Are we spending too much time on leadership?

[Eamonn]

OK,I am a big fan of the new Wood Badge Course.

But...

We had a Lad join the Ship last week. A real nice Lad, a little on the wild side but I think they make life fun.

He is a Life Scout and I'm unsure if he wants to complete his Eagle with the Troop or if he will do it with the Ship.

Our Boatswains Mate was going over the knots needed for Ordinary and he discovered that this Lad didn't know any knots, not even the square knot.

The Lad has served on JLTC and this past summer the NYLS ??Course.

He is by no means a duffer. In fact within a very short time he was starting to tie the knots, with a little coaching.

I was a little disappointed as I know and like his SM. As it happened I had another reason to call him and mentioned that this Lad couldn't tie any knots.

The SM is trained and has attended Wood Badge.

After some humming and herring, he admitted that they only have one ASM in the Troop that is any good at knots and since his grandson quit he isn't at meetings very often.

I can't help but feel that we (the District) have let the side down a little.

Here we have a Troop with a bunch of adults who don't have the knowledge to teach the Scouts a very basic Scouting skill and of course the Scouts never get to learn the skill.

Leadership skills are very important and have a place at the head of the table, but the Scouts have to be able to do the fun stuff which means they have to be taught the basic stuff.

Eamonn

[evmori]

I've noticed this myself. It seems if the Scouts don't use the skills they are taught, they forget! While I was SM, we instituted "Knot of the Night" at the beginning of Troop meetings. Started with a square knot & worked our way through clove hitch, 2-half hitches, taut line hitch, bowline, timber hitch, figure eight, etc. Practice made perfect (or at least helped with their memories).

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[orennoah]

Thanks, Ed.

 

You've just given me the idea I'm going to pass on "my" SPL for what to do for pre-openings.

 

I agree that we need to teach skills AND leadership. At the last District Round Table, us adult leaders did an exercise involving lashing. I was dissapointed at the number of leaders who, until they were shown how, just stared at the ropes and poles.

[CNYScouter]

This sounds to me that more leadership skills are needed or the SM got nothing out of Wood Badge.

 

Isnt a leadership skill recognizing a need or seeing a deficiency and finding a way to fulfill this need or eliminate the deficiency and following through to see that it was taken care of?

 

This SM is fully aware of the lack of basic Scouts skills being taught in his unit and the lack of adults with the knowledge to teach it and shouldnt he be working towards a solution to fix this instead of just saying the only person who was good at it no longer comes any more?

[SR540Beaver]

I've said it before and I'll say it again......and probably be criticized again for saying it. Unless you purposely build knots into your program, they are seldom needed on most outings. You get to camp after dark on Friday night and get back to the CO parking lot by 1:00 or 2:00 PM on Sunday. Unless you are using dining flys, wall tents and doing a pioneering project, the modern equipment used by most scouts and troops never ever require tying a knot. You might use knots on some high adventure trips, but you don't do those every month. I'm sure all scouts learned their knots and showed it to the SM's satisfaction to pass rank. But he didn't need it when he set up his free standing dome tent or the patrols EZ-UP to cook under. Maybe we should be teaching stake driving skills instead. Don't get me wrong, I think the knowledge is great to have.....I love knots, I'm just lousy at them.

[evmori]

SR540Beaver,

Excellent points! And maybe we should teach "How not to lose all but one tent stake". Seems this happens a lot!

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[Lisabob]

Eamonn, that's sad re: the knot situation. Hopefully the SM is now embarrassed enough that he'll do something about it.

 

At both the Cub level and over the last year observing at the troop level, I've seen a lot of adult leaders who were highly competent in terms of scout skills, but who lacked the organizational, inter-personal, or leadership capacity to translate those skills into a successful program.

 

We have many training opportunities that focus on building scout skill (though I'm all in favor of having more of them, too). In the current BSA training continuum, leadership skills are only covered in any kind of depth at WB. When I went through WB a couple of years ago, probably 70% of the participants said they were either trying to start a new unit, or rebuild an older unit that had imploded or just grown stale. In those situations, learning to lead change, deal with difficult people, and develop a shared plan of action is probably more immediately useful than knowing how to tie a certain kind of knot.

 

Ideally we'd have (or develop) leaders who excel at both types of skills.

 

Lisa'bob

A good old bobwhite too!

[Lisabob]

Ed writes: "It seems if the Scouts don't use the skills they are taught, they forget!"

 

Well sure Ed, and how good are you with a manual typewriter these days? (me, I'm hopeless. Thank goodness for spell checkers and that backspace key!) I like your "knot of the night" idea though.

 

Lisa'bob

A good old bobwhite too!

[SR540Beaver]

Lisa's post got me to thinking and this isn't meant to disagree with my old buddy Eamonn. While scouting is centered around an outdoor program, which is the more important life skill we want a boy to carry away from scouting? Knots or leadership? Hopefully the boy will apply the leadership skills thruout his life. He may never tie a knot his whole adult life. I know knots play into scouting because they are useful in the program and it also gives a boy an opportunity to practicve leadership by teaching the skill to younger boys. But the leadership is the prize at the end of the day. The knot is just one method of getting there. Again, with today's modern equipment, it is something that is difficult for a boy to retain unless we constantly and consistently build it into the program. There could be worse outcomes than a boy not knowing a knot. Granted, in Sea Scouts it is probably a more important and useful skill than in today's scouting.

[Eagle74]

'A teacher in one of the local elementary schools prepares for each upcoming school year by sending out a friendly letter of introduction to her new students and their parents. Each student is asked to send her a photo of themselves, a copy of a favorite photo of their choice, and a short introduction about themselves - favorite school subjects, favorite things to do, favorite things to eat, etc.'

