process of planning, it is an emotional adventure of doing!. "Life is what happens while you're making your plans". If all your nephew is interested in is the intellectual aspects of Scouting buy him a Scout Handbook so he can read up on it. It's his style of learning. The whole distraction of EXPERIENCING Scouting is altogether different and how your nephew does that will determine what kind of eagle (or person for that matter) he will become in life. Is Philmont a 100 mile walk with a backpack on or is it really standing on mountain tops looking out over the Rockies enjoying a panoramic view of spectacular beauty? Is it a boat ride or is it taking on the challenge of whitewater kayaking a stretch of class 3 rapids on a beautiful northern Wisconsin river or canoeing/camping for 9 days in the isolated wilderness of the Boundary Water Canoe Area of northern Minnesota? Is it all that important to rush into the store to pick up milk only to have an elderly lady with a walker struggling to get in blocking the door and you hold the door so she will move along more quickly, and when she apologizes for being so slow you can't think of anything to say except, "Don't worry about it, I have all day, just take your time." and you chuckle to yourself that as an Eagle Scout you just told a huge lie to this woman!? Just remind your nephew, that those types of issues of the heart are part of being an Eagle Scout, but they are not necessary if they are only planning to fast track the requirements. All Eagles have passed all the requirements.... They all have the certificate. The difference, however, between whether it is a paper Eagle based on the academic, mental achievement or is it a real Eagle based on the emotional, experiences of what an Eagle means rather than just what an Eagle is. I know of people who went into teaching because it pays well and one has the summer off. I also know of people who went into teaching because they love to help children learn and grow. Maybe it's the question your nephew needs to answer before he signs up for this Scouting experiment of his. Let it be known that I, too, think your nephew could benefit greatly with a proper Scout experience, but I've seen a lot boys with this type of attitude crash and burn soon after realizing the challenge isn't an academic walk in the park, it's a roll up your sleeves and start taking care of the people who mean something to you in life kind of program.

The voting was rather close between the three factions 39% is only a tad above 1/3rd of the votes. It would seem that the Democrats split their party north and south No northern Democrat is going to support a slavery Southern Democrat. The Whigs simply got blown out of the water by the up-and-coming abolitionist Republican party. The south seceded more because of the Republican abolitionist platform than because any fear of this country bumpkin Lincoln. Lincoln's only concern was to preserve the union and his solution for the slave issue was to send them all back to Africa. The Civil War was a slavery issue. The racial aspect didn't come about until 100 years later in the 1960's.

It would seem that the difference between the Short list (S***t list) and the other list is one star...(S**T list)

Welcome to the forum @@UncleP I'm going to take a lot of heat for this suggestion, but I'm sure you will see the value in what I'm saying. You, on the one hand, want your nephew to relax and enjoy the Scouting journey. That truly the only constructive way to approach the program. It is meant to be fun and adventurous. But it would seem that your nephew wishes to fast track himself into eagle. It's possible, it's not that hard to do, and your nephew will benefit from it's advantages of being able to say one day he IS an eagle. First of all you will need to find a troop that is known as an Eagle Mill troop. These troops are strongly adult lead, the pace of advancement is fast tracked and it isn't uncommon to have your nephew in and out of the program in say maybe between 3 and 4 years. Other troops that tend to work the system in a more traditional way will seek a troop that caters to outdoor activities, trips, and other distractions that can be expensive, such as hiking at Philmont Scout Ranch, attending a National or World Jamboree or canoeing the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota. Those are the more scenic routes to eagle, your nephew will want to avoid those types of distractions and stay focused on advancement. Your nephew will need to learn some basic scoutcraft skills in the early requirements, but he shouldn't have to worry if he is able to focus on the material with a classroom type of mental focus. It might hit a little bump in the upper ranks when he will be expected to do a few months of what is referred to as a Position of Responsibility. I would recommend shying away from the more leadership positions and focus more on the duties that don't require much interaction with other boys in the troop the way leadership positions would necessitate. The other boys can get in the way and slow down your nephew's advancement, Pick the elective merit badges carefully. Some of the elective ones may require a bit more work than is actually necessary. Collections, finger printing, basket weaving, leather work, wood carving and such can be addressed and signed off easily. Be sure to sign up for as many merit badges as possible at summer camp and always take advantage of the council merit badge days that the council offers. One can also line up merit badge counselors on his own time so he can maintain a more aggressive schedule that is laid out. One should be able to easily knock off the merit badge requirements in about 2 years, max. Because of the advanced progression of the time table adopted, your nephew will need to be thinking about his eagle project right from the start. Be sure to look for a less labor intensive project and one that doesn't involve fund raising to accomplish. They aren't that hard to find and the SM of the eagle mill troop will have plenty of these high management, low leadership projects that will look good on paper and will be easy to wrap up in maybe one or two weekends of actual work. Now there will be a few on this forum that will say that this posting is snarky and sarcastic, but it's not. It IS how one goes about knocking off the requirements in the most efficient manner. So with that being said, I would hope that your nephew and any boys with similar aspirations would realize that I run a boy-led, patrol method troop that places a heavy emphasis on growth maturity, character building, and a strong commitment to servant leadership among his peers. None of this would be of any interest to your nephew because his goal is an eagle that solely benefits himself and his prestige in the society in which he will eventually find himself. Your nephew would not appreciate me because I would harbor a sentiment that efforts in the program that sets a goal of a personal eagle is what produces what I call a paper or parlor eagle. It's a legitimate eagle in the BSA, but my prejudice against that attitude towards eagle might slip trough some time during his brief tenure in my unit. For that reason alone, I would suggest he not end up in such a troop. They are easy to recognize. They are the ones that are where the boys are doing the planning, executing and enjoying the fruits of their labors. They make the choices and they build deep bonding relationships between members of the small group organizational structures known as patrols. You are going to want to stay with the more adult led troops. Best of luck with your nephew's scouting experience.

