observed an EBoR, part 2

[qwazse]

The real problem here is when you ask questions from a point of bias, you miss out on important things like: "What's this boy and his troop like?" "Are other boys also moving along as quickly?" "What kind of program can we provide for him and his buddies?" "Is this a kid who can be challenged to lead at a district level?"

[GKlose]

Thanks for the input, everyone. I'm just giving you one facet of a 3-sided story, I'm sure the board and the candidate would have their own takes on what happened as well.

 

When the news was delivered to the Scout-candidate, he and his SM/dad were before the board, and I wasn't. From what I understand, the board told him the favorable news and then suggested that he continue with his leadership development by participating in our council's Brownsea 22 program (which is still the old circa 1976 syllabus) -- the Scout had already been planning on doing that. He's got a pile of merit badges, so Eagle palms will be catching up with him every 3 months or so, until he turns 18. :-)

 

We've had 5 other scouts go through this same board in recent months. Maybe 3 more in the next six months. I've not sat in on these boards, so I can't really say what their true style is, or whether or not every Scout is treated the same way.

 

About the merit badges -- I think it is a virtual case of "alchemy" :-). Another Scout lives across the street from the candidate, only he is a couple of years older. They have known each other pretty much their entire lives. Neighbor-Scout joined the troop about 2 years before Achiever-Scout. Neighbor-Scout was kind of hitting the teen doldrum years when Achiever-Scout joins the troop, with his goals, including making a run at all merit badges. So they operated as a buddy pair, and are quite organized. Multiple calls to multiple counselors, some of whom handle multiple merit badges. They set aside a couple of evenings per week, and weekends, to exclusively work on whatever MB is next on the list. Some "specialty" merit badges need special circumstances -- for example, we happen to go to a summer camp that has Horsemanship, Climbing and Watersports. They were a little disappointed that they didn't finish all 3 this summer, but they are out looking for counselors to finish them. Even though we are a small to mid-size council, we have a pretty good MB counselor list with good coverage. When asked at his EBoR, the candidate did mention that finding a counselor for Veterinary Science was probably the most difficult task. The two Scouts take turns calling counselors. Some newer and more difficult merit badges are on the "to be finished" list -- Backpacking, Scuba and Robotics immediately spring to mind.

 

BTW, I recall that Neighbor-Scout was working on Life rank as his younger friend joined the troop. Part of the alchemy has been the competition between the two -- Neighbor-Scout didn't want to lose the race to Eagle. :-) Neighbor-Scout had about a 10 MB head start, some of which did come from lame programs at summer camp, including one "Eagle Week". Neighbor-Scout admitted he didn't like his week there, and would not return.

 

If this question pops up -- the troop is pretty much a "any MB at any time" kind of troop. The old SM, and the new SM, both are pretty liberal with blue cards. I know that's a hot button issue on this forum, so I won't belabor the idea.

 

I said earlier in this thread that I would give my feelings at a later time -- I'm pretty impressed with what these two Scouts have done. "Highly focused" on a goal is how I would describe it, and how many teens do you run into that are highly-focused on something other than Xbox? :-) I don't think "achieving" is a bad thing, in fact, I think we should encourage it.

 

Guy

[Twocubdad]

If I walk in and am hit with a 14y.o. Eagle with 103 MBs, his dad's the SM and his project including rebuilding a bridge capable of supporting a firetruck, I'm going to have some questions too. The sarcasm is uncalled for and perhaps some of the questions should have gone unasked.

 

But asking how the Scout earned all those MBs is a reasonable question. Verifying the requirements are complete is part of any BoRs job.

 

But then you need to have a conversation about the boy's experience in Scouting. This fellow has an unusual Scoutign career and it's silly to ingore it. If I Scout earned Life and 20 MBs by age 13, then earned the last MB two days before his 18th birthday, it's reasonable to ask what he did for five years.

 

EBoRs should be challenging and thought-provoking. Any Eagle Scout should be able to point to his record with pride and answer questions about it. If you're just going to ask non-specific canned questions, just have him fill out another form and mail it in.

 

But it sounds as if your Scout handled himself well. Good for him. Another point of pride in his Scouting career.

[Papadaddy]

Gotta disagree, twocub. If the blue cards are signed by a registered counselor, no further verification is necessary, nor appropriate. The verification occurs by the council registrar before the EBOR convenes.

[bnelon44]

>But asking how the Scout earned all those MBs is a reasonable question. Verifying the requirements are complete is part of any BoRs job.

