The 2 Scouting Programs

[bacchus]

As a leader in scouting, I want to see my youth perform as a team. With a constant inflow of scouts every couple months, it seems as though there is plenty of time to work on this, and a great need for it. I want them to learn leadership skills. With a regular rotation into PORs, I can see this happening.

 

The rank advancement is a different matter. I want to see the youth succeed and get their advancement, and will everything I can to help them. I don't feel it is my job to push their advancement, just to make it an option and available. There are other adult leaders who feel it is their job to slow down advancement, or even prevent it at times.

 

To me the rank advancement is a different matter than forming, storming, norming, and performing of team building and leadership.

 

1) Do you see it differently?

 

2) If you have ever slowed down somebody's rank advancement, what was the reason?

[Eagle92]

The scout is responsible for their own advancement, not the leaders. The goal of the PLC is to provide a program that is exciting, adventurous, fun, and provides the opportunity to advance. Advancement is not the focus of Scouting.

 

Adults' jobs, IMHO, is to mentor and advise the older scouts. Older scouts should do the mentoring and advising to the younger ones.

 

[evmori]

The scout is responsible for their own advancement, not the leaders.

 

I couldn't have said it any better. The adult leadership is in place to provide the opportunities for the Scouts to advance. It is up to the Scouts to take advantage of these opportunities.

[shortridge]

Rank advancement comes naturally if the program is of good quality, focusing on the outdoors and adventure. Leadership and team building will also flow from the program.

 

Storming, norming, performing? Eeeccchh. It may be a good way to describe a process, but it shouldn't be the be-all, end-all of a good Scouting program.

 

Slowing down or preventing rank advancement, if the Scout has fulfilled the requirements, is flat-out wrong.

[shortridge]

Rank advancement comes naturally if the program is of good quality, focusing on the outdoors and adventure. Leadership and team building will also flow from the program.

 

Storming, norming, performing? Eeeccchh. It may be a good way to describe a process, but it shouldn't be the be-all, end-all of a good Scouting program.

 

Slowing down or preventing rank advancement, if the Scout has fulfilled the requirements, is flat-out wrong.

[AvidSM]

There lays a Scoutmaster's biggest challenge: how to run a good program while developing good youth leaders. If the program is below par, scouts don't want to participate in it and can't advance. If the adults take over running more of the program to improve its quality, the scouts don't get a chance to demonstrate leadership.

 

It is a careful balancing act - something a good Scoutmaster learns to do in time. Because of the constant change in youth leaders, the PLC "team" is always stuck in a loop of all the stages of development. Constant training, guidance and advice from the Scoutmaster is key. The better the scoutmaster does his job, the more time is spent in the later stages.

 

Boy Scouting is one program - you develop youth leaders while they deliver the program. Never slow down rank advancement - it is a disservice to the boys and is not allowed.

[Beavah]

Never slow down rank advancement - it is a disservice to the boys and is not allowed.

 

Yah, I always get a knee jerk response to statements like this, eh? Could be because I've got old knees. Could be because I'm a jerk.

 

I reckon there are times when it's appropriate to slow down advancement. When parents are pushin' it for sure. Also when a boy gets focused on checkin' da boxes as fast as he can rather than really learning the skills as best as he can. We want kids to get stronger, eh? Often that means encouraging 'em to dig harder and deeper rather than shallower and faster.

 

I think most good SMs also have to have a vision of what it means to be a First Class scout, or a Life Scout, or an Eagle Scout. Da requirements provide snapshot frames and measurable moments, but da reality is more like a movie than like snapshots. If yeh have a great First Class movie then you'll have da snapshot frames to prove it, but if yeh ran around collecting snapshots yeh won't have the movie.

 

So yeh might think, like Kudu does and BP did, that a First Class scout should be able to handle himself completely on a weekend outing without any help. A scout who can do that for real will certainly have the ability to plan food and cook it, pick campsites, handle basic first aid, navigate and all da rest of the snapshot requirements - AND know how to string 'em all together. But a lad who has just accumulated snapshots - done meal planning here, done some cooking there, navigated once for da requirement, etc. - he won't have the movie. And a SM with a good sense of mission and vision will care about the lad and slow down his advancement until he's got the movie - until he really is First Class. Anything else does the lad a real disservice.

 

Beavah

[Crew21_Adv]

Fellow Scouters,

 

I concur with Eagle92 statement. That the adult leadership and PLC is there to deliver a program, advancement will follow. And Sorry bacchus, this is not to answer your questions, but just for me to rant on boy led vs adult led.

 

I have heard and repeated, that Chartering Organizations utilize Scouting within their outreach and youth development programs. Most of all of the time, it identically parallels Scouting methods and ideals. But I've been told by a few DE's, that for Chartering Organzations, Scouting is like a shopping store. Of course they cannot violate rules, but they can be selective and take the parts of the program that they like. A CO and Committee may pick and choose.

 

For example, on rare ocassion. Similar to the learning for life program, a CO can have a Troop, just for high adventure, more resource, and program insurance. They can utilize COPES course, and camp on BSA property; but never advance a single Scout in a single rank.

 

On the other hand. A CO and unit Committee, may decide that their troop is an Eagle Mill. Their primary focus is advancement. Finishing intensive 6 month, 500 word essay merit badges during a one hour meeting. Earning most all 125 merit badges each year.

 

Butting heads reading boy led vs adult led...

I had one protege in a nearby neighborhood, he assumed Scoutmaster after the previous Scoutmaster retired from the position with his 18 y/o son. He explained his goals were to provide a program that allows for advancement. That he desires to utilize the PLC to lead the troop. It didn't take a month. The Troop Committee held a meeting, pulled the new Scoutmaster aside, and said that his radical ideas of boy leadership and outdoor program were not what they wanted. He was asked to step down by the committee. It didn't take but about three months for him and his son, to look for another troop that they could join as a Committee Member and Tenderfoot.

 

All this to say. Some Scouters will desire to provide a program, and assist the boys in achieve their goals. Meanwhile, Some Scouters and the whole unit will throw out the boy led program, and have adults lead the troop.

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv

[Eagle92]

Like everything, there is a time and a place for 'slowing down a scout" if he is not truly meeting the requirements, that's one. If he is not living up to the Oath and Law, that's another. If the parents are pushing, pushing, pushing advancement, that may be another.

 

I went through the T-2-1 ranks rather quickly, even with the time requirements back in the day. I got 1st Class within 13 months of joing the troop, the hold up being FA MB as my SM wanted me to use 1 particular, and very well regarded FA MBC. If you have a troop that is truly a "hiking and camping troop," that is in the outdoors at least once a month, save December ( and even then we had a few scouts goign to winter camp) adavancement to First Class will come along nicely.

 

S-L-E are the hard ones because it demands more form the scout. While a troop's program will help some, most of the work is on the scout.

 

My advice has always been to get to Life before HS, because once HS hits it get harder to do things in Scouting based upon my personal experience and observations. However once you hit First Class, do start to take somer time to enjoy yourself and not focus on advancement.

 

My first year in Scouting was intense and I had a blast. But more importantly it prepared me for better journeys in the following years: BA 22, NSJ, 50 Miler in the Canadian Wilderness, etc.