-
Posts
4183 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
61
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Articles
Store
Everything posted by TAHAWK
-
VOTE; IF YOU DO NOT, PLEASE RESTRAIN YOURSELF FROM COMPLAINING.
TAHAWK replied to skeptic's topic in Issues & Politics
Would cBS hire him today? http://www.cbsnews.com/news/andy-rooney-dont-vote/ -
21st Century Wood Badge a Thing of the Past
TAHAWK replied to LeCastor's topic in Wood Badge and adult leader training
It is hard enough trying to find the accurate history of BSA WB, much less the UK. Scouting has never given a high priority to history. Too much paperwork. Then there is the creation of myths by ignorance or deliberate error, just to make things harder. Actually, given the real meaning or "working your ticket," (forget the myth) no one has a clue what the words were originally meant to convey. -
Guide to Safe Scouting and wading in the Ocean
TAHAWK replied to ddubois's topic in Open Discussion - Program
OR See how BSA has become nimble enough to bar undesirable activities that are still possible. (I have seen beer served after the participants left Weekend 1 of Wood Badge, so there is clearly no essential connection between rules and behavior.) Last study that I can find - 32 Boy Scouting fatalities: -
1987 Hillcourt "Experimental" Course
TAHAWK replied to TAHAWK's topic in Wood Badge and adult leader training
Eight days. 20 hours/day. -
A DE with two year's service in my council would be the senior DE in the council. As a District Chairman, I once had three DE's in eleven days. One quit before her first scheduled day on the job.
-
21st Century Wood Badge a Thing of the Past
TAHAWK replied to LeCastor's topic in Wood Badge and adult leader training
The "Gilwell Song" originated contemporaneously with the first course. The ticket originated contemporaneously with Wood Badge. The ideas that the goals of the application phase should be measurable is as old at the first version of BSA Wood Badge. A sixteen-page form to fill out is a trivial burden in our bureaucratic age. An issue with Wood Badge is the failure of the "participants" to offer Boy Scouting to Scouts. The Ticket is a modest effort to have them actually apply what is taught. Be happy you are not filling out the many pages of the test on theory that was required in BSA WB 1. Personally, I think it's a shame BSA eliminated it over forty years ago. Leadership While I see opportunities to greatly improve Wood Badge, Scouting - all over the world - has recognized the value of leadership training for adults and youth from BP to date. ​While the aims of Scouting are about youth, it seems totally appropriate for BSA to try and train adults in leadership skills so that they can lead Boy Scout troops and other Scouting units and levels in pursuit of Scouting's aims.. If you mean to attempt to distinguish between skills to lead youth and skills to lead adults, this forum is full of threads that illustrate the need for Scouters to lead other adults. Participants are supposed to come to WB with a good understanding of Scouting aims and methods, While I think that supposition is more along the lines of a pious hope than reality, leadership training is (imperfectly) based on those aims and methods. In the original WB in the UK, the learner came to WB after passing a detailed test on the aims, methods, and principles of Scouting. In WB1, BSA delayed that test until after the practical course and then totally did away with it by WB 2. -
VOTE; IF YOU DO NOT, PLEASE RESTRAIN YOURSELF FROM COMPLAINING.
TAHAWK replied to skeptic's topic in Issues & Politics
Ah yes. "moderate" "compromise." I think a moderate decrease in government spending would be a fine compromise. Not a decrease in the rate of increase - a decrease in spending. - every year until we get back to the level at the end of Carter's term. I hate to tell Scouts what the adults are doing for their future with the ever-increasing debt. http://www.usdebtclock.org/ -
1987 Hillcourt "Experimental" Course
TAHAWK replied to TAHAWK's topic in Wood Badge and adult leader training
I have written to the host council, Miami Valley, and to Wood Badge staffers ion the area. My source has found the prize the Beavers won for fire-building - a six-foot x 4" replica of a strike anywhere match. This reminded him that there were patrol contests in almost all the Scoutcraft topics. -
21st Century Wood Badge a Thing of the Past
TAHAWK replied to LeCastor's topic in Wood Badge and adult leader training
Where did you get the information that the "original WB" did not use tickets, whatever you mean by "original"? -
I have located a gentleman who attended the "experimental" course hosted by the Miami Valley Council (Dayton, Ohio) in 1987. He is a seasoned Scouter and his memory is not super, but he is looking for the papers he has from the course. It was a throwback - all Scoutcraft. My informant recalls that Bill said there would be other such courses, but that does not seem to have happened. Perhaps he was thinking with his heart. A Google search turns up no information at all. It is not mentioned in the official history of Wood Badge. (But, then, the BSA histories of Scouting tend to say it started in the U.S. in 1910.) Bill was the Scoutmaster. It was a a week-long course - seven-day schedule. My informant recalls that the SPL was rather military, to much so in his recollection. 0___0 I will post more if and when I discover more.
