TAHAWK

AIDS to SCOUTMASTERSHIP - original 1920 pamphlet. Can use zoom to easily read it even with my old eyes. Can be printed. https://issuu.com/scoutingireland/docs/aidstoscoutmaster "SCOUTING IS A GAME for boys, under the leadership of boys, in which elder brothers can give their younger brothers healthy environment and encourage them to healthy activities such as will help them to develop CITIZENSHIP [emphasis in original].”

"Here, then, is Scouting in a nutshell: A game for boys under the leadership of boys with the wise guidance and counsel of a grown-up who has still the enthusiasm of youth in him. A purposeful game, but a game just the same, a game that develops character by practice, that trains for citizenship--through experience in the out-of-doors [emphasis in the original]." William Hillcourt, Handbook for Scoutmasters, 3rd Ed (1936)[two volumes] This was Bill's evocation of B-P's statement in Aids to Scoutmastership (1945 ed): "SCOUTING IS A GAME for boys, under the leadership of boys, in which elder brothers can give their younger brothers healthy environment and encourage them to healthy activities such as will help them to develop CITIZENSHIP [emphasis in the original]." These wise words have been edited by BSA into: "“Scouting is a game for boys under the leadership of boys under the direction of a man.” And from this, much flows. We could still try Boy Scouting.

Our Venturers on staff in 2008, 2009, and 2017 absolutely stunned the participants. We didn't have to raise a finger. The best lesson they ever saw about the youth leadership aspect of the Patrol Method.

The typical Scouter is put off by being taught by Scouts. BSA appropriately added junior staff to Wood Badge, an experiment tried in 1959. See it; believe it.

Don' hasta' be live music.

1. Scoutcraft through First Class - eight continuous, full days. 2. 1 Leadership Skills in the context of outdoor program, with learners tenting out over eight, continuous full days. (Modified to "weekend" course of six days 3. More abstract leadership course with five minutes of Scoutcraft (how to light a backpacking stove), often by staff who don't know how to light the stove. 5 days. "Since its inception, Boy Scouting has relied heavily on an outdoor program to achieve its objectives. This program meets more of the purposes of Scouting than any other single feature." B.S.A., Guide to Safe Scouting (2018) at p. 47.

Every Scout deserves his moment in the sun - alone. It may be brief, but it's not a cattle call. Efficiency is not a goal when we are doing recognition. Mom and Dad should be able, at a minimum, to snap a picture or two. Yes? Limit the time for announcements. Enforce the time limits, politely, to be sure. Music? . Suggest handouts; you can cite the need to be sure everyone gets the dates/times/details accurately. Slides sounds great!. Either handout or slides forces them to think about their message in advance vs. rambling on.

The is no process in place to "pull" Wood Badge staff "from those Scoutmasters that really understand the program." So it does nor happen. There should be.

Boy-led is one aspects of the Patrol Method. It is not, in itself, a method, although some at BSA clearly do not get it. Hence: "Patrols are one component of what we call youth-run, or youth-led, troop." Scouting.org, "Orientation for New Scout Parents," by Clueless ["we"] (2018). With the time allocated these days, there is no time to get from abstract to concrete - barely time to read the abstractions.

If the adult is only willing to commit half a day, he or she will not complete basic training as it includes many more (but not nearly enough) hours of IOLS. BSA is strongly encouraging doing the training as a single, combined S24/S11 course, which is more interesting that the 'school learning" done alone. But if it were an interactive discussion, led by competent people, it need not be boring. Given the time, the topics cannot be covered that way. So necessarily boring. So less time = more boring. The right questions and hints usually get the answers from someone in the class. I have staffed many courses where the trainees elected to remain after official closing time to further discuss - sometimes for hours. That is my standard as a course director for whether we have succeeded. If training is boring, cut training. If meals are boring, cut meals? Imagine better meals instead. 1/3 of all Wood Badge staff are primarily selected by BSA decree based on a factor other than competence; namely, total lack of experience staffing Wood Badge. Course Directors, who should be highly competent, are not allowed to ever hold a significant staff position again, unless that has changed recently. Just nuts. Have a question about internal inconsistency or vagaries in the syllabus? Not allowed to have such questions. Regarded as poor form. Holy writ may not be questioned, even if they wouldn't understand Tuckman's conclusions if they hit them between the eyes. ("I am told these four steps always occur and always in a given order. Tuckman [laughing gently]: "You must be with Scouting.") Suggestions for change? Go away. .

