TAHAWK

Once again, I edited a post and when I tried to save changes, the post disappeared. Clearly, there is a defect in the software.

Post failed to appear due to defect in software.

NJCS, you are absolutely correct. It should not be necessary to read the official training materials to find out what BSA means by "animal." For some years, BSA has had a problem expressing itself clearly. Many examples have been brought up. This is just one more example. It's a shame since volunteers would happily help BSA produce clearly-written statements at no cost.

Again, the official BSA training syllabus on the animal ID requirement says: "birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, amphibians, invertebrates (insects, spiders, crustaceans, snails, clams, oysters, mussels, squids)." [punctuation as in original] We only have White-Tailed Deer. Would "bird" be enough? "Snake"? "Worm"?

"BP in "Scouting for Boys" simply said 6 to 8 boys. BP said patrols choose their own leader; not assigned. No discussion about age. That's it." B-P's Patrol System had the patrol leader "chosen" by the "officer" (Scoutmaster). Scouting for Boys, Part I at pp.20 and 35. See also, Roland Phillips, The Patrol System and Letters to a Patrol Leader, C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd.,(1916), forward by Lord Baden-Powell, Chief Scout., at pp. 6-7. We, of course, supposedly use Bill's Patrol Method. in which the Patrol Leader is elected, merely an option when BSA began.

Making it a game is almost always a winner. As to your last input, that's why I asked about "kinds." Requirement: "Identify or show evidence of at least 10 kinds of animals." Around here, birds seem to be the lion's share of what is seen, especially for the Scouts who can ID them by call. Male Cardinals seem almost too easy.

You have Velvet Ants?! Very cool.

The number of Eagles, 1% when I Eagled, and 6 or 7% now, depending on which BSA statement one reads, is not a measure of the success of Scouting. BSA tries to use the number of Eagles as a surrogate for measuring whether the goals of Scouting are being reached, but it's pretty inexact -- unless you think BSA is 6-7 times as good at turning out good, civic-minded, fit adults as it was in the 1950's. And arbitrarily assigning Scouts to patrols is the opposite of the Patrol Method - a small group of friends. Bill specifically warned against it: "In a Troop in which the boys are shuffled together at frequent intervals and dealt out into new Patrols according to the whim of the Scoutmaster, there obviously can be little opportunity for the development of Patrol morale and Patrol traditions.†Someone at BSA gets it: "â€they self-select and they are friends….â€

The training syllabus from BSA also lists "insects," "invertebrates," "crustaceans," and "amphibians." That's good enough for me. When BSA itself creates an ambiguity, I resolve it in favor of the Scouts every time. Regarding what "identify" means, please address this, gang: The Scout out in the woods says he clear saw a Goldfinch. He can describe the bird's appearance and can even describe its distinctive flight pattern. He tells this to whoever is authorized to sign him off. Should he be signed-off? The "evidence" option is easy, as is the plant ID (He can lead you up to the plant and point.) It's only the animal ID where I am being questioned.

I sought official guidance for my question and found none. I know how I think this is to be done, but I solicit your input on how you think it should be done. Second Class Requirement 6 says, "Identify or show evidence of at least 10 kinds of wild animals ... found in your community." What do you believe the Scout should have to do to "identify" a "wild animal" for purposes of this requirement? What is a "kind" of "wild animal"? Thank you.

And I agree that the PLC is not to act in a dictatorial manner and that patrols are supposed to be allowed to go their own way most of the time. If you truly believe that the patrol should never compromise and go along with what the majority believes, one solution is independent patrols. If we can have Lone Scouts, why not Lone Patrols? I have argued here for small troops being operated as a patrol. Were the choice between troop-method and independent patrols, I would opt for independent patrols. I am not so discouraged as to believe that those are the only choices. I have also argued here that even when the numbers are those of a troop the patrols might meet separately from the troop for a couple of months to help insure the patrol "identity" that traditional Scouting advocates when the patrols finally come together for troop programming. However, if a patrol in a troop is given a veto power over troop program, that situation is inconsistent with traditional Scouting. It would not teach the give-and-take, the cooperation, that seems rather essential to our society. I have quoted Bill's words above. He is against your proposal. He sees a patrol with its own identity that, nevertheless, is part of a wider community and has a duty to support the troop programming that is democratically selected. As for BP, he wrote: "It is the Patrol System that makes the Troop, and all Scouting for that matter, a real co-operative matter."

