What are the benefits of Wood Badge to a troop?

[Gonzo1]

Kudu,

"What make you a trained leader?"

and "Scoutmasters and assistant Scoutmasters are considered trained when they have completed New Leader Essentials, Scoutmaster and Assistant Scoutmaster Leader Specific Training, and Introduction to Outdoor Leader Skills."

 

I've been to each of those courses as well. Plus, YP, the old Scoumastership Fundamentals, I've taught many of the YP, NLE, Leader Specific Training, and Outdoor Leader Skills training courses. I attended WB in 1994 in the Eagle Patrol in an outdoors oriented course that taught leadership skills, some touchy feely nonsense and outdoors skills. I'm also a UC and attended Basic and Bachelor level training. My schedule lately has been full, couldn't attend Master level this year. Since I'm and Eagle Scout and a Brotherhood member and have been to a host of military leadership courses, I'd say with confidence that I'm a trained leader. In a PM to me, you listed quite a resume yourself. With your impressive resume, I'm sure you consider yourself a trained leader, not just a minimally trained leader. Afterall, Leader Specific Training, and Introduction to Outdoor Leader Skills are just basic courses. With your past position of leadership, have you been able to make change???? That is, did you stop WB for 21st Century or go along with it? I haven't attended the "new" course, so I don't know first hand about it. My personal feeling is that it shouldn't have been tinkered with, but that a new course could have been added and left the "old" WB course alone - but that's a whole other thread, isn't it?

 

Kudu, Many of us would appreciate a return to the "old" ways, you, me, many others. I'd like to see signally MB come back. Add more outdoor emphasis, make Backpacking MB required.

 

I am a huge supporter of Patrol Method. If the PLC didn't decide what happens, shame on them. The patrol leaders and SPL run the show. The SPL shouldn't be making duty rosters for patrols, but to give the tools necessary to the PL's. I disagree with the notion of having PL's for life. 6 months minimum, maybe a year tops, but at the decision of the PLC.

 

Adults should NEVER do for a boy what a boy can do for himself.

 

In the end, i see the benefits of WB as unlimited to a troop, the troop committee, the boys, the boy leaders, the individual who attends. I'm sure many folks here never really finish "working their ticket", because we see "ticket items" all over the place. A need to fix this, change that, help him or her. Share this item with someone else or help out at a camp-o-ree.

 

Gonzo

 

[Kudu]

Gonzo,

 

Yes I was a training junkie too but I have cut back to the point where I only staff a few outdoor Council courses now.

 

My point is simple enough: No matter how much BSA training you take you will never actually encounter the valid Scouting ideas to which the BSA pays lip service in passing unless you read the original BSA publication in which all of the workings and subtleties of the Patrol Method are fully explained: the 1,132 page, two volume Third Edition of the Handbook for Scoutmasters.

 

This is where Americans first encountered the authentic famous Scouting aphorisms:

 

To the boys Scouting is a gameto you, a game with a purpose: Character building and Citizenship training.

 

and

 

The Patrol Method is not ONE method in which Scouting can be carried on. It is the ONLY method!

 

"Kudu, Many of us would appreciate a return to the "old" ways, you, me, many others."

 

The Patrol Method is timeless.

 

There is, I believe, a widespread assumption that the volunteers and professionals who write the BSA training materials have sifted through the old BSA publications and made conscious decisions about which of the "old ways" are still valid and which of them are better replaced by some trendy corporate business theory.

 

If that were true, then why do these authors always (and I do mean always) attribute the above two quotes (and a few others) to Baden-Powell? If anyone (and I do mean anyone) at BSA Headquarters was familiar with the Patrol Method these errors would not remain in print.

 

So why should anyone take Wood Badge when they can go right to the source by reading the Third Edition?

 

"I disagree with the notion of having PL's for life. 6 months minimum, maybe a year tops, but at the decision of the PLC."

 

Not for life but for as long as they are the most gifted and productive leaders in the Troop.

 

The idea that it is up to the PLC is a dodge because (as the older BSA publications point out) a Scoutmaster's duty is to provide input to the PLC. When my PLC talks about getting rid of a good Patrol Leader because someone else needs the POR credit for advancement, I ask them who in the Patrol is more responsible? I suspect that Scoutmasters who believe in "maybe a year tops" for Patrol Leaders influence their PLC in the same way as I do although they may not realize it because the Troop Method habit has already been established.

 

The question I would ask Wood Badge types is what adult need does your conscious decision to discourage your very best Patrol Leaders fulfill?

 

If the Troop that you serve was blessed with the most gifted Scoutmaster in your Council or state, would you ask him to step aside after only a year so that a less talented adult can learn leadership skills?