Absolutely correct. The Course Directors around here kept assigning it as a session (mainly to me ) until last Spring. Then the last holdout, in what is now Great Train Council, gave up. Lake Erie Council had stopped in 2013. Silly volunteers thinking safety is important. No one can say the BSA materials and time allocated are inadequate now, but I would rather defend adequacy in court than totally ignoring the topic.

Compare: "A patrol is a group of friends" Boy Scouting.

Really, Colonel? An interative diuscussion on the Patrol Method + cover the syllabus in 35 minutes? All woods tools and each trainee applying the skills, all in, efffectively, fifty minutes? Woods Badge, when I first was "junior staff," was T-F Scoutcraft in eight continuous16hr+ days. Now we have twenty-two hours if we are lucky. Eighteen hours at summer camp version. As for the rest. +100 A

Thank you for your service. I too have some experience with Scoutmaster training and Wood Badge, both starting in 1959. Start with this: understanding the Patrol Method is not even a learning objective of Scoutmaster basic training per the current syllabus. It should be THE objective. To avoid a wall of text comparing BSA training syllabus contents to more authoritative BSA statements on the Patrol Method over the years and today, please consider this: for fourteen years, until late Summer 2014, the section of the Scoutmaster Specific syllabus entitled "Working with Youth, the Patrol Method" lacked a single sentence correctly describing the Patrol Method. In fact, the word "patrol," appeared exactly once. Staff, then sworn to present the message BSA "intends," might have compensated. I surely did. (I am always happy to learn more if you could cite language to the contrary.) Now, we are sworn as trainers to "use" the syllabus. ("For what," one asks. )The current syllabus, sadly, is only fractionally better than what it replaced because it reinforces the incorrect idea that the troop is where everything of worth happens. The syllabus does say, "Scouting happens in the context of a patrol,” then contradicts that defining concept in almost everything else it says. Just look at the model troop meeting plan - a few minutes for a patrol "business" meeting and the vast bulk of time "troop," "troop," "troop." Even Scoutcraft instruction is shown on the troop level. Compare that to these words: "[The patrol is] the place where boys learn skills together, take on leadership responsibilities, perhaps for the first time . . . . ” B.S.A. Scouting.org., (2018) “Patrols will sometimes join with other patrols to learn skills and complete advancement requirements.” B.S.A., Scouting.org (2018)[emphasis added] Does the syllabus even mention that Scouts, not adults, are to be the primary Scoutcraft teachers? No. And where is the training on planning patrol program, where "scouting happens"? ZIp. Nada. Zero.v Troop, troop, troop. The present syllabus falls FAR short of coherently presenting a correct view of BSA's statements since 1929 and to this date to the effect that Boy Scouting is patrol scouting, not troop Scouting. "A patrol is that small group of boys and friends under their own leadership who plan and carry out troop and patrol meetings and activities. It is the basic organizational unit of a Scout troop. Boy Scouts of America, Scoutmaster Handbook, 1998 ed., 2010 printing, Chapter 4, "The Boy-Led Patrol" "Unless the patrol method is in operation, you don’t really have a Boy Scout troop.” Scoutingmagazine.org (citing Baden-Powell) (September, 2015 and still posted today - this very minute) https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2014/09/05/patrol-method/ The legend is that Coach Vince Lombardi began every training season with, "Gentlemen, this is a football." Gentlemen, this is Boy Scouting. Yogi Berra on why SMs need to know what the Patrol Method is: "You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there." NOTE: site is supplying it's own underlining. Thanks, I guess.

Well, it is officially all on us.

Is that a two year or four year program?

I assure you that I know what went into the syllabus in 2014, and how much more then then head of training wanted to put in before he was promoted out of that job. It is weak tea, indeed, and a great improvement in that for fourteen years nothing was taught about the Patrol Method. In summary: 1. The patrol, not the troop, is the primary setting in which a boy experiences Boy Scouting. 2. A "patrol" is a small, largely self-selected team of friends who, under the leadership of a Scout they elect, experience a Scouting program they collectively plan. 3. A "troop" is the youth-led “league” in which the patrol teams, who help plan "league" program through representative democracy, play the “game” of Boy Scouting beyond the patrol level. 4. Beyond considerations of safety, adults in Scouting are: a) teachers of leadership; b) coaches, mentors, and resources; and c) examples of Scouting values.

