Merit badge program -- too easy

[Scoutfish]

Well, it won't be the first time I said I wasn't an experiences Boy Scouter, but I do want to chime in.

 

I just recently finished teaching the first aid merit badge to 10 boys in my CO's chartered troop.

 

The SM and one of the ASM's asked me if I could do this before they go to camp.

 

I went out and bought the first aid MB book and studied it.

 

Pretty simple stuff ...but of coursem being a former firefighter and EMT didn't hurt, which is also why I chose this MB as one to teach.

 

WEll, anyways, I broke it down into four sections so as to stretch it out over a months worth of troop meetings and to make sure it wasn't like sitting in school.

 

Either I has really underestimated the boys ability or they are just really smart.

 

These guys not only knew most of what to do, but understood what could be done in situations where you did not have a nice new first aid kit handy.

 

Two of the boys...well. let me just say I want them near me if I ever get hurt in the woods.

 

So, I can't say that merit badges in general are too easy, but I know that I figured on First Aid being kinda hard for them

 

it only took 3 nights, and part of that was after they took a non pass/fail review test I made up. No, not a "add to requirements" test, but a test that they took, then we all went over so we could see what each boy might be having trouble with. They could change answers after we went over them .

 

Now, I don't know about you guys, but if I ever gfot something wrong on a test and was able to write the right answer in afterward.... I always remembered it after that.

 

Also, I had the boys bring in their own personal first aid kits and explain what each thing was and I also brought in some blankets, poles, bandages and used magic marker to create wounds on different scouts for the rest to tend to.

 

 

At one point during the second night, I created a scenerio for the boys and told them they all forgot their first aid kits at camp. Then I told them to find or make up everythiung they needed to treat "A", "B", and "C".

 

They came back with sticks, vines, a surveyor's stick with the pink ribbon, and everybody took their neckkers and belts off to be used if needed.

 

9 out of the ten got their blue cards signed on the 3rd night. One needed an extra night to earn it and had his signed on the 4th night.

 

 

 

 

 

[TAHAWK]

Forty Scouts sitting around a "counselor" for fifty minutes for five days getting "passed" as a group on requirements is a fraud, not to mention contrary to the national policy of individual qualification noted above.

 

Everyone knows it goes on at most, if not all, BSA summer camps. So what does that tell us?

 

 

W.Va. four years ago. twelve-year-old Scout runs into camp on Friday with Pioneering Blue Card all signed off. PL comes over and says said Scout can't tie a single knot needed for Pioneering. Turns out it's true. Pioneering Stakes? "What are those?" Project? "What project?" So I asked the 17-year-old in charge of Scoutcraft what was up, and he said effort was the only criteria. (Field Sports and Waterfront guys did not agree, thank God.) The Scout who tuned out to be unable to pass a single requirement was neither a mentally slow or an unenthusiastic Scout. His Eagle Court of Honor is in a couple of weeks. The problem was with the Council that turned Scoutcraft over to a team of unqualified youth. By the way, the Council supplied those youth with one axe, one hand axe, a box of matches, and a Trail Chef Cook Kit as the total equipment and supplies for the entire Scoutcraft area. Did I mention rope? No? That's because they had none - zip - nada. Not even twine. Pioneering without rope? (We went into Morgantown and bought them some 5/16 manila, as well as magnifying glasses, hot sparks, and cheap bow saws. They also borrowed backpacks and backpacking stoves from us. I had to sharpen their axes and WOULD NOT loan them our woods tools.) Didn't go back there.

 

 

Another Ohio camp famous for its truly fantastic facilities got the Canoeing kids in the water on Friday (Staff wter balloon fights had priority during the day.) and had a large Scoutcraft staff that, collectively, could not have passed for First Class. It was Week 1 of camp. By Tuesday the frustrated (and very competent) SC Area Director, who had no say in selection of "his" staff, had recruited our Troop's adults to run First Aid (We had a Fire Department EMT with us.), Pioneering, and Wilderness Survival while he ran the other MB's. What they did in Week 2 and subsequent, only Murphy knows. (They had super knowledgeable people at the climbing tower, Field Sports, and Nature, but Nature too was doing "group passes" on the "explain" and "show [knowledge]" requirements.