 

How about your Committee Chairman? If he or she completely transformed your Troop by offering seemingly effortless financial and logistical support to each and every one of the PLC's wildest plans, would you ask him or her to step aside after only a year to give another mommy or daddy a chance to "learn how to be a leader"?

 

If not, then why should Patrols be Leadership Development Skills Mills?

 

Kudu

 

 

[eolesen]

Kudu and Gonzo, this all sounds like a great side topic, but pining away over how WB21C changed the focus of what WB20C did won't do a whole lot to help a new or seasoned leader make a decision on whether or not there's any benefit to attending...

[Kudu]

eolesen,

 

Nice put-down, but what do the relative merits of the new "One Minute Manager" Wood Badge versus the previous "Eleven Skills of Leadership" Wood Badge have to do with this discussion? They both sacrifice the Patrol Method to the Leadership Development Method.

 

Let me make my recommendation simple:

 

If you are considering Wood Badge because you want to learn more about the Patrol Method, then simply ask the course director (is he called the "Cubmaster" now in the 21st century?) who said "Scouting is a Game with a Purpose?" If he answers "Baden-Powell" then he has not studied the American version of the Patrol Method, and you are much better off reading the original source material yourself (the 1,132 page, two volume Third Edition of the Handbook for Scoutmasters). It is available at the following URL. To tell the Third Edition from all of the other editions look for a volume number in the description.

 

http://tinyurl.com/38zo9r

 

Kudu

 

[Lisabob]

Kudu, while I can appreciate and may even agree with some of your concerns, I find it insulting that you use the language of Cub Scouting to air your grievances. Your last post makes it twice now, in this thread, where you've engaged in some implicit put-downs of Cubbing and Cub Scouters. Cub Scouters work hard to deliver a quality program and deserve all of our respect, not derision. I wish you'd stop that.

[eolesen]

Call it a put-down if you want to, but complaining about what you didn't get out of Woodbadge still isn't very productive, Kudu.

 

Maybe you missed the memo, but the teaching of Scoutcraft and other outdoor skills necessary for First Class is alive and well. They're just being done in a different course setting - IOLS. The patrol method is used as the primary method for running that course as well, so I think you're being more than just a little harsh in your opinion that patrol method is in any way being de-emphasized. There are troops who have done that, but I think that's a reflection of leaders not going thru the basic training for their position.

 

With any sort of training or learning environment, you get out of it what you put into it. I know a few other people who voiced the same type of criticism, and they were typically Scouters who acted as though there was nothing left to learn about Scouting. They didn't go into the course with an open mind, and I'll suggest from your own words that you didn't, either, which is unfortunate.

 

Rather than focus on a side-by-side comparison of what WB20C and WB21C provide, you really need to look at what used to exist for leader training before 2000, and what exists today when you look across the spectrum of NLE, Scoutmaster Specifics, IOLS, and WB21C.

 

If you'd like to save some time sitting thru Scoutmaster Fundementals or Intro to Outdoor Leadership with a stopwatch, I'll be happy to send you a link to the syllabus for those two courses. Read thru them. Find me examples where the patrol method is de-emphasised, and then perhaps we can continue the discussion...(This message has been edited by eolesen)

[BrentAllen]

I, for one, would like to know which Wood Badge Course Kudu attended - dates, location. Was this an indoor course, similar to the cabin camping your troop experiences?

 

BTW, your disdain for your beads has lead you to make a mistake on your inquiry pages. You state:

"Actually, it is doubtful that the beads ever belonged to Dinizulu. B-P's letters and diaries of the time record him removing beads from a dead African girl, with no mention of Dinizulu [Jeal, page 134]. Over time, the so-called "history" of the beads has changed to suit the intended audience."

 

If you read Jeal closely, he does not state that "beads" were removed from the girl (as you do), but instead a necklace. Also, considering Dinizulu was a large man (6' 7") and the beads wrapped around him several times (12 feet long, over 1,000 beads), I find it hard to believe an African girl would be wearing them. Jeal mentions the photo of Dinizulu wearing the beads, and that B-P likely acquired them in 1888 or later. My question - if B-P didn't get them from Dinizulu, then where else would he have gotten them? The corner market?

 

The South Africans appear to believe they were originally Dinizulu's, as they explain here:

http://www.scouting.org.za/seeds/woodbadge2.html

 

Of course, to a WB hater, this info won't change anything.

[John-in-KC]

May I please ask when and how we completely hijacked this thread?

 

EDIT: Answering my own question: Kudu did it.

 

I really do hope we gave the original poster some unit level reasons to take the course.

