Stosh

It often surprises me how ineffective any group can be by writing off those of younger years. While the old codgers are complaining about not having the energy to do what they want to do, they would rather burn out than use their leadership and experience to coach younger scouters. We see these same old farts whining about their older boys not wanting to instruct and interact with younger boys, while at the same time demonstrate to them that they in fact can't do it themselves. I found out a long time ago that if one wishes to seek out new adventures to keep from burning out in any program, whether it be one's career, their families or the groups they volunteer for, unless one is training someone to take over for you, you'll be forever stuck in that place. If one finds themselves standing in the middle of a bad situation there's only three recourses one can make. Either 1) stay where you are at and suffer, 2) train someone with more energy and stamina to take over, or 3) abandon ship and let it sink. I always feel sorry for those old experienced scouters who aren't wise enough to see this and the only ones that suffers are the boys. Too often the myopic vision of older scouters is to only teach leadership to the boys when in fact he/she needs to be teaching it everyone around them.

One has to constantly remind oneself that the Eagle project is to show leadership, not managerial expertise. A good leader can successfully lead through diversity, confusion, disappointment and failure. Too often the scouts are judged on their attention to detail, planning, the weather and the morale of his team. These are either management issues or issues beyond his control. If we are judging these projects based on conception, planning, execution and conclusion then we are judging their management, not leadership. The boy can make mistakes, how well does he recover? His team can make mistakes, how well does he recover? The beneficiary changes their mind, how well does he recover? These are leadership issues, he is showing how well he can move the management process through adverse situations. That is leadership, nailing two boards together correctly is not. How well does the scout lead people while at the same time, at a lesser level of evaluation, how well does he manage the task at hand. I've had a few discussions on this issue with EBOR's and never had a boy fail. I knew when they started their projects, as I said, totally on their own, that they had shown effective leadership before attempting the task. After all that's what the requirements indicate. And how many "failed" projects are there out there where the beneficiary backed off, changed their mind, or whatever and then the SM and ASM's and parents all ran around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to save this boy's project requirement? To me this is how leadership gets stolen from the boys by well-meaning adults that are only focused on success. It is at that point that I corral up all the maverick parents and scouters and remind them, "When at first you don't succeed, try, try again." This is why my boys tend to be very successful with this whole process. Leadership always trumps management. The reason for this is the EBOR is incorrectly judging the project on successful management of the task instead of the leadership and struggle the boy is going through to lead his team through adversity. While a beneficiary not signing off and/or changing their mind, has nothing to do with the boy's ability to effectively lead his team. Managerially he might have figured in such a contingency plan for such an occasion, but that's not leadership, planning of tasks is management. To lead, the boy needs people following. If the plan goes sour, how does he handle the SM? the ASM's? the parents? the beneficiary? his team? This is what I judge, not the plan.

But if one uses bacon cheeseburgers as bait at the final destination, it's surprising how well even the 11 year olds do. One of my Eagles went on into the Air Force and was part of an airborne tanker refueler. As training for if the plane goes down, they got them up at 3:00 am put them on a chopper and flew them out into the desert. They handed them a map and compass and said breakfast is at 6:00 am. No one in his group knew what to do, but breakfast was beckoning. He got them back to base in time to shower before breakfast. One team didn't make supper that day. Musta used the wrong kind of bacon.

@@AltadenaCraig welcome to the forum and thanks for the post.

Every one of my Eagle scouts navigated this process alone. They ranged in age from 15 to 17, however. But they were totally on their own, but could have done it earlier if they had focused more on advancement. They don't seem to be in a hurry and spent time learning how to do and lead projects before they attempted one totally on their own.

