FCFY Calendar

[Bob White]

It's Me,

I am not aware of what your scouting background is but in the Scoutmaster basic training it is shown how learning practicing and testing can take place in every aspect of the Troop meeting program even ion ceremonies. Take a look at Tenderfoot requirement#6 and tell me if that could be worked into an opening or closing ceremony? How about Tenderfoot requirement #8. What about Second Class #3? What about parts of First Class 7B and all of 7C.

 

And those are just advancement opportunities available by participating in openings and closings. You should be able to take any skill and make a game or competion for teaching, practicing, or testing it.

 

Beavah,

I'm must admit I am somewhat surprised by your comments on this issue. It seems you are saying that if we are teaching camping skills one month we can never teach first aid in another. Or that you don'y understand that you teach one skill and provide practice or application opprotunities for another on the same day or even in the same month.

 

"Well, I've been around a while, and I can't say that I've ever seen an opening or closing that taught "campout planning,"

 

What an unusual comment for someone of your tenure. Just because an opening doesn't teach camp planning does not mean it can't teach or test other requirements? (see above text regarding other requirements that can be done during meeting ceremonies). I think =you suggestion of the

 

"Yah, I can imagine a very fun meeting where in da middle of the opening, a guy in a ski mask comes in, opens fire with a plastic gun and some plastic throwin' knives, and all the PL's and SPL end up lyin' on da floor bleeding from moulage wounds."

 

I find a comment like that far more disturbing than unusual. I am surprised that you would classify that as a fun activity for a Scouting program.

 

I am not sure why you are hung up on the pack backing requirement. Would you prefer that not be taught at some point? Or would you teach it AFTER they start going camping?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LongHaul]

This is the link to the original document http://www.hightowertrailbsa.com/program.html

I see no restrictions for reprinting. I'm hoping that Mr. Thompson was a dedicated scouter that intended for this tool to be shared and used. I've been sharing every chance I get.

 

Even without 100% attendance and retention the classs can be covered repeatedly by different instructors the SPL or SM delegates. With the plan so well laid out it makes review all that much easier.

LongHaul

[Bob White]

No...pack backing is not a new skill. Sometimes I have to type on the run:) plesase read that as backpacking.

[Beavah]

I find a comment like that far more disturbing than unusual. I am surprised that you would classify that as a fun activity for a Scouting program.

 

Yah, I had to try to come up with some way to have a First Aid scenario happen during a meeting opening, eh? 'cause the issue was not whether any requirement could be taught durin' a meeting opening (certainly flag ceremony, oath & law, etc. might be), but whether one of your meeting night topics could.

 

I couldn't figure out how to do meal planning or backpack packing for an opening ("Patrols, Line up by Food Pyramid to Salute the Flag!"?), so I settled on first aid. But if yeh don't like da masked gunman, I can understand that. Feel free to substitute a lad carryin' a bunch of boxes of glass bottles (to salute the flag with?) and trippin', sending glass shards around to cause injuries or something.

 

Boys love moulage, and it makes first aid trainin' far more realistic than flashcards. Even recommended by da BSA. Da idea to turn the opening into some sort of unexpected mock first aid drill is great, but it would take most of the meetin'.

 

I'm clearly not "getting it", though, in terms of your meetin' plan. And I like seein' different ways to do Scoutin'! Can yeh give us the details of your 90-minute meeting plan to teach "campout planning, how to pack a backpack, basic health issues for camping, basic first aid for camping, and the basics of menu planning" plus something else taught during opening and closing? It's da first meeting night after you welcome new crossovers on your schedule.

 

I'd really like to see that.

 

Beavah

 

P.S. LongHaul - thanks for checkin' on the use restrictions on the document. I would like to share it around, but don't want anybody who put in that much effort to be upset with me, eh?

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[Its Me]

 

 

Bob White, I don't know what your backpacking skills are, but the complexity of selecting the capacity, frame-type, packing, choosing what to take and properly fitting a backpack to a scout's back goes well beyond the technical skills of a patrol yell and raising a flag in the Tenderfoot rank.

 

 

 

 

 

 

goes into. Heck

[Bob White]

As it happens I know a bit about backpacking, and I know a few things about advancement requirements, such as there is no requirements for a scout to know the capacity difference in backpacks to earn Tenderfoot to First Class ranks.