As safety has been eliminated as a topic for I.O.L.S. effective last year, I was a'wondering where new Scouters are going to learn about that topic.

Not sure why the above appears. Above observations are all factually accurate, yet we have these words to consider: The Sweet Sixteen of BSA Safety 1. QUALIFIED SUPERVISION Every BSA activity should be supervised by a conscientious adult who understands and knowingly accepts responsibility for the well-being and safety of the children and youth in his or her care. The supervisor should be sufficiently trained, experienced, and skilled in the activity to be confident of his/her ability to lead and to teach the necessary skills and to respond effectively in the event of an emergency. Field knowledge of all applicable BSA standards and a commitment to implement and follow BSA policies and procedures are essential parts of the supervisor’s qualifications. Guide to Safe Scouting Youth Protection and Adult Leadership Units are responsible to enforce Youth Protection policies. Adult leaders in Scouting units are responsible for monitoring the behavior of youth members and other leaders and interceding when necessary. If youth members misbehave, their parents should be informed and asked for assistance.

Please note: "?"

The age-based stuff is relatively new and inconsistent with everything else BSA has said about the patrol method over the decades. Patrols are supposed to be friendship-based. Now that usually means close in age, but it need not be. The team is whatever group wants to associate as a team. The objective is not the "well-oiled machine" so pursued by adults. The objective is the boy-run machine - run, as Bill said, to "a boy's standard," not to an adult's standard. The theoretical basis of that objective is that one learns to plan, lead and problem solve by planning, leading, and trying to solve problems. “[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.” B.S.A., Scouting.org (2018)[emphasis added] “[T]he essential thing is that there should be small permanent groups, each under responsible control of a leading boy . . . .” Hillcourt, William, The Patrol Method , B.S.A. (1930) “Patrol spirit is the glue that holds the patrol together and keeps it going. Building patrol spirit takes time, and because it is shaped by a patrol's experiences—good and bad.” B.S.A., Scouting.org, 2018 “Empowering boys to be leaders is the core of Scouting. Scouts learn by doing, and what they do is lead their patrols and their troop. B.S.A., Parents’ and New Leaders Guide to a Boy-Led Troop (2018) The adults' primary job in Boy Scouting, beyond insuring safety, is teaching the leaders how to lead. That is not an easy job and your patience will be tried. If they are poor at it, you have not succeeded. “It can be a very messy business, and painful to watch. Meetings where the boy leaders are in charge can be very chaotic. And it can be very tempting for adults to jump in and sort things out, because that is what adults do.” B.S.A, Orientation for New Scout Parents (2018) Scouts learn by doing – even imperfectly. “That is how they learn—even from disorganization and failure.” B.S.A., Orientation for New Scout Parents (2018) “The role of the adults is not the destination, but the journey. That is, our responsibility as adults is to promote the 'process' of Scouting.” BSA, Orientation for New Scout Parents (2018) “Adults understand that their role is to create a safe place where boys can learn and grow and explore and play and take on responsibilities—and fail, and get up and try again. If you were involved with Cub Scouting, this is a very different role that can take some time getting used to." B.S.A., Orientation for New Scout Parents (2018) “Never do for a Scout what he can do for himself.” Do to what standard? “Why to a boy's standard.” Bill Bill didn't see the "big picture"? He invented what we call Boy Scouting here in the U.S., and was the author of the literature that defines it to this day. "Creds"? Bronze Wolf - the highest award of the World Organization of the Scouting Movement. Silver Buffalo - BSA’s highest award. In his s citation, BSA calls him “The Voice of Scouting.” Acclaimed “Scoutmaster to the World” by the Journal of Scouting History and the World Organization of the Scouting Movement and by BSA in Scouting, December, 2017. Recognized by BSA in 1985 through Scouting, as “the foremost influence on development of the Boy Scouting program.” Author of 157 Scouting books, including the first Handbook for Patrol Leaders, numerous Handbooks, the first Fieldbook, and The Patrol Method. “We just have to remember that our business as adults is not the same as the business of the boys. It is up to them to get things done. It is up to us to make sure they have what they need, but (within the bounds of health and safety) not what they do with it.” B.S.A., Scouting.org (2018)