It is my opinion that unless the scouts are trained from an earlier age, it would be very difficult for a pre-16 year old to pull off an Eagle project on his own. This is why it is important to press for boy led from the first day of scouts. If a boy joins up at age 11 and has 3 years experience of putting together service projects and/or activities with adult support, it is totally conceivable for him at 14 doing a nice job on an Eagle project. However if no opportunity is given the scout, then an emphatic no would naturally follow. But do adults encourage this? Not very often. No one is going to allow a TF scout lead on a one day service project of cleaning up the road ditches. But should they? Why not? It's not the end of the world if he misses a spot or two and he will learn from his mistakes. I have found that boys as early as 11 can handle these things. The best "war story" I can provide is a 13 year old, non-medicated ADD scout who lacked focus was allowed to run the popcorn sales for the troop. He became so focused on the task that he did it all except for the signing off of the popcorn inventory which needed to be done by "an adult". It was the most successful sale the troop ever did. He hounded the boys to get out there and get their sheets filled up, he collected them and made sure they got into the prize opportunities for the boys, he and his buddies sorted them all out and then hounded them to get their money back in on time. And by hounded I mean hounded! He was almost too focused, but no one could argue he wasn't on task. Was he ready for an Eagle project after that at 13 years of age? Really close! Too often adults "steal" away these opportunities for the boys and then complain when they need a ton of help with the learning curve at the last minute and bail them out. It doesn't need to be that way if done correctly.

It all fits in with the convoluted rules of the BSA. One can earn Eagle (a rank not of the Venturing program) as a Venturing youth member, but not after age 18, and not if one is female. One can be an adult in Boy Scouts while at the same time a youth participant in the Venturing program. Unless it's Thursday then all bets are off. It's kinda like the English language, none of the rules are really rules because there is an exception to every one of them. But not on Saturdays between the hours of 6:00 am and 3:00 pm.

How many Eagle scouts would we have if it were dependent on just the scout? One would think that after 5 or 6 years of training they should be able to pull off the project all by themselves. From idea, to proposal, to plan, to execution, to satisfying the beneficiary, to leading his team, to bragging about it to the EBOR. This is MY project and this is what I did!

Percy Keese Fitzhugh wrote a ton of commissioned Boy Scout novels based on the characters of Pee Wee Harris, Roy Blakeley (Pee Wee and Roy from Boy's Life cartoon), Tom Slade, Westy Martin, Mark Gilmore, et al. Fitzhugh caught the attention of the BSA with his novel Along the Mohawk Trail and wrote novels for over 20 years for BSA. There are a number of other classics that were identified by BSA as good literature and they put out 73 novels under the BSA logo known as Every Boy's Library. Some of these were outdoors, some sports, nautical themes, and some were definitely along the lines of Boy Scouts. A lot of moral and ethical themes and some were just for fun. All easy reads and once hooked, you'll want to collect the full compliment of books.... unfortunately, I did. Cost me a small fortune but the books are great. A word of caution if one is easily offended, these books are written reflective of the era and are not always politically correct which makes them fun to read about what life was like in the early years of Scouting. By the way, if one wishes to know what "real" boy led, patrol method is all about, one may find that BSA would nix a lot of what these boys were doing during those early years. Adults were pretty much non-existent in most of them. Tom Slade, however, came from the "wrong side of town" and went on to be a WW I hero and a SM in his own right. They did make a movie about Tom Slade back in the 20's or 30's.

Seriously, people? The coach let the boy down? The SM let the boy down? The approvers let the boy down? Plenty of blame to pass around as to why the boy screwed up? Who's project it is anyway? If the scout is to show leadership, why is he following the directions of a coach, the SM and council approvers and any other adult for that matter? It sounds like everyone is trying to justify hovering scouters and parents using everything from blame checking to GTA. I always thought and have directed every one of my Eagles, that this is their project, their opportunity to prove they are Eagle material and if everything goes to hell in a basket, it's no one's fault but their own. I don't pick their projects, I don't "proofread" their proposals, I am very little involved in their project other than to answer questions THEY HAVE FOR ME. I don't coach, I don't direct, I don't suggest, I only answer questions the best I can when they have them. They get a booklet to read and follow, other than that they have to prove they are 1) a leader and 2) worthy of being called an Eagle. Even then I seem to gather up "mentor" pins along the way and for the love of God, I don't know why. The only thing I can imagine is this might be the first major effort on their part where there's no one there to teach, guide, direct, instruct and they have to do everything on their own using their own resources and any success is dependent solely on them. Of course there is plenty of pre-learning going on with the process. From TF on through LIFE, these boys have been planning, doing and leading activities and service projects all along. The Eagle project is merely their way of telling the world they were paying attention.