 

'The parents are requested to complete a questionaire about their child and are given space to add anything they would like to relate about their child. One of the questions included in the teacher's questionaire: "Is your child a leader or a follower?"'

 

'A friend was talking about how much he liked the teacher's efforts to get to know her new students before the school year even began. He also added that he had received a second note from the teacher: "Mr. Jones, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you and your son . . . your son is the only follower in a class with twenty-six leaders!"'

 

More to come; gotta run.

[Eamonn]

I don't mean to dwell on knots.

It seems that a lot of the stuff that I did as a Scout isn't being done because the basic skills are just not there.

Knowing and having knowledge of these skills is what made my Scouting experience fun, the fun and the challenge is what kept me in Scouting.

Sure I wanted to become a Queens Scout and all that good stuff but it was doing stuff that kept me in Scouting.

I fear that the quest for Merit Badges and making Eagle may have replaced this idea of fun and challenge.

I like to think that I work well with adults and have a good understanding of Leadership and management. I have spent the last ten years as a member of the District Key 3.

Please don't tell anyone, but much as I like to think I did a good and worth while job. I really missed working with kids.

While I'm sure the time will come when we sit around and discuss who has the better management style Ken Blanchard or Bruce Tuckman, I think most Scouts would be happier discussing tomorrows hike or why the monkey bridge fell down.

Of course bringing in experts to give Merit Badge Classes is a lot easier than really doing stuff, but to my mind we are short changing our Scouts.

I think our Scouts learn leadership by undertaking the challenges and leading each other, teaching others and serving others. I see my role as making sure that our Scouts have the know how to do this.

OJ has attended some of these new NYLS courses (Mainly with the OA)He has come home saying that he has to write something which from where I stand looks very much like a Wood Badge ticket??

And he says that the courses were boring.

At the risk of sounding conceited I think we could teach these Lads more about Leadership with a day of pioneering and well run reflection.

Eamonn.

[SWScouter]

Most every morning I tie two knots. Yes I'm tying my shoes with a bow. Anyway, isn't a bow just a fancy square knot.

 

Shouldn't those scouters that are trying to rebuild a troop at least know how to tie a bowline, after all, it is the rescue knot.

 

My Webelos den went to the last spring camporee. One contest they did was to pitch a lean-to. Since they were Webelos, the adults got to help. While the boys were staking the two back corners and driving the two front stakes, I tied the ropes to the tarp with a two-half hitch and put a taut-line on the other end. We didn't work fast, we just did it. Turns out we had the fastest time of anybody for the whole camporee. The next fastest group was something like 40 seconds slower. Quite a lot considering we were under two. I watched the scouts do this before we did and was quite amused with how they were trying to tie the rope to the tarp and the stakes. It really was abysmal.

 

Oh, by the way, a two-half hitch is not a knot, it is a hitch.

 

I don't understand how the scouts can't remember the basic knots and hitches. Square knot, two-half hitch, and taut-line. All three are very simple and will cover most every situation they will encounter. Add in the bowline and they are probably completely covered until they start lashings.

 

Don't scouts back pack anymore? That should give them ample opportunities for using knots. They would be setting up rain flies and possibly lashing something to their pack, perhaps a sleeping bag. Or maybe they'll tie a rope around their sleeping pad so it won't unroll.

 

I use knots so much when I go camping I just can't imagine not knowing how. It is just easy, fast, and convenient. A lot easier than figuring out what to do instead.

 

Wow, this kind of turned into a rant didn't it. Oops.

 

SWScouter

[evmori]

Well sure Ed, and how good are you with a manual typewriter these days?

 

Considering I use the "Hunt 'n Peck" method, I don't have to peck as hard these days! Still working on the "Hunt" part!

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[Lisabob]

Eamonn, SWScouter, I agree with you completely that the basic skills need to be taught and it seems that they are not being covered adequately in some cases. And you're right that there are many activities which will be "off limits" (or at least, not fun) for people who lack the appropriate skills. And Eamonn, I'm not generally in favor of teaching youth leadership as just a mini-version of adult leadership classes. Your son's response says it all - boring.

 

But...what to do with the many adult scouters I've met, who may already have pretty solid "scout skills," whose hearts are in the right place, and who want to share that knowledge with a group of kids, and yet, who seem to lack any clue about organizational behavior, program planning, and leadership themselves? Their weaknesses in these areas seem to me to be getting in the way of building a good program and teaching those scout skills that we all want the boys to learn.

 

I hope these folks are in the distinct minority, but I gotta say, that's not my experience, either at the pack or troop level. This is where I think the current WB is useful.

 

Lisa'bob

A good old bobwhite too!

 

[OldGreyEagle]

How about if:

 

Whenevre you camp, a patrol is assigned to construct a flag pole, to do this they will need to lash two poles together and use taut line hitches to secure the guide line to support the pole. Here you have lashing, a clove hitch, and a taut line hitch. Then there is the handy camp gadget that must be done for rank advancement. Why not a troop tradition of having a "towel stand" in front of every tent and hanging from it a sign designating who is in the tent.

 

Having a contest on which patrol can take scrapes of rope and make the longest rope would use the sheet bend. Modern equipment has taken away the "normal" uses of knots. At the 2001 Jamboree we found ourselves in a flood plain. We had to jam all our wall tents in 1/3 of the normal space. The scouts said they couldnt keep the tents up as ropes were too long. After I taught them the sheep shank, they were fine. I guess you lose it if you dont use it but then its up to us to help them find situations to use it.

 

And yes, this thread isnt all on knots. First Aid is another not always used skill, but still quite handy when you need it.

 

Then again, its really tough to teach leadership if you dont have a context in which to teach the leadership