What made your course special?

[Ms. Eagle 515]

Greetings everyone,

I've been watching this forum since Oct. and even looked at the past Wood Badge Forums. For whatever reason, I couldn't post so I re-registered tonight and woo hoo, I'm part of the action now. During the course of different topics, I have stumbled across some really great ideas (like starting the second weekend on Saturday so it doesn't interfere with the Venturing youths school) that I would like to try to incorporate in my Council's Spring '08 Wood Badge course which I have the honor of being asked to be Course Director for. What I would like to know, what made your Wood Badge course special, convenient? What do you look back on and remember fondly? Participants, Staff Members, Course Directors, I'm all ears errr, eyes. Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[John-in-KC]

Deliberately choosing to go out-of-council for mine.

 

I see Carole, Cecil, Don, Judy, Steve, Jeff, John, Dan ... regularly throughout the program year. Unit stuff, district stuff, council stuff...

 

Going to WB in another Council gave me a different perspective on ways to to things!

[baden]

I had the good fortune to attend a National Pilot Course for 21st Century Wood Badge at Philmont. We were at Zastrow Camp which hosted Wood Badge courses going back to 1949.

 

The great thing about this course was the participants came from all over the U.S. from California to Connecticut. From Minnesota to Texas. Plus two International participants.

 

I knew no one on the course when I got there and left with many life long Scout buddies

[Lisabob]

What made it special? Getting to know so many other scouters who were all excited about and dedicated to scouting. I've served in a pack and now a troop for a few years and done some district stuff too and while we also have some great people in all of those groups, only at WB did I find that "spirit of scouting" was practically universal among participants. Such a nice change from having to continually "sell" people on the value of the program back in the home unit (esp the pack). It really refreshed and energized me in terms of my scouting outlook.

 

Also of course, the great friendships and mentorships that I was lucky enough to become part of.

[Fuzzy Bear]

My WB course was in the last century. It was in-Council and it started on Friday nights. I was with some people that I knew and others that I did not know. Our Coach Counselor was from a different district. I got to know several WB leaders from the adjoining cities. This gave me a new beginning within our council to do things and to call on people that I did not necessarily know before I started. I was thankful for the introductions because it was a large council and difficult to get to know others at a distance. The people that I knew locally were more helpful in the future toward me, as I was toward them as we worked within our district.

 

Things were kept secretive each week as we were to discover things as we went along, which we did. The problem was that we slowly learned the skills of leadership and were not able to engage the skills in a systematic way until the end. I prefer a top down approach where the skills are overviewed from the beginning and then taught one by one as the course progresses. I believe that discovery comes from doing as well as from knowing. Keeping the flow full and steady as the course progressed, means that people come to know and to do as soon as possible. There were those that lost interest through speculation and tended to drift.

 

At every meal we had a guest from the staff. The idea was to get to know them as a friend and a resource. By not knowing our direction as we went along tended to off-set the intention of the course. We tended to be polite and entertaining rather than engaging. I am more practical and maybe that disrupts the mystery but learning is an exercise in mystery anyway and shouldn't be clouded with things unintended. It is sort of like taking Scouts out to a new camp and telling them they are to camp in a specific area far away but not giving them compass directions to find their way.

 

We also had an overnighter where we took a hike and camped as well as had certain projects along the way. This allowed the staff time to have a dinner and enjoy each other's company. The problem with this is that we had been camping out each weekend and doing projects but not hiking. I felt that it was unnecessary and it tended to put those that couldn't hike or that were not used to it at a disadvantage. Others that were used to it just took it in stride. I don't believe we learned what we were supposed to learn. I think it would have been better to have had dinner with the staff and everyone get to know each other a little better. The staff could have a special dinner at another time. What I found out was that relationship building was the true meaning of getting the job done and that can't be accomplished unless people get to now one another.

 

Another outcome of the staff-camper dichotomy was that it tended to make for an in-group and an out-group. This raised unintended barriers that made for an elitist staff with people taking course roles for themselves over and over. They had lists of staff rosters showing how many times an individual had been in each position. This disallowed new people into the staff positions and caused friction between people due to the competition. For people to remain in power, the goal became one of putting people down. There is enough of that in life without Scouters doing that to each other. fb

 

[Lisabob]

I agree with all that FB wrote. While in the big picture I thoroughly enjoyed my WB experience and value it highly, among the things that irked me at the time were the "clique-y" nature of the staff - in particular the CD and his SPL (elitist is the word FB used and I have to agree), the "you don't need to know that right now," "patience grasshopper" approach to quite a lot of information for no clear educational reason, and a few of the activities that seemed to be, at the time, make-work in nature (such as the overnight hike/camp - which we got word of at the last minute, none the less scrambled to plan for, only to have canceled at an even more last-minute time. Grr.)

 

Again, as FB said, maybe this is a stylistic preference. Some participants might have liked the fact that they didn't know why they were supposed to do some things until well after the fact and frequently didn't find out important details until the last minute. For me it detracted from the ultimate purpose though because it seemed more like gamesmanship of the worst kind (staff controlled all the info, we were at their mercy) than well-thought-out pedagogy and led to guessing games ("what's the purpose of this exercise do you think?") rather than focusing on the actual task or information.

 

I had supposed that all of the above was just a feature of our CD's style and level of communication skills. Perhaps not though, given the FB seems to have a similar outlook on these things and we did not attend the same course.

[SR540Beaver]

Lisabob: "I had supposed that all of the above was just a feature of our CD's style and level of communication skills."