 

But he does have to know the basics for packing and what to bring, but he also needs to fold a flag, and have a patrol yell.

 

Consider first teaching the Scout what the BSA program wants him to know, you then have 7 years to teach him the things you want him to know. That seems like a reasonable expectation on the BSA's part doesn't it?

[BrentAllen]

Hightower Trail is my District. We have the original FCFY plan posted on our page, so it is in the public domain. Feel free to use it.

 

If you want to see one handsome devil, click on the Photos page at Hightower Trail. :-) That's me in 4 of the 5 pictures for the 2007 Council Banquet, with Warren Martin, a good friend who received his Silver Beaver that night. I'm the one in uniform, on the right.

[Kudu]

Beavah writes:

 

"Yah, LongHaul. It took me a while to work my way through da document BrentAllen posted, eh? That's quite a piece of work. What a great resource... a whole formal school curriculum for T21. Clearly done by a professional educator. Learnin' objectives and alignment with standards and everything! Well laid out lecture-demonstration outlines. Plus some regular school quizzes on requirements and lesson evaluation forms to be collected by Troop Committee Administrators. Even a sample school calendar and lesson progression.

 

Only thing it's missin' is da standardized No Scout Left at Second Class exam!"

 

Um, not so fast Beavah. How about school lunches?

 

Most Boy Scout summer camps have replaced the Patrol Method with school cafeterias in the interest of running a more efficient summer school.

 

A recent post to Scouts-L would serve as the perfect companion piece to Jeff Thompson's teacher's guide:

 

The same thing holds with salad bars and fresh fruit. If the council wants it they put it in the contract.

 

Over the last two years the salad bar has improved immensely and is there every day for both lunch and dinner. It is actually better than the salad bar at the restaurant in town that some of our adults usually go to one night during the week....

 

So, while I understand, and have experienced, many of the problems you describe, they are more a symptom of a poorly written contract, or a council looking to cut fees and blaming the contractor, because those problems are not universal. In general the contractors will provide whatever their customer wants and is willing to pay for."

 

The modern movement to turn the center of Scouting away from the Patrol Method and toward a business management/professional education model began in 1972 with the elimination of the "Scout Way" as a Method of Scouting ("Scouting is a Game, not a Science") and the introduction of "Leadership Development" and "Personal Growth" as two of the "Seven Methods of Scouting" (the Uniform was demoted from "Method" to "Additional Program Element" status for almost a decade). The Scoutmaster Conference became a progressive-education "personal growth agreement conference" complete with a list of behavioral learning objectives.

 

On a certain level you have to admire the pride, the joy, the dedication, and the pure exuberance with which Wood Badgers move Scouting toward their vision of a bright and shinny future where the opposite of Baden-Powell is considered "modern." And who can blame them? Anyone can understand the importance of a school curriculum and a good salad bar, but B-P's insistence that Scouting is "self-development" (which comes from within) and NOT "instruction" (which comes from without) seems so abstract and "old-fashioned" in comparison.

 

Besides, if it was an important distinction it would be covered in the official publications of the BSA, now wouldn't it? :-/

 

It could be a lot worse. For all of his faults, without James West the Patrol Method would never have been adopted by the BSA. Perhaps someday an equally outspoken Chief Scout Executive will restore it to its former status as "The ONLY Method of Scouting."

 

Stranger things have happened. Who among us who argued for it believed that we would live to see the Uniform relieved of its garish clown colors and restored to its function as an outdoor Method?

 

Beavah writes:

 

"I'm tempted to dig up B-P's essay about trenchin' on da work of schools"

 

Here is the passage to which Beavah is referring (if you want to read the full version just Google it):

 

If once we make Scouting into a formal scheme of serious instruction in efficiency, we miss the whole point and value of Scout training, and we trench on the work of the schools without the trained experts for carrying it out.

 

We want to get ALL our boys along through cheery self-development from within and not through the imposition of formal instruction from without.

 

Here is a passage from the Introduction to Aids to Scoutmastership (Revised Edition):

 

What Scouting Is Not

 

Experience in different fields show that there are certain shoals to be avoided in launching Scouting, lest it get stranded in commercialism or diverted into dead-end channels that never lead to the open sea.

