jksolomon

Meh...reading through a lot of these posts, I'm a bit flabbergasted. I hope as much effort is being spent working with the boys in the program as there is questioning the program. I guess we could question the program ad nauseum...do we REALLY need a Family Life merit badge, camping, etc, etc, leader positions, the Eagle project itself. I don't believe SCOTUS or POTUS are meaningless because they don't have meaning outside the United States. If groups want to use their own internal acronyms, why should that be an issue? One proverb I believe I've found to be true: "1 fool can ask more questions than 10 wise men can answer." Seems a monumental waste of time better spent helping boys. I use EDGE with my boys, I teach my boys to use EDGE, the have grown because of it. In doing so I believe I'm also teaching them how to be law abiding citizens instead of throwing out those laws/rules/requirements they don't agree with.

Hey, new to this forum, but thought I'd take a crack at Clemlaw's question. There is a leadership theory out in the non-BSA world that follows EDGE quite closely. It's called situational leadership. It's practically a mirror of leading EDGE. I think we use the term EDGE because it's easy to look at the acronym and remember the steps. As to why a scout has to use teaching EDGE to teach another scout how to tie a square knot? The principles of tell, show, guide, step back and enable are proven teaching techniques that are invaluable for a boy to learn if he is going to become a leader. ALSO it ensures that the adult advisors know it, hopefully from Woodbadge at least, so they don't get stuck in the ED...only part of it. Critical part of EDGE and situational leadership is training to understand how to recognize where on the EDGE or M1,M2,M3,M4 scale the learnee IS and modify your leadership/teaching approach to help them learn.