And at 39% of the popular vote, Lincoln with all his faults did a pretty good job.

How thoughtful of you to point that out.

How is this any different than voting for SPL?

So if I said, if one can't see the forest because of the trees, would it lend a more favorable feeling for fellow scouters and they would feel less labelled? Probably not because that phrase attacks the person. A myopic point of view draw the attention to the situation, not the person. The car coming from the right was speeding. No, the car from the left was speeding. I don't think the car was going all that fast. So how can they all be correct? The first two are standing on opposite sides of the street and the third person a a half mile away. We are so quick to judge when in fact we're not talking about people we're only talking about the way they see the world from where they happen to be standing. It's not an issue of who's right and who's wrong. Tampa Turtle and Krampus don't camp in the summer, way too hot. I generally camp in the summer, it's the only time it's warm. So we have to adjust our programs. Yes I label them southerners and they need to do things differently than us northerners. So some labels like Johnny Reb and damnYankee might be overboard, but I don't think I've gotten that bad..... yet.

Aaaah, here as "from here point of view" After 160 years, nothing's really changed. Except today the blacks vote for the party that wanted to keep them slaves and against the party that worked to free them..... Go figure.

Preston Brooks Preston Brooks beats Charles Sumner with a cane. Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was an avowed Abolitionist and leader of the Republican Party. After the sack of Lawrence, on May 21, 1856, he gave a bitter speech in the Senate called "The Crime Against Kansas." The Republicans have been taking it on the chin since day one. And here we have a REPUBLICAN speaking out for the freedom of the slaves being beaten by a DEMOCRAT on the Senate floor. Looks like the same-old, same-old from here.

my·op·ic ˌmīˈäpik/ adjective adjective: myopic nearsighted. synonyms: nearsighted; shortsighted "a myopic patient" antonyms: farsighted lacking imagination, foresight, or intellectual insight. "the government still has a myopic attitude to public spending" synonyms: unimaginative, uncreative, unadventurous, narrow-minded, small-minded, short-term, shortsighted "the government's myopic attitude" antonyms: farsighted It's no more a label than any other adjective in the English language.

My finicky boys brought in 4 big containers of Goldfish for summer camp.

Right now I have 9 boys working on their AOL requirements. Next Tuesday evening those that have completed the requirements will receive the award. If they are +10 years of age, they will cross over into the troop. If they are +11 years old they will cross over into the troop, If they are <11 and did not complete the requirements, they will not get the AOL at that time, nor will they cross over, but we will continue to work with them until they do. The only thing that is of concern is the timing of summer camp. They cannot go to summer camp <11 and no AOL. The burden has been given to the parents to pick up the slack and work with us on this issue. We will hold true to the intent of the requirements. If a boy puts in a vague illogical answer to the question, he'll get credit for doing his best. If he leaves it blank, he will not get credit for it.

I do exactly the same thing, but I don't have the Russian General uniform, I have the Banana Republic Dictator uniform. I think it might have more bling than yours.