 

John

I used to be an Owl

(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)

[eolesen]

Hey, I tried to get it back on track once already in the past 24 hours...

[Eagle76]

I address this to the original post:

 

"...I do want to know to what benefit it will be to the troop and not my personal gain.

 

Elaborations and experiences would be appreciated. "

 

I base this on my personal experience.

 

Unless you are incredibly blessed, your troop in not perfect; there is room for improvement. I will assume from your question that you are interested in helping your troop improve. You probably even have some specific ideas on what you would like to see improved. You are not interested in the response "You'll have fun", because if your goal were to have fun there's no shortage of ways to have it, without going to Wood Badge.

 

To complete your Wood Badge ticket, you will need to carry out 5 projects. You can/should tailor these to the specific areas you would like to see improved in your troop. As my patrol-mate summarized it "Find a hole, and fill it." Only you can judge specifically where your troop can stand to benefit. Because you must clearly define your goals, make plans to reach those goals, and then carry out the plans in a timely matter, you will achieve these goals, and thus bring improvement in the troop more quickly and efficiently than you would otherwise. When you hit an obstacle, through Wood Badge you will have acquired tools and methods to help you overcome them, and you will have met people who can provide you with advice and assistance, and whose own experiences they can share with you to help you and support you.

 

Without the discipline imposed on you by the Wood Badge ticket, you are more likely to spend a lot of time standing around, jawboning with your compatriots about how the troop should do such-and-such or not do so-and-so. Maybe occasionally you'll find something specific, but relatively insignificant, to do on the spur of the moment. Maybe you'll start some bigger project, but something will come up to divert your attention, and the project will go unfinished. And when a year or a year and a half has passed, you'll have have accomplished less than if you had taken on the challenge of Wood Badge.

[Kudu]

eolesen writes:

 

"pining away...complaining...isn't very productive...voiced the same type of criticism...acted as though there was nothing left to learn...from your own words...you didn't, either."

 

Lisabob writes:

 

"I find it insulting...to air your grievances"

 

BrentAllen writes:

 

"your disdain...a WB hater..."

 

John-in-KC writes:

 

"completely hijacked this thread...Kudu did"

 

OK, here is Statement # 9, another incentive for robvio to attend Wood Badge:

 

9) When a volunteer offers views about improving Scouting that differ from my own, I turn the discussion around so it is all about him rather than Scouting (or I watch in silence as others do the necessary hatchet work).

 

If you agree with that statement, then you will love the fraternity of Wood Badge!

 

A more independent thinker might think, "I don't agree with everything Kudu says but, yeah, why did four Wood Badge types suddenly shift the discussion around to describing him?"

 

I would like to believe that the final straw was my simple test of a Wood Badge course director: Before you take Wood Badge ask him "who wrote 'Scouting is a Game with a Purpose'?" If he answers "Baden-Powell" then he has not studied the American Patrol Method. Pure and simple.

 

Certainly if a printed BSA publication mistakenly attributed a famous Steven Covey quote to Kenneth Blanchard, the phone lines to Irving Texas would be jammed with calls from Wood Badge Leadership Development experts. Such a basic error would be corrected in the very next printing because business management philosophy is important! But the Patrol Method? Not so much.

 

My guess is that the raw nerve here is that we simply do not practice with adults the treatment of Patrol Leaders that Wood Badge feeds: we do not encourage the best Scoutmasters and Committee Chairmen to step aside after six months (or a year tops) so that other adults can get their turn at "learning how to be a leader."

 

Nor does the ultimate 21st century expert on Scouting, Kenneth Blanchard.

 

Hmmm, now why is that?

 

When you find a really good treasurer, one that always shows up to Troop meetings at exactly the right time to collect money and write checks, one who always makes deposits promptly and always has an up-to-date printout of all of the Troop's sub-accounts, do you ask him or her to step down after six months (or a year tops)?

 

I note with interest the topic "3 Years as SM - What a Ride." Do you Wood Badge Leadership Development experts all stand your Patrol Leaders up in front of the Troop when they finish their third year in that office and lavish them with similar praises? Or do you save that kind of thing for Advancement Courts of Honor after six months in office because your job is to teach "Leadership Development," and your most gifted leaders must step down after a year tops to free up the POR so that less talented boys can learn all about "Leadership Development" from you in your Patrol Leadership Development Skills Mills because...

 

um...

 

they told you in Wood Badge that is your job!

 

Why don't your "Troop Elections" (which everyone one seems to believe teach such valuable lessons about "Citizenship") extend to the adult leadership positions with exactly the same six-month or one-year election cycle frequency?