 

There is no board of review for merit badges. If they are signed off, they are done.

 

11.5.0.0 Charter and Bylaws and Rules and Regulations of the Boy Scouts of America

 

Section 1. Responsibility for Merit Badges, clause 13.

 

The responsibility for merit badges shall rest with the merit badge counselor approved by the local council and

district advancement committee. Merit badge counselors shall be registered adult members of the Boy Scouts of

America. The merit badge counselor shall prepare and qualify youth members. There shall be no board of review

procedure for merit badges, but public recognition may be given at a unit court of honor or other suitable occasion.

 

http://scouting.org/filestore/pdf/33088.pdf(This message has been edited by bnelon44)

[Eagle92]

As I stated, I see asking about MBs and the MBCs part of the quality control of the district and/or council in regards to MBCs. They need to ask about that to Find out which MBCs are actually doing their job, and which ones are not.That way if issues do arise,it can be rectified. But as others have said, once signed off, it's a doen deal.

 

 

As for this question with modifications in parenthesis:

 

If (a) Scout earned Life and 20 MBs by age 13, then earned the last MB (five) days before his 18th birthday, it's reasonable to ask what he did for five years.

 

Hopefully the Scout can answer, "HAVING A BLAST," (caps is for shouting this time )and enumerate all the different activities he did with scouts in the past 5 years as a Life. I know that's what I said.

 

 

[GKlose]

I'm just kind of tossing this out for thought-provoking discussion -- I don't really have an agenda here (and I admitted up front that some of these are hot button issues).

 

At the time, my reaction was that it is certainly fair for them to ask about 103 MBs -- in fact, another piece of the story is that "Neighbor-Scout" had his EBoR a month earlier, but I'm not sure how many of the same Scouters were on his EBoR too. I did hear that board questioned his 103 MBs as well.

 

The question about where the merit badges came from doesn't bug me so much. If a Scout, for example, is racking up huge numbers at a merit badge university, that tells one story. To earn virtually all Eagle-required MBs at the local camp's "Eagle Week", that tells another story. But in this case, the buddy pair was doing it a rather normal way, by calling individual counselors and setting up meetings. Part of their organization method was to use the worksheets available online (I'm not so fond of those).

 

I'm not big on negative tone, and the first EBoR question about the merit badges was "do you think you're getting anything out of all these merit badges?" Questions like that immediately put the Scout in a defensive posture. Tough, sure. But not what I'd really consider Friendly and Courteous.

 

Granted, I know this Scout quite a bit better than these guys looking at his application for the first few minutes of the EBoR. I'm disappointed by [what I perceived as] the negative tone, but I also think they missed an opportunity to find out a little more about him personally, and also to hear firsthand about his goals (national outdoors award, Hornaday, and others). In fact, while we were waiting to be called into the board, we were looking at a world map together, and I brought up one of my favorite topics -- Antarctica. This Scout didn't know about the Antarctic Scout program. It got a "hmmmm..." from him. I love planting seeds like that :-).

 

One more thing -- about sarcasm. The only part I perceived as a sarcastic comment was the "you're not an 'A' personality, are you?" after the candidate answered a question about his many activities outside of Scouting.

 

Like I said earlier, I don't really have an agenda. It's not like I plan to follow up with either the EBoR chair or the district advancement chair, whom I've known for several years. But I will probably warn future candidates, including my own sons, that this sometimes happens with this board.

 

But thanks again for all the input...

 

Guy

[Twocubdad]

Forget Eagle. A basic purpose of any BoR is to determine if requirements have been met. Another function is to evaluate the unit's program.

 

I'm not saying the board has the ability to go in and determine if the boy completed requirement 4a of the tiddly-winks merit badge, but if 82 of the MBs are from the same counselor or all signed-off on the same date, the board would be warranted in asking more questions. Perhaps there is nothing for the BoR to do at that point, but that may certainly be something to be brought to the attention of the unit committee or district advancement committee.

 

While the information can be determined from the written record, where's the harm in asking the candidate? He's sitting right there. Without asking, how would they have known the young man earned all the MBs the old-fashioned way? Can the questions be phrased in a kind, friendly matter and still get to that piece of information?

 

Someone with an extra ordinary story should expect extra ordinary questions and be prepared with extra ordinary answers. If I graduated high school in June 1980 and earned a PhD from Harvard in January 1981, I would expect a job interviewer to raise questions about it. "Harvard? The one in Boston, right?"