@@TAHAWK We are very close to saying the same thing. The question was how does one go about correcting the myopic person about servant leadership. First of all one does not TELL them anything. That is a management concept. I would start by asking them to clarify their view of the issue, and then help them see what you see. I don't see people doing things "wrong" when it comes to this issue. It usually just means people are using a different definition than I am when it comes to leadership. For me "getting the job done" is a management objective. It can be done in a number of different ways. I can threaten, I can plead, I can coerce, I can motivate, etc. some of the things are good and others not so good, but somehow I get the job done. It has nothing to do with whether the person is following and after the job is done I don't care about these people until the next time I need a job done. I just see this process as VERY ineffective and difficult for young boys to master. Heck, there are a lot of adults that find it difficult to master. But we have instead the leader (servant if you prefer) that requires followers! Duh! What's the task? Don't need one.to ask anyone to do anything. But the leader.... in order to LEAD makes the first move, they HELP OTHERS with what they are doing.(Help other people at all times) It makes that person's life easier and of course the leader scores a few atta boys with those that he helps. So down the road the leader has a task that needs doing and those around him that he has helped, show up and ask, "What can we do to help?" The leader has set the tone, the followers are now leading by the leader's example. So now the roles are reversed and the followers are helping the leader. And this ping pong game gets played over and over again and eventually one begins to realize that everyone is heavily invested in caring teamwork. How many duty rosters are necessary in this setting? NONE. That desire to serve becomes ingrained in each individual, some more so than others. Helping other people at all times becomes a culture of the patrol, troop, and each boys' relationships of the future. So in that whole explanation how much MANAGEMENT was needed? Very little, with everyone working together it becomes a super efficient process and the jobs get knocked out with very little organizational necessity. A good leader will develop come good organizational skills such as project management, problem solving, group dynamics, inter-personal relational skills, etc.but they will only enhance the underlying premise of servant leadership. I just find that this servant leadership approach is so much cleaner, easier to understand and in the long term, more efficient than spending a lot of time learning just management and redefining it as some kind of "leadership".

We'll be seein' ya down the trail!

The SM going through the medical forms of every person both adult and youth is taking care of his people. Spot checks for epi pens and first aid kits are an ongoing routine in the troop. Allergies are known to all adults and PL's. We have 3 rules in the troop. The #1 Rule is Safety First and that is monitored by both adult and youth. This rule trumps everything!

And this is why servant leadership doesn't work in your troop. If one is only looking at the world in a myopic POV, then yes, they will draw this same conclusion. But taking mom for granted at home is not the same thing as when all is said and done, when things go bad in life, they always go home to mom. Need a little TLC when you're feeling poorly? Mom's chicken soup. If Mom ain't happy, nobody's happy! On the battlefield the person called out for by dying soldiers is mom! DO NOT ever underestimate the power of mom's servant leadership. At the centennial jamboree, our contingent had a quiet Hmong boy sign up. He came with his mother. She did the paperwork, collected up his gear, etc. I heard the comments from the other adults and the "mama's boy" from the other boys. He missed the shakedown weekend, and I was kinda worried because I didn't know this kid from Adam. Well, he kinda hung to himself, but if anyone needed to head for the latrine and needed a buddy, he would offer to go. If anyone was having trouble with camp chores he always was there to help. I don't think I ever heard him say more than 3 - 4 words in a row. This went on for the whole time, Well, the day before we were to leave he sprains his ankle. For the rest of the day, he sat with his foot up and iced. Every time someone needed to help, he offered and someone else did it for him. He never ran out of ice. On the day we were leaving, all this things were packed up by other scouts, his camp chores assigned to him were voluntarily done by others, his tent was taken down and all his gear carried to the bus. Two boys helped him hobble, in the pouring rain, to he bus. What I witnessed was amazing. Oh for a troop of all boys like this one. This kid did not need assertiveness training! He earned the respect of everyone in that contingent one simple, quiet act at a time. Was he taken advantage of? Maybe at first, but that wore off very quickly. Never underestimate the power of servant leadership. The better boy always talked about his former troop? How is that taking care of his current boys? His attitude would be running the older boys out of the troop? Seriously??? This boy would make an excellent SPL???? NO WAY! And if the boys sense that feeling from the adults, they too will fall prey to that way of thinking. After this, just before the vote, take your PL's aside and ask THEM who should be SPL, the person that would be helping them be better PL's. Then have the troop vote, per BSA policy. If they don't match, I would suspect a major leadership disconnect in the troop. I had one boy come to me complaining that his PL was picking on him. I got the two together and asked them to explain. The boy said that every time they did Dutch oven cooking the PL always made him clean up the Dutch ovens. Then I asked the PL if this was true. He said, "Yes". I asked him why. He said it was because it was a tough job and he needed his best scout doing the best job on them. I told him his patrol member felt he was being picked on. The PL apologized for poor communication. The boy kinda perked up and said, "Then I don't have to clean the Dutch ovens all the time?" The PL said, "I apologized for poor communication, not for wanting to have my best scout doing the big jobs. Eventually that DO cleaner became the APL for the patrol, and when the need arose for a PLC and SPL, this PL championed him for the position and the DO cleaner became the troops first full-time SPL. Ironically this boy got so good at cleaning DO's he would normally be done cleaning them before the boys started washing their dishes after dinner. NEVER underestimate the power of real servant leadership and don't adult-mess with it by offering assertiveness training. If one ever gets a chance to ever experience this first hand, they will never go back to management style "leadership" again.