7-9 Scouts at a campout is a patrol camping. If that's what you have, you have a patrol, not a troop. That's OK because Scouting, starting with Scouting for Boys is about patrols. With notable contradictions that cannot be supported by changes in policy and that come and go, that is what BSA has been stating - if not coherently teaching or competently encouraging - since Bill re-imagined Boy Scouting in time for the first Handbook for Patrol Leaders in 1929 and The Patrol Method in 1930. As the Patrol Method has declined in practice, BSA and Scouting have declined in reach and impact in our communities. Once two of every three boys were registered in BSA at some point in their lives. Now, BSA reaches about 5% - under that in our rotting cities. That, not the "boy led troop," is the Scouting imperfectly described in the last few editions of the Handbook and which we registered adults in BSA are supposed to be delivering. “ ‘[T]he Patrol System is not one method in which Scouting for boys can be carried out, but it is the only method. . . . ’” B.S.A., The Patrol Method (1930) “The patrol method isn’t one way to run a troop. It’s the only way.” B.S.A., Scouting.org (2014) "Unless the patrol method is in operation, you don't really have a Boy Scout Troop B.S.A., Scouting.org (citing Baden-Powell) (09/2015) "Scouting happens in the context of a patrol" B.S.S., Scoutmaster Position Specific Training (syllabus 2018) [to the Scout:] "Your boy scout troop is made up of patrols, with each patrol's members sharing responsibility for the patrol's success B.S.A., The Boy Scout Handbook, 13th [curren] 'Ed. at p. 25.

One might distinguish between "dying" and negligent homicide. The olduns' recall the "Improved Scouting Program" of 1972 . Volunteers who resisted at the onset were run out of BSA. That they proved to be correct was regarded by our lords and masters as even worse. "Obedient," with the part about trying to get change written out, has replaced "Trustworthy" as the most important gauge of a "Good" volunteer. Well that and $$$$$. Maybe there is a better way. BSA has followed the West Plan. Things die for a reason, and BSA is dying under the West Plan. Of course, past results are no guarantee of future results - one sincerely hopes. Why would anyone think the current people in charge at National know what a better way would be? If they did, could they effectively communicate it? Could they lead a panic in a burning theater? Would they - should they - be trusted? Of course, past results are no guarantee of future results - one sincerely hopes. Not all change is improvement; ask the American Indians and the Poles. (Google Poland partition if you don't capiche.) BSA and Scouting COULD try what worked and was willfully and negligently abandoned over the decades - Boy Scouting as envisioned by the most influential figure in Scouting's history. Perhaps going back to the future would work. Times ARE tough and getting tougher. Many, if not all, volunteer organizations are spiraling downwards. For any chance of even modest success, BSA needs talented and inspiring leadership at National. And training? Some is awful, much is mediocre, and some great. Training in my council has been the red-headed stepchild for decades. We had no Council Training Chair for 2.5 years We have no functioning Council Training Chair for the last five+ years. I will spare you the details, but our training "leader's" desk is where plans/ideas/suggestions/routine events - even hope itself - go to die. "No _____ this year. Nothing was done to plan it or make it happen." At National, there does not seem to be passion for excellence in training. It seems to be just another box to check off on the bureaucrat's punch list. The typical BSA syllabus can be saved by a strong staff, but it is highly unrealistic as to material to be covered in the time allocated and, overall, uninspiring at best.

Five years ago our then SE decided to combine our six thinly-manned districts into two -- and to not ask any of the incumbent district office holders to serve in the new districts. Since then, my district has had in five years: 18 months of functioning District Commissioner 1 year of Training Chairman 2 years of Cub Training Coordinator 18 months of Scout Training Coordinator No roundtable Chair No Cub Roundtable Chair No Scout Roundtable Chair No functioning District Chair 18 months of membership Chair 3 years of Advancement Chair 10 different council employees with various titles, DEs DDs Lead DEs. We had, at obe time, five on paper, but no more than two have ever been in place. They just canned the one we have had lately. He was much liked by the mere volunteers. Now, the present SE has decided to eliminate districts in favor of "Pods," whatever those might be. The incumbent district leadership tells me it has been ignored in all respects, including being told when the axe will fall - again. So they meet and plan activities that may never take place. Great and dedicated people. I think of them when I read here about how useless they are as a class. Perhaps the District Chair, being a "community leader," knows something, but as he does not communicate with those actually doing things, that would have no effect.

We went through a period of district dysfunction. Some SPLs got together and planned multi-troop campouts with learning events and intrapatrol competition. Soon the district events were all boy planned.