packsaddle

Rick, yes we'll see. What you described for well-meaning scouters making scouts feel uncomfortable or as you put it, unwelcome, is a couple of steps back from what I described in my example AND what I have observed far more often than the extreme case I mentioned. Moosetracker, eagledad was the person who attempted to equate knot-tying with religious faith during BOR questioning. I merely responded. You're right. Retest is wrong in both cases but while a 'retest' of how to tie a knot is possible and probably happens frequently, what test is it that you think would be a 'retest' for religious faith? What possible response would fail such a test? As I read the guide, outside of professing absolute atheism, there is no answer that could fail. And if that is the case, why not just make it 'The Atheist Test'? Assuming, of course, that such a test did happen which is what I think the new requirement increases the risk of. There is no boy who will, during a BOR with improper questions, likely fail advancement because he can't tie a sheet bend. But then, that is not the focus of the new requirement, is it? If everyone DID adhere to the approach suggested in the guide, then all would be well. However....do you remember that suggestion I made earlier about providing a handbook to how to pass a BOR? The guide comes close, lol. It just needs a little spicing up with some humor (read, 'satire').

Moosetracker, I'm so very glad for you and the perfect EBOR in your district. Which ones of those questions that you list are mandated in the new requirements? List those and I will gladly respond. Eagledad, How is it that you think you know my thoughts and then feel competent to inform everyone of what they are? I do not think ALL scouters are prejudiced. I know for sure that some of them are, however. I do not have a "grudge against god in scouting". I object to persons who USE God in scouting as a means to push their own prejudices regarding religious faith. Since I have also observed THAT in real life, I can only conclude that some scouters DO engage in that sort of thing. Your statement that I have bias sounds a little like a pot accusing a kettle. What I DO think is that there IS a difference between the skillset of knot-tying and a person's religious faith. I'm sorry you do not understand the difference, but that fact merely emphasizes my concern that not all persons will apply this new requirement in a way that is respectful or constructive. Because I HAVE observed scout leaders 'ambushing' scouts regarding religious faith, I have no reason to think adding a requirement like this will diminish that practice. Lastly, I am surprised to learn that you find knots to be such a personal challenge.

"For some reason you think reverence is the hard part and that all scout leaders are looking to "ambush?" Innocent young scouts." Eagledad, What I think is that a person's faith is impossible for anyone else to judge, unlike how to tie some knot. Faith might seem simple to someone who does not grasp the personal nature of a person's faith but failure to grasp that doesn't thereby make it simple or easy outside that one person's mind. An 'ambush' by asking a scout about a knot is something that has commonality among all scouts. We all know, or have the ability to know what a 'square knot' is. And it is easy to demonstrate that someone knows or doesn't know how to tie it..or what it's use might be. That's merely a skill - some would put it in the realm of (what's that term?) 'scoutcraft'. Comparison of knot-tying to religious faith is, well, ridiculous. The ONLY way reverence becomes easy is when almost any utterance regarding reverence is accepted by the person asking the question. And what, then, does that mean? If 'reverence' is so important that it must be singled out in the requirements, how can almost any answer qualify as satisfying that requirement? If this is the case then BSA at once both emphasizes the importance of one element in the requirements and then minimizes that importance by accepting almost any response to it. What is the point? Why go through this stupid charade in the first place?

Moosetracker, I didn't TAKE IT anywhere except to provide an actual real example of an event that really happened...which illustrated his point. Look closely at what you just wrote. You just admitted that you don't like the change and you think there will be problems. Moreover you have suggested words that boys can use to get around this issue. None of that constitutes support for the change. I think the point is that these scouts shouldn't have to be 'prepped' for this issue in the first place. YOU should not have to offer pat answers that they can memorize in order to 'get around' the issue at a BOR. There shouldn't have to BE a handbook on "How to Survive a Board of Review". H'mmm...Interesting. I think it might be fun to write such a handbook. Anyone up for some intense satire?

We considered it but there was so little interest by the boys that we never got around to it. Perhaps some other time.