-
Bingo ! The customers will tell you if you are supplying a product that they want to buy. Slap-dash sessions only make low attendance lower. Unthinking sloganeering is not a substitute for quality planning.
-
21st Century Wood Badge a Thing of the Past
TAHAWK replied to LeCastor's topic in Wood Badge and adult leader training
I recognize that my view is strongly shaped by Scouting experience as a Scout and a Scouter at a time and in a place where the Patrol Method was both understood and understood to be absolutely required --- where peer and organization pressure was brought to bear on any Scouter who did not "get it." In fact, Scoutmasters who failed to "get it" were replaced, one way or another. That was also a time when adult help was more available, so there was less pressure on BSA to tolerate violation of the rules of Boy Scouting. I believe that while knowledge without experience is only information, good training can help both inform adults and persuade them to try to do it the Scouting way -- to get the experience. To that end, it would help if the training every adults is supposed to get - "basic training" - actually presented what the Patrol Method is supposed to be. The current syllabus, being used again this Fall, is not only boring but utterly fails to state what this "Patrol Method" thing is supposed to consist of. The section entitled "Working with Youth - the Patrol Method" lacks a single sentence on the Patrol Method. Instead, much is assumed and what is explicit is scattered through other parts of the syllabus. The syllabus should have been replaced by an improved syllabus (already in draft form), but that was not a high enough priority for the Corporation. So we have modified the syllabus. As per the old Trainer's Creed, we deliver the message BSA "intended" as we find it in BSA publications. (Interesting word, "use.") SR, my point is that when adults see adults planning and leading in WB they may only see adults planning and leading. The only evidence given that youth can lead is the Venturers role in the group-forming session of WB3, and I know from talking to participants that many do not get the lesson. (Beaded WB'r three years post course: "Maybe your troop can be run by kids, but not the troop of idiots I have." ) When we fail to clearly communicate because "everyone knows" we may ignore the reality that not everyone actually knows. Not to mention the lack of the "absolutely required" message. WB could be, and should be, much more explicit. The participants should be told what makes up the Patrol Method, that it is required, and that they should not be Scouters if they are unwilling to fully support the Patrol Method. Instead, one of "my" districts has a Scoutmaster of the Year for 2011 who, when given that award, had not allowed a PLC meeting in twelve years and whose "patrol members" could not say which "patrol" they had been assigned to.. Add the fact that many WB participants have little or no experience with Scouting and may not have completed basic training, and the results obtained are not surprising - a majority of troops in my two councils with beaded SM's that do not remotely offer Boy Scouting. BSA wants to meet its goals. OK But I wish BSA could be convinced that strong Boy Scouts troops are critical to meeting its goals. "If the Patrol Method were important, BSA could ........................." -
No one is "trolling." Google is your friend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet) To be an agent of change you need to be able to deal with the reality that not every single person will always agree with you. It is also helpful to consider that they may be right on occasion. It is hard to change things, for good or ill, from the SA position. But there is no reason you cannot present the SM and SPL with the CO, Council, and District calendars with the comment that the information is supplied to help prevent conflicts and allow planning. If there is a problem with fund-raising and budgeting, that is a Committee job. It is expected that adults will be resources for the leaders. Once the Scouts have skills, it is expected that they will teach, but the chain of learning has to start with someone who has or gets the information. EDGE is for adults too (Although they often have a problem with the final "E.") Matt's suggestion of a leadership outing is great. Every unit I have been registered with had a weekend of fun, some training, and planning. The deliberate inclusion of fun as an objective helped create success. A weekend allowed time to start planning with a brain-storming discussion of objectives that the leaders saw as important so that goals could drive planning. Compare: 1. Learn the knot because [i think] you should 2. Learn the knot to advance. 3. Learn the knot so you can build your shelter for the Wilderness Survival Campout. Which most fits the notion of Scouting as a game? Which is likely to be more attractive to a kid? Sounds like everyone needs to be trained, starting with the adults. That allows a common understanding of the "rules of the game."