Implying that I see the patrol as an "administrative subdivision" of a troop is a classic example of the "straw-man argument": accuse your opponent of making an indefensible argument that he never made and then shot down that argument. We know what BP meant from what he wrote. Ditto for Bill. Whether BSA means what they say is open to legitimate debate given its institutional conduct, but we know what they say. None of them said what you have said - not remotely.

"Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.â€

One of our council WB chiefs likes to say "Change is Good." In Cleveland, at least, we have "Green Flight." Almost everyone with enough "green," leaves Cleveland (And East Cleveland). Those left behind are fewer and fewer, poorer and poorer, and less and less possessed of marketable skills. Without knowing, I suspect the same is going on elsewhere. The outwardly mobile leave behind abandoned houses and churches they may - may - visit on Sunday, the latter surrounded by high fences topped with razor wire and heavily alarmed. (There was one such church east of the Scout Service Center, and the alarms were constantly going off. Then it burned to the ground.)

You mention "the goal of the patrol method." Yet I know that you know that the Patrol Method is a method to achieve Scouting's goals. Its designed effects are the Aims of Scouting, at least according to BSA. I think you set up a false dichotomy: either all patrol or all troop. The traditional Patrol Method is mostly patrol and some troop. (What is happening in practice is almost all troop and hardly any patrol in the context of episodic, disconnected and incomplete training in the Patrol Method for the adults and little training in that method for the leaders. Combine that with BSA's toleration of adults who ignore Boy Scouting, and we get hat we have.) Whether you chose to believe it or not , as Bill defined the traditional Patrol method, the troop also has goals and activities, and the patrol -- in so many words - is supposed to be a "loyal" part of the troop and the troop's program. "But no Patrol exists for and by itself alone. In addition to its life as an individual unit, each Patrol plays its part in the larger life of the Troop..... Your Patrol can never have real Pat rol Spirit unless it also has a genuine Troop Spirit and an eagerness to help the Troop make a good showing in whatever it undertakes, devotion to Troop ideals, and loyalty to Troop leaders. There are two things that will make this kind of spirit a reality: 1. Your own wholehearted help in the leadership of the Troop. 2. Your Patrol's enthusiastic participation in Troop activities. The first involves your membership in the Patrol Leaders' Council, the second your Patrol's part in making Troop meetings, hikes and camps successful." William Hillcourt, Handbook for Patrol Leaders, Boy Scouts of America (1950) at pp. 27-28. In fact, Bill wrote about troop activities in every significant book he authored on the topic of patrols, troops, patrol leaders, and Scoutmasters. Under your proposed modification of traditional Scouting, he would only have written about patrol activities. For the traditional Patrol Method to work, the patrol has to balance it's goals and its duty of loyalty to the troop for the minority of program time devoted to troop activities. That arrangement is consistent with our representative democracy, a system that the boys are supposed to learn through the Patrol Method. But you say you don't buy it, and, as I said, you might have a better idea. I think Bill had better ideas, at least for the U.S.A., than BP is some respects, like electing the leaders. Of course, more samples of your method and more samples of The BSA Patrol Method would help the comparison. We have one of the first and too few of the second and a hard time getting more. If you don't see a difference between coercion and convincing, OK. It does make communication harder when you understand and use words in idiosyncratic ways. ""The object of a camp is (a) to meet the boy's desire for the open-air life of the Scout, and (b) to put him completely in the hands of his Scoutmaster for a definite period for training in character and initiative and in physical and moral development." BP

You have nothing, as I knew would be the case. Stop appealing to non-existent authority and try to make your case that BP, Bill and a century of traditional Scouting are wrong. It is at least possible. Perhaps it would be better if the purpose of Scouting was to 'move though space" instead of all this other traditional stuff about citizenship, character, democracy, and values - not to mention BP's fixation with vocational training. Anything as old as traditional Boy Scouting is certainly due for a review. Scouting for the Twenty-First Century - Moving From Place to Place. Go for it.