OK, from the real world: EBOR, even before this expected change. District guy, "Can you tell us a little about your faith?" Scout, "Yes" District guy, "What is it?" Scout, "I'm a Unitarian Universalist." District guy, "Tell me more about that, does that mean you're Christian?" Scout, "No, we are not Christian?" District guy, "NOT Christian, what does that mean, do you believe in God?" Scout, "I'm not sure I can explain it to you. It depends on what you think God is? We mostly leave those kinds of things up to each person in our faith. Unitarian Universalism is a little complicated that way" This is where the District guy turned to the dark side and pressed on about God and atheism, etc. The Scout was intimidated but in the end he handled it. I was angry about what happened. That scout was awarded Eagle and afterward said he will never think of Scouting in a positive way, ever again. That was a good scout and because of this issue and the way it is left to people who are at risk of prejudice to JUDGE scouts, scouting lost someone who could have been an advocate and a positive force in the future. At best this issue, applied the way it was, just added to the contempt toward scouting. Moreover, I can't blame the boy for feeling the way he did. He was betrayed by the process and it made a strong negative impression on me as well. This, I think, is an example of what Mozartbrau would like to avoid. Me too.

I'm quite aware of objects that are and have been considered by some as Holy. The Toomer's Oaks, for example, at Auburn were the site of all manner of rituals during football worship. And when someone killed them and was caught (they were poisoned by Harvey Updike), he was sentenced among other things, to pay restitution in the amount of $800,000.00. That was some pretty expensive firewood. Some thoughtless person damaged a rock that was/is an object of worship at Clemson University (Howard's Rock) which was nothing more than a chunk of quartzite that you can pick up lots of places around the country for free. The value of the damage to that rock was estimated at over $10,000.00. So there are a couple of idols for the 'Church of Holy Faith in the Football Team': One in the form of a tree and the other an actual rock. I suspect there are other such examples, maybe somewhere there's a Holy Feather of Faith or something. Isn't Mount Rushmore supposedly a holy site for the Lakota? That's a pretty big rock, I'd say. Wonder how much the damage we did to that one is worth?

Wonder how many others like him are out there undiscovered. My favorite line was by Gruber when he was trying to sell some trinket. I'll try to get it right, "...and this isn't that cheap domestic stuff either...look! Made in Japan!" Of course that was before Japan basically kicked our butts in electronics and cameras and cars and.......

I can say with great confidence that discovering for the first time the term 'plop camping' was just wonderful. Thanks. My MB picks for Eagle required: camping first aid cooking wilderness survival (beefed up quite a bit) personal fitness pioneering swimming/cycling/hiking. I would break the others into functional groups and require two from each with the remainder as 'electives'. If they combined all three citizenship badges into a single citizenship badge it wouldn't hurt my feelings.

JC's mom, apologies for all the side tracks. I hope you got what you needed already. So..for those who follow the Baden Powell school, what does Baden Powell say about the Eagle project? Stosh, are you saying there is no leadership component to project management?

If the Power Rangers qualify then all is well. I can feel the noodly touch of the one true higher power as I write, and BSA can count itself safe from those who would minimize the importance of this requirement. Whew!

Stosh, The gift of gab will get him those invitations, lol. My EBOR took all of about 15 minutes. Maybe 20. As I remember it was held on the 5th floor of a bank building and the board consisted of a group of civic and business leaders and executives who were completely unknown to me. My appointment was one of many at a set time on a set date and everyone entered on time and exited on time. I believe it was a council-level EBOR but it might have been a district-level one...I'm not sure about that part. I marched in in full uniform, saluted and stood at attention. They put me at ease and asked maybe 10 short questions. There was absolutely no mention of faith or duty to God. The only question of significance was with regard to what I thought Eagle meant to me. The rest had to do with camping, pioneering, and emergency skills. Sometimes I think the grilling I see boys suffer through has an element of academic-envy or something. But somewhere along the line things changed a lot.

I've seen it happen. This policy change will tend to empower or facilitate those 'yo-yos'.