 

Here, then, are some of the things that Scouting is not:

 

...It is not a school having a definite curriculum and standards of examination...

 

These all come from without, whereas the Scout training all comes from within.

 

Kudu

 

 

[Bob White]

Kudo

Did B-P never teach scouts basic skills through games and chalenges with a purpose for them to learn a specific skill??

 

Are you saying when he trained adult leaders he never taught them skills to teach the scouts and specific methods to do that teaching that was fun and incorporated games and the outdoors?

 

How long would Baden-Powell take to show scouts the basic skills of the camping?

 

I did not spend as much time with Bill Hillcourt as Terry here did. I only had the opportunity to have conversations over lunch a few times and listen to him speak about scouting at a couple events. Much of what I learned about forming and maitaining patrols and making every opportunity a chance to learn or use a skill came from my conversations with him. I grew up as a scout reading Green Bar columns on leadership where he talked about planning your meetings and campouts.

 

Please let me know where anything I have shared does not follow the lessons you learned from him when he spoke with you.

 

Thanks

BW

 

 

 

 

 

[LongHaul]

Id really like to know when cooking meals became the only criteria for identifying the patrol method. Over and over someone posts the notion that if you eat in a dining hall then you are not following the patrol method. This would mean that we can only employ the patrol method on campouts because when we have troop meetings everyone ate some place different before hand. Unless you spend a good part of your day preparing, cooking and cleaning you are not really Scouting?

Now I read that learning should come from within and not from instruction which is from without. These, according to a great quoter out of context, come straight from the guy who wrote a book for boys which says that you should not write books? Dont standardize, dont set quality levels, dont set standards all the while telling boys how to live their lives and embrace the world around them. All learning should come from within, just read his book hell teach you how to do it.

LongHaul

 

[Kudu]

Bob White writes:

 

"Are you saying when [b-P] trained adult leaders he never taught them skills to teach the scouts and specific methods to do that teaching that was fun and incorporated games and the outdoors?"

 

The basic idea was that most training would occur under the Patrol Leader during a Patrol's separate Patrol Meetings and Patrol Hikes. As for Troop Meetings and Troop Campouts it was expected that the Court of Honor (the Patrol Leaders in Council) would set the general theme and then ask the Scouters to plan the details and report back to the Court for final approval. That is why so many of the creative ideas books of that era were written for adults.

 

Given your familiarity with Hillcourt I would be interested in how you train Patrol Leaders to conduct their own Patrol Meetings, Patrol Hikes, and Patrol Campouts (if only 300 feet away) and how that figures into getting Scouts from Tenderfoot to First Class in a year.

 

"Please let me know where anything I have shared does not follow the lessons you learned from him when he spoke with you."

 

Well since you asked, Hillcourt spoke to me once during a nasty lightning storm on the road to a campout in Damascus. He asked why I persecute dodge-ball since it is such an beneficial force in forming and maintaining Patrols. So you might want to set aside more time for dodge-ball or risk being hit by lightning.

 

LongHaul writes:

 

"Now I read that learning should come from within and not from instruction which is from without. These, according to a great quoter out of context, come straight from the guy who wrote a book for boys which says that you should not write books?"

 

The context of the quotes is that learning should come from a Scout's desire to learn a skill which in turn leads him to read about it, push his Patrol to practice it in a Patrol Meeting or Patrol Hike, or to seek out someone else to teach him. In the case of Proficiency Badges a Scout learns the subject first then asks the Patrol Leaders in Council for permission to meet with an examiner.

 

Kudu

 

 

[LongHaul]

Fine Kudu then where is the problem with having a written plan to teach these skills so that when this scout goes off to a function and interacts with other scouts they all do thigs the same way. Whats wrong with haveing a standardized method rather than what ever the person at hand "thinks" is the way?

 

What is wrong with having a plan or rotation to address basic skills rather than a hodge podge approach based on individual scouts?

 

LongHaul

LongHaul

[Bob White]

Given your familiarity with Hillcourt I would be interested in how you train Patrol Leaders to conduct their own Patrol Meetings, Patrol Hikes, and Patrol Campouts (if only 300 feet away) and how that figures into getting Scouts from Tenderfoot to First Class in a year.