 

This sort of nonsense is a good reason to do your own SC at least every other year -- from Friday to second Sunday. Consider teaming with other like-minded troops.

 

But it's not just SC. As related above, it is also SM's who also grind the mill.

 

And it does not stop with those SM's. They have co-conspirators. Once had a SM asked me to sign twenty-five otherwise blank Blue Cards for Wilderness Survival MB and leave them on my porch so he could pick them up. He planned a "Wilderness Survival" meeting so his whole troop could "earn" the MB in one meeting - "or maybe two." He would "finish up" the Blue Cards. I politely declined. He found another registered counselor to do it. So its' also non-summer camp MBC's who also go along. I mentioned this to the District Advancement Chairman, who did zip.

 

Trustworthy?

 

All it takes for this to go on is good Scouters doing nothing about it.

[Alabama Scouter]

Twocub, you knocked it out of the park. The camp experience is about team building, game playing (yes, Kemp and BS, here, too!), cooking in camp, and having a good time with each other.

 

I'm distressed about Eagle required badges being dismissed in 3 hours of class time. Yes, 3 hours. Summer camp is one of the most important times in a scouts short time as a scout. I encourage all of my boys to go, and will continue to do so.

 

This thread has helped me firm up a thought that has been bouncing around in my head for a long time. Summer camp should be about fun. Leatherwork. Carving. Kayaking. Pottery. The fun stuff.

 

The Eagle required badges, especially the HARD THREE, are becoming pale shadows of what they were. They should be done, one on one, not as a group. And NOT at summer camp.

 

 

[WoundedFox]

Alabama Scouter: To you, what are the "Hard 3"?

 

My son is still an improving "non-swimmer" after his second year at Boy Scout camp. Swimming is going to be one of the hardest merit badges he ever earns, but he is determined to get there eventually. (He has been at it since "Aquanaut", which was the one Webelos Activity Pin that he couldn't earn.)

 

For me, Swimming was not so bad, but Archery and "Rifle and Shotgun Shooting" (remember when it was one badge?) were so hard that I never completed them despite earning 52 others. Good thing they were not Eagle Required. Some scouts could shoot all week without getting good enough at archery, but one scout just last week walked in to archery at Camp Ockanickon and completed all of his required targets in a row with high scores and no misses. He did the rest of the requirements, but the staff didn't have a whole lot to teach him about archery.

 

Some scouts are naturally better at some things than others. As someone said, many come into the badges with past experience or learning. Some even READ the MB books before they show up!

 

As with many things, what the scouts get out of a merit badge directly corresponds to what the scout AND the merit badge counselor put into it. We discourage our scouts from taking merit badges at camp that where we can offer better programs at the troop level, but we don't prevent them from taking them there. Within the letter of the requirements, a lot of it is up to the scout. When the scouts are not learning *at least* the letter of the requirement, then we take it up with the camp.

 

To all of the Merit Badge Counselors out there, remember that the requirements define what you may (and must) REQUIRE of the scout. They do not limit what you can TEACH the scout.

[Alabama Scouter]

WoundedFox; It has been my experience that the 3 merit badges which have the 90 day reporting requirement are the hard ones.

 

Scouts don't like to write, and doing a task for 90 days and writing about it tears at their soul.

 

Person Fitness, Personal Managment, Family Life.

[Eagle92]

Now this is going off on a tangent a bit, but I know some FA and CPR/AED instructors also serve as MBCs, so I think it applies to a degree.

 

I just finished teaching basic first aid in a class, and I think the current method of teaching the First Aid via DVD needs work. Now I like how CPR is done with a combination of watching the video, and hands on practice. But the course I just taught did not have as much hands on work as I think it should include. And if we are using instructors who are use to this method, maybe we are seeing the results in the field.