Yeah, it's kinda like how when National is trustworthy one can depend on them......

Oh, like for real scouting? How's the bathroom situation going to be resolved? Oak for boys, Pine for girls? LNT? so it won't look like a local city park? No zip lines? No pool? Go back to what it was in 1910? Nope, never work. No hotels for STEM scouts? No MB's? Seriously! Are you nuts? No one wants a camp like that when what you're proposing is just going out in the woods with nothing to do. Never work.

If no one steps up to be a Lions leader or a Tigers leader then put on a sad face and tell the parents the Pack won't be able to host the program this year for those two age levels..

I have a longer one marked Men's long LG (16-16 1/2). I don't know if the long designation was for the torso length or the long sleeves but it is quite a bit longer in the torso than my other shirts.

Welcome to the forum!!

Gee, when I was in Southern California (San Diego County) my church youth group went up in the mountains and had a great time sledding. It may be warm on the coast, but I found snow there. Flagstaff AZ is noted for it's snowfalls as well. somehow I get the feeling that some of the southern boys have less distance to find snow than we do to find no-snow.

If cold is a state of mind, in the state of Wisconsin we don't mind.

It's never a waste of time to teach a scout to make better choices. This doesn't happen over-night.

One of the main requirements of leadership in the project is to simply: "read the directions on the bottle". Not paying attention to detail and setting oneself up for failure due to cutting corners is no excuse for overlooking a unsuccessful project. If the misstep results in the beneficiary not signing off, then the project is not complete. If all signatures are in place, the project is done. It's up to the beneficiary to decide whether the project is successful, not some eagle coach that takes leadership and reads the fine print. That's what the scout is supposed to be doing.

How many adults really expect and want the boys to lead and how many find it a lot easier just to do it themselves? As a parent most will find it easier to simply do it themselves rather than risk the failure of the boys. I have no idea how many times I let a "stupid" idea get traction with the boys as a learning moment for them. One has to bite the bullet and let them fail. The scouting environment is the place to make these poor choices and not be crippled for life. People in general learn more from their mistakes than they do from their successes.

A lot of this has to do with expectations from both the group and the individual. It is pointed out that the APL didn't get the job even when he was qualified and an unqualified scout got PL. The individual's reaction was to pull back himself rather than stepping up and functioning as expected. Yes, morale can be devastating, but then that's the challenge. As APL, his job is not to merely be there when the PL is gone, he is expected to be the PL's "right hand man". Is the APL doing his job of making sure the PL is successful or is his disappointment his way of sabotaging the PL? It was interesting that when my troop got large enough to have enough patrols for an SPL, the SPL was not selected from the existing PL's who all wanted to stay PL's. Instead they picked the best supportive APL to be SPL and support them from the other side of the equation. As APL he supported the PL in relation to his patrol, as SPL he supported all the PL's in relation to the adults. It worked out just fine. NSP's are unique and require different dynamics. All the boys generally are in a long and tedious learning curve and unless the TG is ready and able to effectively help them be successful they won't be. A PL of a NSP if an older boy needs to address his responsibility differently than if he were a PL of a regular or venture patrol as well. I have seen venture patrols collapse as readily as NSP's because of this inability to adapt to the differing needs of the patrol. I teach all my boys to lead from the "back seat". It works. When I was the administrative assistant to the general manager of a large corporation I had certain responsibilities, most of them were underlying one basic principle. When a new general manager came in and took over he "interviewed" me as to what I saw my responsibilities as. I flat out told him, it was my job to make sure he was successful with his job. We got along just fine after that. It is the same for every APL. I believe one of the reasons the APL is not listed as a valid POR is because no one ever takes this position as seriously as it needs to be. The APL if he is going to "take over" for the PL in his absence needs to know as much about being a PL as the PL himself. If he's just going to sit around waiting for the PL to be absent (which is what is normally expected) he's going to be a total waste of time to the PL and the patrol both. I have seen some APL's function at a level where they are sought after by other patrols to be their PL simply because of the job they do as APL in other patrols. A good APL makes a fantastic TG for a NSP.