 

Happy to oblige.

 

First, and I hope this point can finally be understood so that it can stop being repeated..."The goal is not to get scouts to First Class in a year. the goal is to have a planned program that teaches, practices and offers scouts opportunities to apply the skills in 12 to 14 months." There is a First Class First Year Tracking sheet to record scouts individual progress, but do not confuse that that with the program plan.

 

As a troop leader we camped by patrol not as a troop. Remember that a troop is not divided into patrols, Patrols come together to form the troop. The Troop Guide camped with the New Scout Patrol at first, for the first few campouts two adults camped in the site as well but were only there at night and they spent the day withthe adult leaders and ate with the other adult leaders. Once the Troop Guide saw that the Scouts could set camp on their own and were comfortable at night, he would stop camping with the NSP and camp with the Venture Patrol, he started the program year cooking and eating with the NSP and as their skills improved he would spend less meal time with them. Eventually his roll was one of instructor and mentor to each scout as they performed in the PL position. Once all of the Scouts had learned and showed an understanding of the the basics of scouting skils he withdrew completely.

 

Experienced and Venture Patrol Leaders were trained both formally and informally through the BSA junior leader training programs, and through individual mentoring and coaching primarily by the SPL, but mostly patrol leader training was done during PLCs by the Senior Patrol Leader or troop instructors in small easy to digest portions.

 

We did a lot of patrol activities where the more experienced patrols did trips outside of the troop events. Depending on the skill level of the patrol and the type of trip and location, the patrols either had a pair of adult leaders nearby but outside the patrol site, or with no adult at all.

 

As you recognize that is not only how the scout program has been designed historically but is in fact the way it is still designed today.

 

The only exception being the addition of the New Scout Patrol (but that has now been around for many years). But you need to recall from your studies of B-P that he never expected the program to always stay the same. He saw it as a flexible teaching system that would evolve with changes in society, The world that B-P first introduced Scouting to is much different then life in the US today. B-P understood that and gave us a great basic philosophy of how to develop character in young people. The Aims and Methods that are supported and taught by the BSA are nearly identical to those of Hillcourt's and Baden-Powell's, the problem is that very few units have leaders that actuall take and accept the training, or follow through on it.

 

Dodge ball might be OK if played patrol against patrol. Unfortunately, in most cases patrols are mixed or divided in order to create "equal sides". This as you know is counter productive to the Patrol Method and to patrol team development. B-P and Hillcourts philosophies were that you worked, played, competed, and camped as independent patrols under youth leadership, and that is still what is taught today.

 

Even B-P nad Hillcourt taught with a plan.

 

Your history lessons are interesting at times, but bear in mind we live and lead in today's world of the BSA and not in yesterday's world of scouting in the UK (no offense to your heritage Eamonn). While there truly is very little difference between the two in the way of methods, most scouters seem not to know or follow either program, which explains the annual loss of units and scouts.

 

Would you not find greater value in helping explain to leaders the ways that the actual current program supports the philoshies and methods of B-P and how to continue to get his results by using the current program. You cannot expect to drive a car forward very well by only looking through a rear view mirror.

 

For instance B-P taught skills by creating chalenges for the scouts to overcome. This acted as both a way to practice and apply known skills as well as a way to create a need for learning when the skills were unkown to the scout. There is no reason why troops should not be using that same challenge type of activity today. That method is still supported by the BSA program and yet most units do not do that.

 

I cannot tell you the number of units I visit that start the meeting with "tonight we are going to work on requirements 7a through 9c of the blah blah blah blah blah...

 

I disagree with posters who argue that is the youth that have changed. I have watched both youth and adults entering the program for the past 30 years it seems to me that it is how and why adults are being selected to be unit leaders that has changed.

 

I think B-P would have no problem with the First Class emphasis Program, knowing that it was only to give the scouts a good foundation of baisc skills for which they can build upon for the next 7 years of scouting and beyond.

 

BW

 

 

[Kudu]

LongHaul writes:

 

"Fine Kudu then where is the problem with having a written plan to teach these skills so that when this scout goes off to a function and interacts with other scouts they all do thigs the same way. Whats wrong with haveing a standardized method rather than what ever the person at hand "thinks" is the way?