I didn't say anything about coercion, Stosh. And if you think convincing is inconsistent with the Patrol Method, I suppose it's your right to be wrong. One definition of leadership is the ability to convince the led that they to want to reach the goal(s) Of course the PLC should decide in the best interest of the troop as they see it. That has been the idea since Bill got us into the Patrol Method over Darth West's resistance. And if you support the Patrol method, as defined by Bill, the PLC deciding on troop program is part and parcel of it. Or you can make up your own version of Scouting. So many others have. It may be better. Change can be good. Let's just be clear on what's going on. Like Lincoln at the cabinet meeting when he called for a vote and his "Aye' was outvoted by eight "nays." "The aye has it," he announced.

Previous post failed due to software error. As to your first question, I suspect you are troubled by what is DONE rather than the words. The words are perfectly clear. The boys are to do all the program planning and all the program leading. As to a conflict between the PLC and a single patrol, managing conflict was once cogently addressed in the third version of Wood Badge in, surprise!, "Managing Conflict." Blanchard wrote, in effect, that being directive leads to Scouts leaving. Consensus is the goal and the PLC's job, directly and especially through the PLs, is to convince the Scouts to support the program. Where did that language go? It disappeared when BSA had less than fully-incompetent people rewrite the Blanchard syllabus. Think of hiring someone to translate the Latin Mass into Greek who speaks neither Latin nor Greek and is a Baptist. I have never heard of a choice between high adventure and summer camp. I have seen high adventure replace summer camp I have regularly seen older Scouts do HA and not so summer camp. Any PLC ordering Scouts to go to any activity is evidence of a SM who has failed in his first duty after health and safety - training the troop's leaders. "Patrolling" Says who? Besides a couple of members on this forum, who? "Adult Association" is use by BSA to mean adults exhibiting to the Scouts behavior that conforms to Scouting values. Period. It is certainly not "patrolling," whatever that means in this forum. My problem with BSA is not the words. They are very clear. BSA says "boy-run" means the boys plan all the program and the boys lead all the program. If that's what you mean by "pickle-run," it's fine with me and consistent with BSA's words. As for BSA "showing it's hand" by calling adults "leaders," which I too think is unfortunate, Bill called them "leaders" and BP called them "leaders" or "officers," as in the officer appoints the patrol leaders. The problem is not words. The problem is behavior. What is BSA doing to give effect to their very clear words? Almost nothing, but I put that down to competence issues, not conspiracy. Matt, there has not been a complete description of the Patrol Method by BSA in decades. But try to be accurate. Information from members, including me, is not a primary source material. You need to know, not guess or jump to conclusions. Not a single leading spokesman for Scouting, including Bill or BP, ever said in any existing writing that the purpose of Scouting was adventure in the outdoors or that adventure in the outdoors was the primary benefit of the Patrol Method. They did speak to the purposes of Scouting and the benefits of the Patrol method at great length. What they said is consistent with BSA's words, if not its actions in making those words into reality. Read. Again, "Adult Association" means nothing other than adults as models of Scouting values. Fairly concise Adult Association is only tangentially related to the Patrol Method in the sense that adults in Scouting who do not support the Patrol method are not "Trustworthy" because they are failing to support the promised Patrol Method. BP told folks who could not, in good conscience, support Scouting policy to leave.

I typed a post. I clicked on Post. Only this appeared: "Posted Today, 07:07 PM" What I posted was gone. This has happened three times. I tried to reenter with "edit" to see if I could recapture what I typed. I got a popup " You do not have permission for this action. So better than the old software but still screwed-up.

Tell me again where the purpose of a patrol is to patrol. I am having trouble finding it except in the forum in certain member's posts. Then we can compare that source with what BP and Bill said.

As Blanchard said in his version of the WB syllabus (before it was rewritten to evade royalties), being directive in a volunteer organization is not good tactics. As in all Scout program, it's up to the PLC to convince the Scouts that they want to support the program that the PLC hopes to schedule. The vote with their feet. And, in every troop I know of, HA is in addition to Summer Camp.

