OldGreyEagle

Pappy, I have have thought what you propose. A great recruiting video, we get Eagle Scout Steven Spielberg to produce and he convicnes John Williams to compose a soul stirring theme song. We get the adolescent movie stars of the day to appear and say how much they love scouting or wish they had had scouting (might work with Lindsay and Britney). The question is, when the video is over and the charged up youth go clamoring to the units in their community, what will they find? Will they find the program that was extolled in the video or will they find a variant of it? Will the leaders of those units (29% trained nationally) be able to deliver the promise of the video?

"I have met Eagle scouts who didnt know what orienteering was, let alone how to do it. And I'm sure youall have seen similar examples of badge encrusted incompetents. SO that says a little bit about book learning and badge classes as opposed to spending a summer in the woods scouting getting lost and finding your way back." No Pappy I do not understand your logic here. If you meet a badge incrusted incompetent, you are facing the product of incompetence alright. The incompetence is rooted in the nimno who signed the papers that allowed the scout to get all those badges. Whether the issue is book learning or practical application is not the point here. Either the scout did the requirement as written or he did not. Orienteering merit badge says the scout will cover three different courses so if he cant do it, its not book learning fault, its the moron who signed off on a scout who didnt do the requirements. I dont always appreciate Bob Whites style of posting. I think sometimes he get a little too preachy, but can we talk about what he says and not make up stuff about him? He has his philosophy if scouting in his head and does not deter from it. Thats a good thing. If you disagree with it, that is your right and your opinion, but lets not asy his way means things he never said nor does following what he says mean you end up with badge encrusted incompetents, feel sorry for the scout yes, and then see what you can do about the adults who perpertrate a fraud on the scout that he actually is worthy of the badges he wears but do not lay book learning as the reason. Miserable adults are the reason

Looking at the title of this thread, I have pondered an answer over the past few days. I even shared a vission with a fellow moderator during a time when we werent being scoundrels. The title Scouting as School. Or a Game seems to indicate that Troops choose one way or the other and I believe that is false. I think there is a Scouting Philosophy Continuum, but its end points are not Scouting as School or as a Game. On one end of the Scouting Philosophy Continuum you have what I will call the Classic BSA Philosophy. The Classic BSA Philosophy is based on adherence to the Policies and Procedures of the BSA and the published Training Syllabi. Proponents of this philosophy see the BSA as a national organization and believe that Troop in Florida should have the same organization as a Troop in Maine or Hawaii.(elcted Sentior Patrol Leader, Patrol Leaders, PLC, New Scout Patrol, etc) BTW, they would also wear the same uniform as well. When talking to proponents of this Philosophy, strains of The Battle Hymn OF The Republic seem to be present although no source of the music may be found. On the other side of the Continuum is a more relaxed approach. More of a Laissez Faire Philosophy. In this Philosophy BSA policies and procedures are seen more as guidelines and as long as the Chartering Organization is on board, then just about anything is ok. Proponents of this philosophy tailor their program to the individual needs of the unit and follow the intent of BSAs regulations, if not their letter. Now, both have as their Mission, instilling the values of the Scout Oath and Law so that young people will make ethical decisions over the course of their lifetime. Their approach can lead to clashes with each other. The Classic BSA proponent may be thought of as coming down the mountain, eyes flashing and carrying the published word of BSA in both arms. They see the spreading of the word as their paramount duty. Fully uniformed at all times, they can recite chapter and verse all the rules and regulations on anything you ask, from whether or not BSA allows sheath knives (they do BTW) to how best to select Quality Leaders. While characterized by some as rule following drones, they can be lots of fun and merely desire order in a chaotic world. Then there is the Laissez Faire Philosophy of Scouting. Much more relaxed. The lead proponents of this philosophy is laid back, more apt to have a uniform shirt on with a rainbow tie dyed headband wearing rose colored sunglasses with lenses in the shape of a heart. Pants most likely will be faded jeans with a few worn through patches and oddly enough, when talking to such individuals the strains of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida seem to be present although no source of the music may be found. Now, both philosophies espouse the same thing. A Boy Lead unit where youth find challenges and support to meet those challenges with the guidance of well intentioned volunteers. Now, with identical goals you would think there would be mutual respect, but this is not always the case. Sometimes proponents of the Classic BSA Philosophy are portrayed as being the Knights of the BSA, charging into the fray to spread the way of the BSA through any means possible melding the brains of the great unwashed (read untrained) while the Laissez Faire proponents are more apt to be portrayed as itinerant preachers along the lines of Todd Rundgren or Exidor. They roam about and tell people not to worry about Rules and Regulations, that as long as you have the boys best interest at heart, all is well. I must say neither is completely right or wrong, although I admit a bias so if it shows through, I am sorry. All units will fall somewhere on the Continuum. Sometimes they may be very Classic while on other topics much more Laissez Faire. The mix of philosophy is dictated by the personality and understanding of the BSA program by the adults. Is one side wrong? Nope, I dont think so although I have my ideas but that is not as issue. On a thread recently I read where a Troop petitioned and received permission from their Council Executive to wear Olive BDUs instead of the uniform pants. Now, the Council Executive does not actually have the power to do this, say the Classic proponents, but the Laissez Faire group says look at the good things the scouts learned and as long as it kept them in Scouting, what does it hurt? We talk a lot about respect of other ideas, respecting both philosophies of scouting and realizing that all units fall somewhere on the continuum is a start.