The elements of the oath are not being questioned here. The TEST of the oath for ONE of those, singled out in this policy change, the most personal element of all, is being questioned. It is the part of the oath that someone other than the person holding a belief can least comprehend. It is the element that offers the greatest opportunity for that SM, as skeptic notes, to intrude as much as he feels his own beliefs might differ from those of the boy and, thus, perhaps even more severely for 'this' boy than for 'that' boy, depending on the 'acceptability' to the SM. At the age of 11-18, duty to country is mostly an abstraction mixed perhaps with evidence provided by service. Physically strong, alert, and moral are a mix of the obvious and abstract but none of those things are as open to intrusion and prejudice as the one topic for which no person can truly know about another...their thoughts and beliefs. I can live with weird. I object strongly to intrusion into personal matters by persons who, except for an advancement policy which specifies the intrusion, have no business making that intrusion. It's not only an intrusion left to the variable, perhaps willful whims of the SM, it is an intrusion by BSA itself.

If this is true, BSA can count on becoming an even smaller niche organization than it is now. I consider this to be a needless intrusion on what should be a boy's or family's privacy regarding a topic that is none of the SM's (or BSA's) business.

I hate to admit it but I still have one lab machine running (get ready for this) DOS 4.2. Another running Windows 3.1. Both have Norton Commander shells to make things a bit easier but...no mice. I have to confess I partially keep these around to creep out the students, lol. But the 3.1 machine still runs my spec. AND unlike probably everyone on these forums, these machines are still just as fast as the day they started their professional life. Edit: It's also kind of cool to show the students that for something like word processing, these old machines are in some ways quicker than the new ones...a lot less code. I have promised myself that I'll keep them until I retire.

Mozart, you committed a good deed. Nice. One of my rules posted on my office door is: There are few things more professionally gratifying to an administrator than to create a new form for people to complete.

OK, some of you superannuated Boy Scouts might benefit from a little deja vu. I was just reading the thread titles when I had a flashback. Do any of you have fond memories of the days when file names could not be longer than 8 characters? Anyone wistfully wishing for the days when we had to convert hexadecimal codes? Look up ASCII commands? I can remember programming my old Z80 processor using machine code, then my 6502, and then later cruising around inside Fortran7, printing with a daisywheel printer because the dot matrix wasn't letter quality, not to mention having to write my own drivers. I don't miss any of it. When I look back on the time spent trying to do what I'm doing right now...from some dumb terminal back then or worse, with data TAPES...I'm quite happy with the ease and convenience of being able to do all kinds of digital things (and I'm not talking about the kind that employs latex gloves), not to mention the luxury of pawing through a new forum like this looking for, let's face it, little inconsistencies or inconveniences so we can complain and have someone else make the 'corrections'. We have indeed come a long way. I'm glad for that. And because of that, I really do appreciate that we have it pretty good right now, even if some button doesn't work just right or perhaps some browser doesn't allow all the functionality....remember the days of Mosaic? On my shelf someplace I still have a machine that runs Netscape, R.I.P. Anyone remember Kermit (not the frog)? I like this forum. Yes, there might be an improvement somewhere. But....I don't have to use keyboard commands and some little star symbols on a B&W text only screen and calculate in my head the dispersion angle and spread of my photon torpedoes to hit those invisible Romulans while attempting to become Commodore Emeritus and not Posthumous. LOL. Perspective is just a wonderful thing.

In cool weather I wear an inexpensive (about $20) leather hat by Minnetonka. It's been all over the world and looks it. An airline pilot once offered to trade (I suspect it was a joke). I declined. I also have several inexpensive (less than $10) straw hats, same style as the leather one, broad brim, that I use in the tropics. They ventilate nicely, keep the sun off, and best of all, they're cheap. One I leave in the Caribbean for my next return. And I travel with a potential replacement, just in case rats have made a nest out of the one I left. They last about 3 years before sun, rain, and travel converts them into compost. Like Stosh, I despise baseball caps. They don't protect against sunburn on the sides of my face and the 'bill' is usually not long enough to do what it's supposed to do either. I have never worn a 'campaign' hat but I do have a pith helmet from who-knows-what source...I can't remember how I got that thing...even worse than the baseball cap. The best hat of all that I have is a Cricket Hat that I picked up on one of the islands. It has a really, really broad brim and it does everything needed quite well. But it's only stylish when standing with the other team members. http://www.worldcricketstore.com/acatalog/Greg_Chappell.html