We've played this partisan politics game in the past. It didn't turn out well.

On the other hand most modern educational theorists believe one learns more from doing than from observing. Schools are structuring away from observing and taking in information from an instructor (lecture) and moving more towards those that use a more practical, activity based approach like EDGE which will gain adherence to the subject matter faster and retain it longer. This is why I still champion the level playing field of the NSP for the new boys in the program. They are not just there to observe, but even in Cub Scouts were able to experience a bit of "running the show" as a denner for a short period of time. Why when they get to Boy Scouts is that process put on hold for 2-3 years until they have observed long enough, or at least had the older boys age out and reduce the competition for the leadership positions. This is why we hear about so many SM's having to mandate that certain scouts be in advancement POR's so they can move on to the next rank, and yet complain loudly that the boys don't or even can't function because they have in fact no experience in the position. Keeping the numbers low in the patrols insures the opportunity to learn best suits the learner. If 8 boys is too much for the NSP patrol structure, push for 6 if possible. The boys should be given the best opportunity to be successful and that does not mean postpone their practical experiences to sitting and observing. It means give it a try and mentor (TG and maybe the PL if not a new scout) towards success. Should the TG be mentoring the new boys? or doing it for them? Same for the PL? Is he to be their just their leader or does he have a responsibility to mentor and develop his replacement from within the group? Boy quit scouts the first year for a variety of different reasons. Scouting is not for them. They like the arts and crafts, but going out into the woods is a whole different thing. Parents are burned out and drop out. Everyone else gets to do things and I have to sit and learn to tie knots while the other guys are having fun DOING things. To boys at this age, learning scoutcraft skills isn't doing the adventure that they thought they were going to get in the first place. Everyone puts an enormous amount of energy into making Webelos II a transition into Boy Scouts, but it's not Boy Scouts. The NSP finishes the transition because now it's supposed to be for real Boy Scouts. Keep the patrols small, keep everyone active and doing POR within the patrols from PL to APL to QM to Scribe, etc. GBB's patrol method training has everyone working, no one is observing older boys. For 1-2 years Little Johnny sat around tying knots, cooking meals, setting up tents, lashing poles, doing first aid, and now that he's First Class, he needs to do a POR. Good luck with that. If he happened to have a good PL he might do alright, but if one hasn't done it before, it makes for an intense learning curve of high expectations. Having the boys lead small groups of 5-6 boys, make your mistakes there, that by the time one gets to FC, they at least have experience in what to do. This is why the patrol method is so important to the boy's learning of leadership. I have never gained experience in anything in life by sitting around watching other people do things.

I knew my godfather served in the Marines in WW II and spent it entirely in a coal mine in China working for the Japanese. He was captured on Wake Island at the beginning of the war. He then went on to served as an infantryman in the Army all the way through the Korean War. What I didn't know until I read it in his obituary that he Eagled in 1936. My parents and he and his wife were close friends from church and we camped together just about every weekend until I was well into my high school years. Whether it be hunting, fishing or camping, this guy was a constant part of my life and the reason for my love of the outdoors. I'm glad these scouters are getting the recognition they deserve. There's a reason why some of us dedicate our adult lives to working with youth and a lot of that comes from the fact that we were scouts when we were young.