 

What is wrong with having a plan or rotation to address basic skills rather than a hodge podge approach based on individual scouts?"

 

Just a difference in values, perhaps. Your objective seems to be to produce interchangeable parts through standardized "instruction," while Baden-Powell's objective is to produce self-directed learners.

 

Four differences in these approaches may account for something:

 

1) In Baden-Powell's method the quality of Scoutcraft instruction reflects on the Court of Honor (the Patrol Leaders in Council). A Troop's committee does not conduct "Boards of Review" (and by the way the COH deals with all internal matters "including the expenditure of Troop funds...").

 

2) A Second Class candidate must prove that he can re-pass his Tenderfoot tests, which in practice was often met by teaching the skills to a new recruit.

 

3) A First Class candidate must prove that he can re-pass his Tenderfoot and Second Class tests.

 

4) Most importantly the final test of a First Class Scout is to set off with another Scout on a 24 hour Journey of 14 miles (or 30 miles riding a bike or animal).

 

So Scoutcraft skills are tested, retested, and then proven on a backwoods ordeal.

 

In the BSA the quality of a Troop's Scoutcraft skills is monitored by a committee of adults, retesting is against the rules, and an indoor boy can earn Eagle Scout without ever walking into the woods with a pack on his back.

 

Bob White writes:

 

"We did a lot of patrol activities where the more experienced patrols did trips outside of the troop events. Depending on the skill level of the patrol and the type of trip and location, the patrols either had a pair of adult leaders nearby but outside the patrol site, or with no adult at all."

 

Self-sufficient Patrols prove that your methods work in the real world.

 

"Dodge ball might be OK if played patrol against patrol. Unfortunately, in most cases patrols are mixed or divided in order to create 'equal sides'."

 

Yes, I agree completely. Nothing proves the absence of the Patrol Method quicker than counting off by twos. Sometimes the unequal sides can be compensated with the SPL and ASPL, or a Patrol of older Scouts can be pitted against two Patrols of younger Scouts.

 

I always remind the SPL that dodge ball does NOT have to be fair to be fun! Did the Patrol Leader of a smaller Patrol talk to his Scouts to make sure they would be at the meeting? Do the members of a small Patrol have friends that like dodge ball?

 

"Would you not find greater value in helping explain to leaders the ways that the actual current program supports the philosophies and methods of B-P and how to continue to get his results by using the current program."

 

At the very least I would suggest that understanding how B-P's methods differ from Hillcourt's methods and how both differ from the current BSA methods gives Scouters an opportunity to view the current program with "fresh eyes."

 

"The world that B-P first introduced Scouting to is much different then life in the US today."

 

"I disagree with posters who argue that is the youth that have changed."

 

These two statements seem to say different things. I agree completely with the later because my experience of recruiting in the public Schools shows that 75% of all sixth-grade boys will sign a list for joining or are already in another Troop.

 

Getting their parents to allow them to join is a different matter, however, and perhaps this indicates that the world of adults is much different now than when B-P first introduced Scouting.

 

"I think B-P would have no problem with the First Class emphasis Program...."

 

Baden-Powell required that a First Class Scout be 14 years old, so if it had been in his nature to propose a First Class emphasis Program he might have called it "First Class in Three Years"!

 

On that note I must unplug my desktop and for a while relocate 400 miles south of Dunwoody

 

Kudu

 

[Beavah]

Baden-Powell required that a First Class Scout be 14 years old

 

Yah, this is da salient point, I think.

 

If First Class really represents a lad's independent skill and comfort in the outdoors, and if da journey getting there is going to be active, and fun, and kid-friendly and exciting in all the ways the Founder intended it to be, with other Methods than Advancement actively employed...

 

Then it probably takes a fair bit longer than a year, eh?

 

Which has the salutary effect of gettin' 'em to First Class around age 14, right about when Ages & Stages tells us they're ready to step forward and assume positions of leadership and responsibility.

 

But as Kudu mentions, BP's notion of First Class was much more focused on Learning than on testing or teaching, and therefore quite a bit more rigorous than many BSA troops achieve. We forget that the journey of self-directed and rigorous and fun Learning is also supposed to be our first and most important step toward advancement, too.

 

Beavah