TwoCub, you handled that dean correctly. Changing the curriculum on a student before he's finished IS breach of contract. The student AND the institution are both supposed to be bound by the requirements of the curriculum year of entry as stated in the catalog of that year. That can be changed, of course, but only by agreement by both parties. You got most of the essence of the rant with the example I described. I advise a few more than 30 students and it's impossible to 'know' each of them with the level of detail that they can for themselves. As for 'tenure', I'm hoping that was tongue-in-cheek. Tenure, in my view is bad and when I was offered it during the hiring process I rejected it. I consider the tenure system to be intellectually bankrupt and ethically suspect. If I ever get to visit you again sometime I'll tell you what I REALLY think about it. Suffice to say, while it might protect a maverick now and then, it also protects a forest of dead wood occupying obscenely-paid, do-practically-nothing administrative positions, occupied by failed academics who have no skills other than to enjoy committee meetings and an ability to create new forms for people to complete. So....was that as good for you as it was for me? Pargolf and Moose, it seems that both of you are successfully exploiting the ultimate source of leverage: money. At age 18, that might be all you have left if the 'adult' child decides to go it alone.

Heh, heh, send them on to me. Here's how the conversation went. I only have one chair in my broom closet...oops, I mean my office. When they walked through the door my first question was, "Which one of you is the student?". When the student identified himself, I asked him, "Why is SHE here?" By that time she had already seated herself and he was leaning against the door frame (no room elsewhere in the office). At that question she had a shocked look on her face and she apologetically explained that she was just making sure that her son understood everything. I looked at him again and responded to him, "You did notice, didn't you, that I asked YOU that question and not her, right?" He was looking a little shocked too, and she was about to protest when I turned to her and asked, "Do I have permission to be just a little stern with your son?" I guess she wasn't expecting that one so she nodded slowly. I told him, "You're over 18." "It's time to cut the umbilical cord." "You are now responsible for your own life and you need to seize that responsibility." I turned to her, "Do you know what FERPA is?" shaking her head silently. "It means that it is illegal for me to discuss this student's status or record in your presence, without his written consent...which I do not have." "Being the parent does not alter this." "Please wait outside while I meet with your son." She slinked into the hallway and as he took the nice warm seat, I closed the door and then we had an advising meeting. The young man has since taken an active role in his plans. He's asking the right questions and I think he'll do fine. Perhaps in time, Mom will also realize the favor I did them.

Mgood777, I don't know of a single brick-and-mortar institution that does not have significant, sometimes rigid, structure to their degree programs. There is usually some level of 'elective' involvement but as someone else mentioned, there is often a 'core' of instruction that nearly all students must complete successfully. [Advising rant deleted] Edit: Just realized that you're over 40 years old (based on your other post) so you're way beyond these students, certainly beyond (for example) my recent meeting with a student and his mom...they both left with a whole different outlook on things - his was about personal responsibility, hers was about FERPA. I wish you the best of success.

Merit Badge...what was that term now?....'college'?

It's the same in college. I often hear faculty and administrators alike expressing the wish that a degree was merely earned as a certain number of credit hours and that students could fill those credits with any courses they wanted to. Nearly everyone agrees that without that structure the degree would be far more useful and meaningful than it is...and that there is no one in a better position to judge what courses ought to be taken than the students who haven't taken them. NOT

I know of several very successful troops whose SM is unmarried and without children. This is not common but these individuals seem to be well-known and well-liked enough that the community entrusts their boys those troops. You'll probably get your first negative comments when you move toward a boy-led, outdoor-oriented program, lol.