 

Could it be that a great Troop depends on a few gifted leaders in the critical roles of Scoutmaster, Committee Chairman, and Treasurer?

 

Well then, could it be that a great Troop also depends on a few gifted leaders in the critical roles of Patrol Leader and Quartermaster?

 

Here is a survey: Count the number of parents in your Troop. How many of them are really gifted with enough time to be a registered leader?

 

OK, now count the number of Scouts in your Troop. How many of them are really gifted leaders? Be sure to count Baden-Powell's first choice: the hooligans with bad boy baggage like Fishsqueezer's SPL :-) Now subtract the ones that are too busy with sports or other resume-building interests to make Scouts a priority.

 

My guess is that for every 8-10 Scouts you are lucky if you have one really gifted adult volunteer, plus an additional two or three that are dependable on a weekly basis.

 

I submit that the ratio is about the same for any age group. For every 8-10 Scouts you are lucky if you have one exceptionally gifted Patrol Leader.

 

By "gifted" I mean a boy that you actually trust to take his Patrol on a five mile hike or overnight Patrol Campout (on Scout camp property) without using the Troop Method (adult supervision).

 

Can you afford to burn through a gifted Scoutmaster, Committee Chairman, and Treasurer every six months (or a year tops)?

 

If not then you can begin to understand why Leadership Development Wood Badge (and the Patrol Leadership-burning POR Advancement requirements that it is designed to feed) is pure poison.

 

I do understand that most people prefer the Troop Method along with its Webelos III/Wood Badge (catered food) summer camp. If that includes you (and let's be honest, most people like a nice Cub Scout vacation from the Patrol Method) then I have nine good reasons for you to go to Wood Badge!

 

Kudu

 

[fgoodwin]

robvio, welcome to the forums.

 

You ask how your troop will benefit if you take the time & effort to go to WB21C? My answer is: that's entirely up to you.

 

Without giving away too much of what you'll see and hear at your course, let me simply add to what others have already said. You will write a "ticket" which is essentially a project (or series of goals) that you and your WB patrol troop guide agree upon. YOU decide who will be the beneficiary of your efforts, and YOU decide what your project / goals will be.

 

I wouldn't be too anxious about specifics until you get into your course, but suffice it to say "its within every one of us" to benefit our units as much as we want by what we bring back from WB21C. In fact, that's the expectation.

 

But defining the benefit and how much your unit benefits is up to you.

 

Fred "I used to be an Owl . . ."

SR-552

[Kudu]

 

Lisabob writes:

 

"I find it insulting that you use the language of Cub Scouting to air your grievances."

 

I note that you did not answer my question: If the generic Wood Badge unit is called a "Den" at the beginning of the course (awww, that is so cute!!!!) is the course director called the "Cubmaster" until his Wood Badge Dens cross over?

 

"Your last post makes it twice now, in this thread, where you've engaged in some implicit put-downs of Cubbing and Cub Scouters."

 

Implicit? Well, I do not have much to say explicitly about the Cub Scout program. It is my impression that with the requirements of 12 day hikes, 6 night hikes, and 14 nights of camping, Baden-Powell designed his Cub program as more of an outdoor adventure than the BSA version and that the BSA program therefore appeals more to indoor boys. But if true that works to my advantage because I rely on recruiting in the public schools. Many of the boys I recruit dropped out of Cub Scouts, so the worse the Cub Scout program is, the better for me.

 

My explicit criticism is that Boy Scout Wood Badge was dumbed down to fit the indoor leadership needs of Cub Scouters. This is why learning a few outdoor Scoutcraft skills in adult Patrols was removed from Boy Scout Wood Badge. We learn by example, and in Wood Badge we learn to do away with Patrol cooking for the sake of indoor classroom instruction. If Wood Badge participants were still required to cook their own meals over wood fires, trained BSA Scouters might not believe with such a great conviction that summer camp is a "vacation from the Patrol Method." Like Wood Badge, most Boy Scout summer camps are just Cub Scout camps with age-appropriate classroom material.

 

"Cub Scouters work hard to deliver a quality program and deserve all of our respect, not derision."

 

If they worked all that hard to deliver a quality program they would have attended training in numbers sufficient enough that the dumbing down of Boy Scout Wood Badge to make room for the least common adult denominator would not have been necessary.

 

"I wish you'd stop that."

 

I won't, and in all fairness I make the same criticism of Patrol Leader Training which was also dumbed down to the least common denominator for the indoor leadership needs of Troop Scribes, Troop Historians, Troop Librarians, and Troop Buglers.