-
21st Century Wood Badge a Thing of the Past
TAHAWK replied to LeCastor's topic in Wood Badge and adult leader training
Stosh, you cannot find in a single list/page/chapter of current BSA publications a statement as to what constitutes the Patrol Method. Oh the pieces are all there somewhere, scattered throughout BSA's words - if you know what those pieces mean, And someone like you sees the implications of what you see, even when it is not clearly spelled out. But for the new parent who thinks like parents typically think? Or for the long-serving leader who thinks it's all options that he or she can use or ignore? "what BSA is teaching"? You teach what the learner understands you to be teaching. Your behavior speaks louder than words. At best, BSA has been doing a weak job of teaching the Patrol Method to adults. You point out some of the unhelpful things that are done and said. How about the statement that patrols "may" -- MAY -- have their own activities BUT must follow this rule: The patrol activity does not interfere with any troop function." How about awards to adults well known to refuse to use the Patrol Method? (Such a person became a Silver Buffalo from our Council last year. We know him as the great advocate for adult leadership.) How about putting such adults in district and council leadership positions? What many see BSA to be teaching is NOT that the Patrol Method is a mandatory, and the most important, method of Scouting. You, Stosh, can finish this sentence: "If the Patrol Method were important, BSA would . . . . ." Can BSA, as a corporation, finish the sentence? Will it do so? It would be a shame to fail without really trying to see if Scouting can flourish. -
21st Century Wood Badge a Thing of the Past
TAHAWK replied to LeCastor's topic in Wood Badge and adult leader training
Stosh, don't we all agree that getting the trainees to actually use what they are taught has always been an issue? (Surely "Driver's Training" does not teach what we all see every day on the roads.) Kids are not born care-givers. Me !!! Now !!! That is how it starts. We all recall with pleasure the leader who took care of his "troops" - was the last whose tent was up, the last to eat, lightened the load of the tiny patrol member. That was once simply called "a god leader." Now we have another label. But if we do not teach the correct behavior - for adults in this instance - we have little grounds to be disappointed when they are not up to the mark. What does BSA do to encourage serving adults to behave? How do we recognize the unit using the Patrol Method - or those that do not? I know Journey to Excellence has some of that in there, but should be explicit and essential to any level of recognition. -
"mentor" "leader"
-
21st Century Wood Badge a Thing of the Past
TAHAWK replied to LeCastor's topic in Wood Badge and adult leader training
-
​I think I repeat the substance of what many others have said over the years. Scouting, for boys, is a boy-led game. Safety aside, our job as adults is to try our best to give the leaders what they need in order to lead well - techniques , insights, and skills. We also expose them to possibilities that they have not experienced. How well, or how unsuccessfully, we do our job is reflected in how well they lead over time. If the leaders lack the skills, you teach them. You do not take over as leader. "We," Scouting, expect the newly crossed-over Scouts to do what the other Scouts are supposed to do: elect their Patrol Leader. That leader will then be taught, coached, and counseled by older heads. This system is based on the insight of Scouting (and most other organizations) that people learn to lead, in substantial part, by the experience of leading. To the extent that you prevent leaders from leading, they will take longer to learn the skills and art of leadership. So if you are "waiting until they can," you are interfering with the process. You are really "waiting until you can." Some adults never can. If the newbie is joining an established patrol, things will be different. There is already a leader. Or that is what is supposed to be going on. Ten kids on a basketball court with a ball do not sit and wait for someone more experienced to come along and lead them. They play. That is natural. Adults allowing the natural leaders to lead is apparently an unnatural behavior. Adults seem to instinctively think it's about the results - the well-oiled machine.. Those who created Scouting know its about the journey. Let them play. They joined to have fun, not to meet adult expectations. ____________________________________________ "Little League Coach pitches Parma Giants to regional championship. 'I had to take the ball. None of the kids could find the plate.'"
-
Have you heard of a Scout Patrol that doesn't like to camp?
TAHAWK replied to LeCastor's topic in Working with Kids
Wilderness Survival ---------------------------------- > Wilderness Survival event. -
NE Ohio has about 200 days a year with no sun. Not what I was used to in Cal. 0___0 My brief experience in Seattle was weird. No rain in July. Rain every day but one in August. Rain 27 days in September. I fled back to Ohio before I died of mildew. And those slugs !!!!
-
Who, other than your honorable self, regards down as the "insulation of choice"? Yes, the "kid factor" is there, but this is a Scouting forum. Polyester is hydrophobic and dries readily. While it is less effective when wet, it does not collapse like down. Down absorbs water and is very difficult to dry. California may present a lesser problem. You may be able to dry the bag in the sun during the day. Here in the midwest, we often do not see the sun at all for a week or more. Seattle? Forget it. If the down bag has insulation value well in excess of what is required, you may still sleep sufficiently warm despite the inevitable loss to moisture.
-
By defining success. By training. By controlling who is available/qualified to be a SE.
-
17.6 F