 

Tough questions aren't unkind or discourteous, per se. And anyone who has amassed a resume like this should be able to handle them. And again, it sounds like this fellow did.

 

Guy -- curious. Did you discuss any of this with the Scout? I'd be interested if he had the same impressions.

[GKlose]

TwoCub -- I haven't discussed it with the Scout yet because I haven't seen him since the board was held. If this thread is still active, I'll talk to him this next week and then report back.

 

I will offer this: I was with the Scout and SM/dad moments after we exited the boardroom. The Scout plopped in a chair, relieved, and said to his dad "man, they really grilled me!". At the time, I thought that was a pretty fair reaction.

 

Guy

[Gary_Miller]

Twocubdad, "A basic purpose of any BoR is to determine if requirements have been met."

 

Not a purpose of any BoR. Requirements having been met has already been determined by the SM.

 

The purpose of a BoR is: From the "Guide to Advancement 2011".

 

8.0.0.1 Purpose and Timeliness of Boards of Review

 

After a Scout has completed the requirements for any rank or Eagle Palm, he appears before a board of review. Its purpose is to determine the quality of his experience, decide whether he is qualified to advance and, if so, encourage him to continue the quest for Eagle or the next Palm. Because the board of review date becomes the effective advancement date, boards should be scheduled at least monthly so Scouts are not delayed in beginning time-oriented requirements for the next rank.

 

 

 

 

 

[Beavah]

Yeh have to read da whole book, and understand things in context Gary_Miller

 

8.0.1.1 "Though one reason for a board of review is to ensure the Scout did what he was supposed to do to meet the requirements..."

 

So TwoCubDad is right, eh? That does still seem to be one of da purposes of the BOR, just as it has been for decades.

 

Beavah

 

[BadenP]

 

Yeah, Beav and twocub are correct a BOR, especially an EBOR has the right and responsibility, as stated in the BSA pub, to ask any questions about the scouts journey in scouting. They can not retest any skills, but they can ask specifics about his ranks, MB's, and project, such as what he learned, what was the most difficult experience in scouting and why, etc. An EBOR is NOT a rubberstamp committee for the Eagle Badge, it is their responsibility to determine if a boy is truly ready to be an Eagle. If the EBOR in your district is just a checkpoint for the boy and nothing more than you are NOT doing the EBOR correctly, according to BSA standards.

[Eagle92]

Beav,

 

The problem is this: if a BOR is appealed b/c the BOR found that the requirements were not properly done, who do you think will win the appeal? Not trying to be a PITA, but a realist. I've seen similar things happen, and heard of one case where every member that sat on a district's EBORs quit over an appeal. Something about MBs not being done properly, sorry do not remember the details, and the scout was denied. It was appealed and granted over the wishes of the district folks. The district's folks said it would be no problem for the Scout to do the MBs correctly as he had several years left before aging out, and could do them at summer camp.

 

Funny thing is this, not know who he was, I ran into him aa a UoS b/c he was doing DC training. He had the sash and medal on, and I struck up a conversation about a few of the MBs on the sash. He had a deer in the headlights look as I asked him some questions about Indian Lore MB that he earned, which led me to ask other questions on MBs in a conversation. Scout acted as if I was talking in another language. After he left, my coworker asked me what I thought about that Eagle, and after I gave my opinion, informed me that he was the one his advancement committee quit over.

 

 

[bnelon44]

There is no board of review for merit badges. If they are signed off, they are done. See my note above.

 

BORs have to accept signed off merit badges. They don't investigate if a Scout completed any of the merit badge requirements. The BOR can make a judgement call on if a rank requirement was done. But if the Scout has the proper number and type of MBs signed off, then the MB requirement is complete.

[Gary_Miller]

Yea Beav I saw that after I posted, so just waited to see if someone would bring it up.

 

However, if the requirement has been signed off by the SM who's to say it has not been met.

 

I've seen many boys, including Eagle Scouts, who can't do the basic Knots/Hitches. However, they met the requirement at the time they pass it off. Since a BoR can't retest how you going to determine the requirement was met except that its signed off in the book. And if the MB counselor is the one who decides that the badge is completed, the BoR has no buisness questioning other wise. About the only thing a BoR can determine if a requirement has been met is on the PoR, active, and service project.

 

Lets face it the real purpose of a BoR is to get the boy in a interview type environment, and the EBoRs main purpose is to determine that the boy showed leadership during the execution of his project.