 

I guess this ties into the recent threads on tweaks and adaptations. Each council and CD puts their own flavor on WB, but it is scripted from beginning to end. When the CD goes for the required CD conference, they promise to deliver the material as scripted and not to deviate from it. Even the little pearls of wisdom the CD says at the activities comes from the book. The intent is that every WB participant gets the same training and experience regardless of when or where they take the course. Tweaks to the course I staffed were things like moving one or two presentations around in the schedule as long as they didn't affect the continuity of the material. We also changed up who did some of the presentations between TG's and other staff. Also, we don't do the hike and campout.....which by the way is allowed for in the syllabus, so it relly isn't a tweak.

 

Just like the scouting program, there is an expectation to deliver it as designed with some built in flexibility based on circumstances.

 

What made my course special? Probably catching the fever even worse once I met so many like minded people.

[Ms. Eagle 515]

Your comments are giving me some things to think about. Keep 'em comin'.

 

On the last course I staffed in Sept., there was a new change in the syllabus in which the first meal is a Blue and Gold banquet. I had been given a program from another council's course which was a little bland for me and told to run with it so I gave it a Hawaiian theme and went all out with decor as well as name translations for the participants and music. The participants as well as the invited guests commented on what a good idea that was and to me it was a no brainer all along. So, yes, I will stick to the syllabus but I'm game for tweaks along the way that will help make it a memorable experience.

 

Now that I think back on my course, one of the participants and staff members that stick out were both OOC and it was two different Council's as well. I don't think the two neighboring Council's would appreciate me soliciting their scouters, but I'll make sure word gets around in case these dates fit in someones schedule better.

[SueM]

"You don't need to know that right now" and "It will be revealed to you at the proper time!" (as I hear it from the older staffers around here!) was part of the old course...part of the "discovery" process.

 

One of the things we(staffers) did for the course last fall was, we wanted to have a real movie theater atmosphere for the participants when we did the "October Sky" afternoon..I placed 2 different colored tickets on the patrol tables right before the break before the movie started and didn't really tell them what they were for. I wanted to see if they'd figure it out. Then we set up a "booth" outside the door to collect tickets (they did figure that out very easily!) and then we set up a "consession stand" inside where they could come and use the other tickets for drinks and candy and popcorn. They seemed to really enjoy that.

 

Sue M.

[Lisabob]

Sue, that's a clever idea. I really wouldn't have minded that sort of lack of information. What I experienced was, in all probability, a remnant of (perhaps misdirected) attitudes from the previous version of the course - lack of basic information about who, what, when, where that would have been (at a minimum) helpful and sometimes even crucial to getting our end of things done as a patrol. In addition, there were frequent occasions where we (participants) would uphold our end, sometimes to our inconvenience, only to find that we were cooling our heels waiting around for our CD to uphold his end of things. Some of this appeared to have been intentional. Really it was a control situation in my view and I've never been good at going along in a docile manner in those sorts of environments. However, one learns all kinds of lessons about leadership and sometimes how *not* to lead is among the most important of those lessons. So I can't say it was entirely useless even when I was most irritated. But it did leave a bit of a sour taste in some respects.

 

As I said in my first response though, what made the course special for me was really the relationships I formed with fellow Woodbadgers, primarily among the other participants.

 

 

[Fuzzy Bear]

I staffed a course a couple of years after I earned my beads. Even though I was on staff, there was an air of elitism among those that had been on staff for years. The Old Ones remained aloof/distant from the beginners. It was as if the newbies were under an initiation period. I could go on but the attitude turned me off. To this day, I can find no reason for their grasping at straws. Whatever they gained in personal recognition was lost on friendship.

 

I have moved and have taken on different Scouting jobs with new people. The Skills of Leadership remain and I can use them effectively as I continue to Work my Ticket. I also want to point out that there were a few that knew their way out of the morass of self congratulations. They were good as gold. Their friendship remains even from those that have moved to Scouting beyond Gilwell.

 

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[SueM]

Lisabob and Ms. Eagle 515

 

The attitude of our CD from the start of staff development was that he encouraged ALL the staff to be creative in everything that we did..whether it was our patrol presentations or the troop presentations. He wanted us to do everything that we could to make -sure- that it was a "mountain top experience" for the participants..he gave us the basic concept of what he wanted...such as "what can we do to make the first day B&G banquet feel like a REAL Cub Scout event?" and then just let us run with it. A staff ASM would be assigned to head the event and then the troop guides who wanted to help would just jump in and we'd make the plans together. He encouraged us to create and present an atmosphere of "Scout Spirit" among ourselves and encourage that within our patrols too.

 

So..if I were to offer any "advice" to Ms. Eagle from a staffers' POV, it would be..invite a good, enthusiastic, knowledgeable staff..encourage them to be creative with everything...take advantage of that as a form of leadership ability. Encourage your staff to be open and helpful. Encourage fun.

 

Sue M.

I used to be a Beaver

[Ms. Eagle 515]

Thanks Sue M.

Personality and Creativity are definitly traits I am looking for in potential staff. Elitism is not in my vocabulary. I want a good repore amongst the staff that carries over to the participants as well. Since we can't choose the participants personalities the staff definitly has to be impactful. I have had the privilege of two 21st century staff experiences so I get what you are saying. It's nice for it to be spoken though to help me keep my focus.

 

Hey for our theater feel we did the popcorn as well. We also had movie posters which added to the atmosphere.

[SueM]

Ms. Eagle,

 

We did the posters everywhere too..we wanted to go for the whole theater thing..we put some "gum" (actually were smushed starbursts!) on the floor and the backs of a few chairs (obvious enough that it would be seen of course!)..and were going to try and find usher's uniforms..have the place completely dark and have the ushers bring people in with flashlights..but those things didn't quite workout. It was still fun though!

 

Sue M.

[jr56]

I enjoyed the interaction with my fellow patrol members, and members of other patrols as well. I would love to serve on staff, but with the advent of the new course, that will unfortunately never happen. I guess I am just not elite wood badge material.