 

eolesen writes:

 

"Maybe you missed the memo, but the teaching of Scoutcraft and other outdoor skills necessary for First Class is alive and well. They're just being done in a different course setting - IOLS. The patrol method is used as the primary method for running that course as well, so I think you're being more than just a little harsh in your opinion that patrol method is in any way being de-emphasized."

 

I started as my Council's Introduction to Outdoor Leader Skills (IOLS) course chair more than a year before it was a required training course. The Patrol Method is not the primary method for running the course, it is merely a local option and the degree to which that option is to be used is explained to the participants in the Orientation session.

 

Indeed, the section in the course outline on IOLS Training Techniques concentrates on the Buddy System, not the Patrol Method: "The focus on learning by doing makes the buddy system approach the key difference between this course and merely showing how to accomplish a skill." Note also that the Course Evaluation form asks the participants for feedback on the Buddy System, not the Patrol Method.

 

Even in Councils where the Patrol Method is the "primary method for running that course" there is a big difference between a single weekend IOLS, and total immersion in the Patrol Method for the duration of a three-weekend Wood Badge course.

 

And of course it is possible to get to Wood Badge without going through IOLS. What kinds of decisions are Committee Members who have been taught that Leadership Development Method Wood Badge is the "ultimate training experience" (but have never once in their life experienced the Patrol Method) going to make when they presume to sit down to write "Troop by-laws" or make any important judgements about their Troop's program?

 

"If you'd like to save some time sitting thru Scoutmaster Fundamentals or Intro to Outdoor Leadership with a stopwatch, I'll be happy to send you a link to the syllabus for those two courses. Read thru them. Find me examples where the patrol method is de-emphasised, and then perhaps we can continue the discussion..."

 

Sure, I will be happy to take a look. If I remember correctly "Scoutmaster Fundamentals" is the old course that presumed to present itself as the modern incarnation of Aids to Scoutmastership and then falsely attributed "Scouting is a Game with a Purpose" to Baden-Powell.

 

BrentAllen writes:

 

"If you read Jeal closely, he does not state that "beads" were removed from the girl (as you do), but instead a necklace."

 

The point is that the girl's necklace was a significant enough find for Baden-Powell to note it in his journal. He makes no such mention of acquiring a necklace from Dinizulu's abandoned fort.

 

"Also, considering Dinizulu was a large man (6' 7") and the beads wrapped around him several times (12 feet long, over 1,000 beads), I find it hard to believe an African girl would be wearing them."

 

You seem to assume that in South Africa there was only one necklace made out of yellow wood. The photograph reveals that Dinizulu's necklace only wraps around his neck and chest twice. There is no description of Baden-Powell's necklace so we do not know how long the one he took from a dead girl was, nor how many times it wrapped around her body.

 

"My question - if B-P didn't get them from Dinizulu, then where else would he have gotten them?"

 

From the source that he notes in his journal.

 

"The South Africans appear to believe they were originally Dinizulu's, as they explain here:"

 

The South Africans' account states only that "Captain Robert Baden-Powell - gained possession of Dinizulu's Necklace." Which is a rather skillful use of the passive voice, don't you think? It fails to cite any reference for its claim and it neatly sidesteps the fact that The Gilwell Book lied about how the necklace was acquired:

 

"After the Second World War the origins of the 'Wood Badge' started to cause embarrassment. To have stolen a Zulu ruler's property was thought underhanded and unpleasant, as was the idea of the founder of a worldwide multiracial brotherhood fighting against Africans. So it became policy within the Movement to claim that Baden-Powell had been given the necklace by Dinizulu. 'This Change,' wrote the Deputy Chief Scout in 1959, 'was made first in The Gilwell Book and gradually in all our literature' [Jeal, p. 134]".

 

http://inquiry.net/ideals/beads.htm

 

Kudu

[BrentAllen]

Kudu,

Careful - your lack of Wood Badge course knowledge is showing. The CD is NOT known as the Cubmaster when the participants are grouped as dens. Also, the Patrols do cook their own meals during the second half of the course. Since you are so skilled at the "dodge", I'll be more direct.

 

Have you attended Wood Badge? If so, when and where? Did you stay in cabins, as your Troop does, or did you actually camp in tents?

 

FYI - IOLS is taught at the District level in our council, and it most certainly follows the Patrol Method.

 

Let's see, your comments on Dinizulu's necklace resolved....nothing. In fact, your quote supports my argument that B-P did take it from Dinizulu's fort: "To have stolen a Zulu ruler's property was thought underhanded and unpleasant, as was the idea of the founder of a worldwide multiracial brotherhood fighting against Africans." Thanks for playing!

[eolesen]

Kudu, I'm really not sure why you have such an axe to grind on this topic, but here's a link:

 

Leader Training Materials