The Patrol Method includes boy-leadership and boy-leadership is just one part of the method. If one understands that the Patrol Method is merely "boy-led" - or if one thinks it is a separate goal -- you don't get the method. Many adults, not having much of a clue, think there is a method called "the boy-led troop," put the SPL in charge (often as a defacto Platoon Sgt.), and pat themselves on the back. "One down. We have a boy-led troop." The eight "methods" of the BSA are supposed to be, collectively, the primary means by which the promise of Scouting is delivered. The Patrol Method has been said over and over to be the most important of the eight. It would be good to get that one method squared away before going on to Scouting as a whole. We're not doing super on the other seven, either. Primarily, the patrol is responsible for planning its program and carrying it out as a team (A nice label, "team." Like "group of friends" it has implications that Scout-aged boys can easily understand - at least as a concept.) The patrol is also responsible to do it's share of troop activities as those activities are planned by the PLC. (If the league [troop] scheduling committee [PLC] schedules your team to play the Rockets on Saturday at 10:00 AM, you show up and play. Not hard to grasp.) If you put eight boys in a field with a Frisbee, they are highly unlikely to wait for adults. It's adults who introduce complexity too soon. Start at the top of the mountain and it's intimidating. If they can't do "it" themselves, they have been presented with the wrong "it." Start simple and it's not hard at all. The PL's job is adequately defined in existing literature that no one seems to bother to read. He is the leading member of a team, and the team has it's own "season" to play. Say, "The Patrol Leader acts as the chairman of his patrol and leads them in selecting and planning separate patrol activities. Scouts are to spend the vast majority of their time functioning as a patrol. Participating in a troop activity is to be the exception." Watch the reaction of the typical adult. Shock. Disbelief. No one is telling them that. Yet it is in current BSA literature. “[The patrol members] interact in a small group outside the larger troop context, working together as a team and sharing the responsibility of making their patrol a success.†“It’s the place where boys learn skills together, take on leadership responsibilities, perhaps for the first time . . . . “ "Patrols will sometimes join with other patrols to learn skills and complete advancement requirements. †“At other times they will compete against those same patrols in Scout skills and athletic competitions.†[emphasis added] You statement of the SPL's responsibility is extremely helpful. Don't need an SPL sometimes? When do you really need a troop? Not at the start or at the restart.

I have not done a through study. Shot OR kill intruder gets about 7.5 million hits on Google. The two cases of home owners shooting intruders that appear to have received the most publicity in the last year or so were older White guys shooting young White people and being convicted by local juries of murder. (The May 16th Mississippi case of the doctor shooting the intruder who had then kidnapped the doctor [to make an ATM withdrawal] is not being given a racial angle so far as I can see. Reports do not mention the "race" of the two criminals or the doctor.) The deaths that involve "race" getting attention recently are, famously, White or African-American police shooting Hispanics or, especially, allegedly killing African-Americans. Very few media stories on killing of African-Americans by law enforcement personnel mention that such shootings are relatively (not absolutely) minor in number compared to the far, far more typical shootings , stabbings, and beatings of African-Americans. One might ask why those deaths seem less important to the media. The victims are just as dead and the personal tragedies are, or ought to be, just as profound. While coverage of violence may be driven in part by the narratives supported by respective media, it is probably driven as well, or even more so, by the historic tendency of the media to go for the sensational, whatever the consequences.

Not sure about the numbers for adult participation around here. The focus has been on the loss of youth. The issuance of awards to adults in my councils has steadily declined over the last twenty-five. The two Scout shops combined sell less than ten Scouter's Key or Scouter's Training Awards medals per year. I am repeatedly told by Scouters on the respective committees that have to beg for nominations for DAM and SB. My two districts have no one responsible for adult recognition as was once the practice. (But one has no training chair or roundtable commissioners, so .....) The only training on recognition of adults is in the "other" category at universities of Scouting or the like. I did it once, and the seventeen participants seems amazed at the list of possible awards. None complained about the just-announced elimination of four Cub adult awards, thoughtful the majority were Cubbers,

And some argue that there is a hole in the bottom of the glass and it will soon be entirely empty.