I do not have any problem with the boys doing what they want to do as a patrol. The problem arises in what the adults dictate as to what they can and cannot do. If the leader of the patrol is taking care of his boys, what business is it of the adults to interfere with extra rules, regulations and mandates. Okay, the boys are having a Dutch oven broccoli bake for supper. No bacon involved at all. Okay one of the boys REEEALY hates broccoli so he makes himself a PBJ. Does that condemn him as not being a team player? He is rebelling against the authority of his PL? Is he not loyal to his buddies? Is his not learning anything about how the patrol method works? Let's put it this way, why are the adults stepping in or even hovering over these kinds of petty issues and declaring them anti-patrol method? It's been my experience that a lot of dynamics that move small groups beyond their comfort zone is an occasional anomaly that offers an alternative or improvement over what is currently being done. Yes, the boys all eat the same food, clean up the same with the three bucket wash system as has been taught.... except at Philmont when all things change. Gee, they don't have Dutch ovens at Philmont or on the AT. What now? The boys have all been taught to cook for a group of 6-8 boys, but they don't know how to effectively feed just themselves. This line of thinking on the part of the adults is limiting to the patrols and what works for them. Like people, no two patrols have the same personality, the lessons cannot be "one-size-fits-all". The policy of: "If one doesn't like what's being served, there's PBJ in the chuck box." Standard operating procedure for every patrol in the country, except the patrol where one of it's members is deadly allergic to peanuts. He doesn't like broccoli and he's allergic to peanuts, now the poor kid has doubled down on his inability to be a team player in the patrol. Time for a SMC! If one is going to expect the PL to take care of his boys, then get out of the way and let him do it and do it HIS way, not what some adult says has to happen. @@Hedgehog, I think it boils down to something far more destructive than the boys not following the patrol method rules, or wearing the uniform, or ignoring the safety of the Totin' Chip as adult nonsense. What it really means that these boys have been taught the correct protocol and yet up until they turn 18 years of age they cannot be trusted with what they have been taught. A PL who is taking care of his boys will make sure there is no peanut butter in the chuck box if he has a boys that's allergic to it. He will make sure the safety rules of the Totin' Chip are followed, etc. He DOESN"T need an adult hovering over his shoulder 24/7 making sure all the i's are dotted and t's crossed when it comes to scouting and troop rules. If the patrol method is to work, the boys have to be trustworthy. How does one know if a boy can be trusted if they are all held on a very short leash? All boys are trustworthy if an adult is hovering 2' away. "Doin' meals and meal cleanup as a patrol is one of da great learnin' experiences of Scouting. If every lad brings his own food stash and refuses to participate in da meal prep or cleanup with the group, I'm wonderin' what we're teachin', exactly." My question is: I'm wonderin' what WAS TAUGHT?! And why can't the PL be trusted to do it? The lesson is teamwork, not doing meals and cleaning up. "If the older and more experienced lads just want to do their own thing and not help support others less experienced than they are, and we as adults encourage 'em to think that way, I'm wonderin' what we're doin', exactly." And where's the PL in all of this? Why isn't he taking care of his boys? This is a pretty big assumption jump to go from patrol teamwork to patrol dysfunction just because they don't follow the adult mandated rules. If the patrol has tents and one of the boys brings his own hammock is he accused of not following the rules? Or he wants to meadow crash instead? I think PL's (and even adults) can encourage a process of "thinking-outside-the-box". For some it would seem that it is form of rebellion, selfishness, ("Maybe I'm just an old fashioned furry critter who grew up before da "Me me me!!!" generation") or some other adult defined negativity. But for others, that might just mean the most efficient way of teaching advanced problem solving, a skill/talent most useful for any successful PL or patrol member. Yes, I do encourage them to think in alternative manners. No, it does not negate the patrol method. No it does not break BSA policy. No, it is not an unsafe thing to be doing. It only allows the boys some room to make improvements and tweak processes to best suit the operation of their patrols. I don't need to hover and advise my boys, I trust them and that's a lesson all my boys have learned.