As I understand it, Patrol outings have been a staple of the BSA since way back. The patrol comes up with a plan, the scoutmaster approves it and kids execute it, alone even

Gee, I thought everybody knew when you teach something you need to make sure your objectives cover the Cognitive range, Knowledge Comprehension Application Analysis Synthesis Evaluation Then of course in the Psychomotor domain you have the challenge of the physical skills requires to tie a knot, open a jack knife, etc. Then for the Affective domain you have the values of the Oath and Law. Oddly enough, you can test for the Cognitive and Psychology quite readily, the Affective is much harder to measure and takes a period of time in a variety of situations to understand what the student learned (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

You mean like a personal locator beacon? A GPS locator that is home made to locate scouts/people? I am not sure about Star Trek but perhaps Orwellian would be more accurate

I thought surely by now someone would have pointed out that it's pretty tough to learn from the future.

Tieing knots is a skill, some knots look very complicated when first seen, and your first attempts on some knots can make you feel like you have 10 thumbs. But, when a scout who didnt know how to pronounce bowline can tie one blindfolded, it teaches the scout they can learn skills that seem impossible and learn them well. When faced with an unfamiliar situation, the youth can think, it looks hard, but I did learn to tie that bowline, so I can do this as well. I am not sure how a traditional Liberal Arts Degree prepares one for life today other than it teaches you how to learn and think. I beleive scouting does the same

I decided to change my post, at first I was going to do a line by line disection of Beavah's post, asking how did he arrive at such conclusions and then it hit me, an epiphany as it were. All anyone can post here is their opinion. If someone gives the BSA publication number and page, well then, thats different. But anything else is an opinion whether they state so or not Beavah is welcome to his opinions. I dont have to like or accept them, they are just Beavah's opinions. There I feel so much better(This message has been edited by OldGreyEagle)

Actually see the thread in the announcement section Censorship Sometimes it happens and let me know if I did the right thing

"Nothing like a good piece of hickory" Preacher

As conventions are different everywhere, I dont presume to know how others do Blue Sky, but I can give you how I was taught: In a Blue Sky exercise there are no bad ideas, every suggestion is taken and written on the writing board. No idea gets to be disparged or the originator put down. if its uttered, its put up. Then, when the group doesnt have any more suggestions, the leader asks which ones do we want to work on, and then the group moves forward. But, the one thing I must emphasize is that discussion regarding the practicality of the situation is held off until the blue sky portion is done. As a group Forms, Storms, Norms, and Performs ideas that arent pratical arent attempted, but they are discussed.

I took this to be a "Blue Sky" topic, as eisely called it, out of the box. During such enterprises there are generally ground rules, one of which is that everyone recognizes that a "Blue Sky" excercise is just that, an excercise and no idea is a bad one and no hints of reality is allowed. Just sit back and ponder "what ifs"... No reason to give reasons why an idea wont work, just a place to throw in ideas and maybe something will coalace, and if it doesnt, it doesnt, but at least it was discussed (This message has been edited by OldGreyEagle)

A forum member raised a concern that Pappy has used his real name and has given his real location and all and that people were saying all sorts of bad things about him to the point if someone was say googling the school his CO runs, one of our threads could show up and embarrass the school, Pappy, us, etc. I asked Pappy what to do and he agreed I should delete his real name and location and School name but guess what? He has been pretty busy and so have we. I spent some time trying to edit individual posts, but it was very awkward and time consuming. So, in the name of security for people and places in involved in the discussions, I deleted the threads I found where Pappy's name was used and troop number used and such. Being human I cannot claim I got them all, there may be several out there and if you let me know I will take care of them as well. I regret wiping out a lot of discussion but I feel this is the best course. I dont want our activities to effect an unsuspecting entity. If its a passing mention of name, I will edit the post, if theres a lot, I will delete the thread. Sorry, but I think its the best move

Hey Three Fires? Do you know where Wood Dale is?

When you took the job as scoutmaster, did you sign a contract with the outgoing scoutmaster that you wouldnt change a thing? Or did he he tell you good luck? It was his idea to get the award each year, by breaking that tradition, the scouts will realize you are your own person and mean it when you say boy lead.

