Eagle Packet - Requirement 6 Statement of life purpose and ambitions

[Nike]

While the statement may not be part of the SMC, if the SM reads the statement and can't make heads or tails of it, he should point that out to the Scout and suggest a rewrite.

[evmori]

While the statement may not be part of the SMC, if the SM reads the statement and can't make heads or tails of it, he should point that out to the Scout and suggest a rewrite.

 

I would agree but it is up to the Scout, not the Scoutmaster to decide if it should be rewritten. And this in NO WAY should have anything impact on a Scoutmaster signing off a Scoutmaster Conference.

[Oak Tree]

I will respectfully disagree with at least one point of evmori's claim.

 

The Scoutmaster has to sign off on the Eagle application. One thing that this indicates is that the Scoutmaster believes that all the requirements are complete. One of the requirements is to attach a statement of your ambition and life purpose. I think it's fair for a Scoutmaster to decide that the statement the Scout has given does not actually meet that requirement, and ask him to rewrite it.

 

Once the statement is above the minimum, then yes, I agree that the Scout can decide for himself how good it is and whether it should be made better. But Scouts by and large want people to actually listen to them and give them feedback and sometimes hold them to a better standard than "whatever you write down is fine."

 

And I do agree that it does not affect the question of the Scoutmaster conference.

[packsaddle]

Our commander required everyone to have a 30-second 'commercial' about what we do and what should be expected from us. Once at a general meeting of the lab, I saw him order a Colonel to give him 10 when the Colonel was slow to answer. The Colonel did it. As a civilian I think he could not give me such an order but I got the point - I had my 'commercial'. It is a good thing to know what you are, what your goals are, and what your plan is for attaining them. To me this is the boy's chance to make that statement. It can be short and sweet or it can be verbose.

As for the SM requiring him to do it over, I'm sympathetic to Ed's approach. In the SM conference, this statement might be a good point of discussion. After the discussion about goals, it would be fair for the SM to ask the boy if the boy thinks he did his best at writing the statement on goals. If the boy says yes, it's done. If the boy says no, then the SM could fairly ask if they boy thinks he should give it another try. If the boy decides to, the SM should support it.

If I read Ed correctly, I agree with him that adult leaders should not place obstacles for the boys but rather to offer every opportunity for the boy to succeed on his own.

[evmori]

I will respectfully disagree with at least one point of evmori's claim.

 

The Scoutmaster has to sign off on the Eagle application. One thing that this indicates is that the Scoutmaster believes that all the requirements are complete. One of the requirements is to attach a statement of your ambition and life purpose. I think it's fair for a Scoutmaster to decide that the statement the Scout has given does not actually meet that requirement, and ask him to rewrite it.

 

Once the statement is above the minimum, then yes, I agree that the Scout can decide for himself how good it is and whether it should be made better. But Scouts by and large want people to actually listen to them and give them feedback and sometimes hold them to a better standard than "whatever you write down is fine."

 

And I do agree that it does not affect the question of the Scoutmaster conference.

 

I would agree that by the Scoutmaster putting his signature on the Eagle application he indicates all the requirements have been met. That signature doesn't mean he likes what the Scout wrote. Nor does he have to.

 

And yup packsaddle, you read correctly.

[Oak Tree]

I'm not really suggesting that it would be a likely scenario where I would not accept what a Scout wrote down. As long as he writes something that honestly appears to be a purpose and ambition, I'm not going to have an issue with it.

 

But if some Scout got it into his head that he was going to prove to me that I had no say-so and wrote something just intentionally stupid, then I can say "Oh, come on. Give me a break. That's not a statement of your purpose and ambition, and I'm not signing until you give me a real version." [rolls eyes and walks away]

[upnorthmn]

Towards the orginal query - I am also unable to locate any examples to show me what others have done for the statement.

 

From what I've found, it only appears to be just a statement, with bullet points of awards and acomplishments, both Scout and non-Scouting related. Anything that points toward 'leadership'

 

Regarding the 5 page document a Scoutmaster recommended be re-written- I'd like to see that document. As a Scoutmaster, I feel one of my responsibilities is to help guide the boys. A meandering 5 pager, filled with words to just to fill a page, would cause me pause as well. Hopefully, he was sparing just the lad from looking like the fool.

[Proud Eagle]

I sit on Eagle BOR for my district from time to time.

 

About half of these statements are reasonably good and tell us something. The other half are meaningless fluff and gobbly-gook that someone thought sounded good.

 

I hate the meaningless fluff ones.

 

Many Scouts don't know what their ambitions and life purpose are, at least not in any concrete sense. That is OK, tell us what you do know, tell us what you do want, give us what you can and be willing to admit what your limits are at this phase in life.

 

On the other hand, adults mentoring Eagle candidates should really try to get them thinking on this. There is no one size fits all way to approach this, but please send us candidates that wrote something they actually mean and stand by. I don't care if the statement gives us a detailed time line of achievements they hope to make in life or if it says "I don't know what I want to do with my life exactly but I want to live it by the principles of Scouting and my faith and family and I hope I live it such that when I die I go to heaven".

 

Just please don't send us someone who is going to tell us what they think we want to hear, because that is the last thing we want to read about.