"Councils would have the choice of not taking units that they might not want?" Gee, if you do that and capitalism being what it is, then one would expect a Rogue Council to be developed to service all the rogue units that no other Council wants. Now those Council Committee meetings would be fun.

I always do a double take when I see the Lawyer section in the yellow pages. They have a section called Criminal Lawyers, I cant tell if thats redundant or truth in advertising Of course in Health Care with cloning and embryonic stem cell research and such there has been a growth in what is being called Ethics Lawyers, which I think is the height of oxymorons, surpassing military intelligence and middle east peace process.

I was the one who heard the Child Abuse worker say they would rather inverstigate 10 "false" reports than have one be missed, So, with that I have to add we know that when a person reports a suspected abuse, the person taking the call has the phone numeber used to make the report, even if no name is used. If the same number makes the same report multiple times and the report is always false, that is a different situation entirely. That is over burdening the system and perhaps when a real case is suspected, the fact the number has been used to report so many false alarms, the real one could be not handled quickly.

Before I start saying things like, "Hey, dont put words in my mouth" (geez, I just had a weird feeling of Deja Vu, like I all of this has happened before... Anyhow, this is what I first posted: See Beavah, that is what is so great about this forum, learn things from all over, my District has a few rogue units as well. Most of them run off any commissioner assigned to them because they dont want any District spy knowing what they do, then the complain District never helps them out when they need help. They are the type of troop that hasnt been to a council camp in 10 years because the COuncil camp sucks, and maybe it did 10 years ago, and 5 camp directors and 7 program directors ago, but I digress. They dont sell popcorn and then say the reason they dont support council is because the facilities are old, the office equipment antiquated and the office doesnt have enough personnel. The rogue units dont come to Camporees because they suck and arent challeging enough for their boys and have never hosted a Camporee becaue they dont have time. So, its interesting to see how rogue units are defined from one area of the country to another Beavah made his assessment and you see it as the initial post. Now I have my translation: Let me try this again, but with my translation "Most of them run off any commissioner assigned to them because they dont want any District spy knowing what they do, then the complain District never helps them out when they need help." See, I think Commissioners are there to help the unit, in whatever way they can. If a troop doesnt want anything to do with a commissioner, it may very well be due to a bad experience, but if a unit wont communicate with its most direct pipeline to the District, its hard for the District to know when that unit needs help. That is all I meant "They are the type of troop that hasnt been to a council camp in 10 years because the COuncil camp sucks, and maybe it did 10 years ago, and 5 camp directors and 7 program directors ago, but I digress." Camps have to make sure they make a great first impression, because they can only do it once. And maybe 10 years ago the camp was run poorly, but to not consider it 10 years later because of an experience 10 years ago is not logical. Leastwise I dont think so. "They dont sell popcorn and then say the reason they dont support council is because the facilities are old, the office equipment antiquated and the office doesnt have enough personnel." SInce Council makes some money from popcorn, I thought it obvious if people dont sell popcorn, they are not supporting the COuncil in fiducial matters. Now, if you didnt get that I apologize for being obtuse, normally I eschew obsfuscation but I guess I didnt in this case. "The rogue units dont come to Camporees because they suck and arent challeging enough for their boys and have never hosted a Camporee becaue they dont have time." They dont come to camporees because they dont like the way the camporees are set up but do not tell anyone what they would like to see nor do they volunteer to present a camporee according to the style they would like BTW, give me credit for saying they were rogue, not gangs of kids wearing boy scout uniforms or they were units not following the program

Let's see, uniform shirt with jeans is sloppy, wearing District Patches is sloppy, having a neckerchief over the collar is sloppy, seems like we should not call ourselves Boy Scouts, but sloppy Joes. Anyway, its a thought

Wow, my Patrol Guide would never have let those ticket items get through in my Course

Dont take it so hard Eamonn, we mostly all love you even if you are a limey. BTW, I will be visiting my sister in law to be soon, she lives in Prestwick, or something like that in Scotland, what's to do there?

This is just something to keep in mind If during a thread you have to use a sentence like, "thats not what I meant at all" or "I dont know how you got that from what I wrote" for the third time or more, it may be time to consider a few things: A. Your prose is not as cogent as you thought. Look at my example, I thought I was going to launch a discussion about who was the better ball player, Ty Cobb or Pete Rose and I end up singing Cub fan songs. So, if you have to post other 3 times how misunderstood you are, perhaps you need to work on your presentation B. The person you think is mis-stating your position is doing it to get a reaction out of you so perhaps the best move is to move on. Well, those are my two points, I am sure many more can and will be added, but just because someone says they dont agree with you doesnt mean you have to move heaven and earth to change their opinion. Diversity of thought makes us strong and from what I can tell, this is one muscular place(This message has been edited by OldGreyEagle)

Ok John, one more time, just because its you, It was Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown and Big John, Big Bad John