things we might change about WB

[BrentAllen]

Lisa,

The show time of the movie differs between the week-long and two-weekend course. On the two-weekend, it is shown Sunday afternoon at 2:30 pm (Day 3). In the week-long course, it is scheduled to be started at 7:00 pm.

 

I hope the Cub Leaders didn't see our B & G as a mockery - it certainly wasn't meant to be. We had a very nice lunch and a few words of encouragement for the new Scouts. The big thing about the B & G was when the participants crossed over, that was when they found out which Patrol they were in (and critter).

 

Yes, Gonzo, there is one movie (October Sky), shown outdoors under the tarps. Yes, it is a different course. We don't spend half a day digging a latrine large enough to handle a battalion - should we bring that element back to the program? How about trenching around your tent, with a trench big enough to divert the Mississippi? Is that practical or relevent in today's world?

Camping has changed for the 21st Century. How many times has your Troop actually cooked over open fires, as opposed to using camp stoves or backpacking stoves? Sure, it is a skill to learn, but how often are your Scouts going to use it? LNT guidelines recommend the stoves.

The rest of the material you want is in the course, and probably more of some of it. The course is all outdoors (except for the meals the first couple of days), the patrol method is utilized with the SM and SPL running the show. Lots of leadership and management training, and plenty of different leadership excercises. Several Patrol projects, as well.

 

As I have mentioned before, the SM for the course I just staffed has been on 13 different staff teams, going back to 1975. He was on staff when my dad took the course that year. He has seen the old course and the new course (served on several 21st Century courses). I take his word for it when he says one isn't better than the other, they are just different. And don't think he is just toeing the corporate line - he is a bit of a maverick in the council. He never takes his Troop to one of our Council Summer Camps - he prefers to go to a camp over in Alabama. He calls it as he sees it, and I trust his judgement.

[Gold Winger]

" How about trenching around your tent, with a trench big enough to divert the Mississippi? Is that practical or relevent in today's world?"

 

Now that's just sill and has nothing to do with anything. If I had a tent without a floor, I'd be digging a ditch.

 

You remind me of the "BSA is God" guys who respond to criticism of the current handbook by pointing out that the old ones didn't cover CPR.

 

Newton didn't cover quantum mechanics but that doesn't mean his ideas weren't sound.

 

Sometime, actually quite often, newer isn't better but the folks who signed off on the system are too embarassed to admit that they bought a three legged horse.

 

 

[Gonzo1]

Brent,

I'll agree that the courses are different. They covered LNT things in my course, but we still cooked over wood. They even said I should camp while wearing combat boot becasue of the boot tread - like my boot are going to harm the dirt. In a developed camp site, I see no problem with using wood, the campsite has a prepared fire rings.

 

I've never dug a trech around a tent, but I know how to if I need to.

 

We didn't dig a latrine either, we had one port-o-let for 2 patrols.

 

Oh well.

 

[Eamonn]

I really think if the BSA had been silly enough to allow me to be in charge of changing the course! I would never have called it Wood Badge!

I would not have kept or used the critters or even used the word Patrol!!

The course is supposed to be a step in the continuum of training's.

Information about specific program areas should be covered in earlier trainings. (NLS?)

Specific trainings needed to deliver the good for the area in which someone serves should be available.

There are Training's for every area I can think of.

Trying to somehow keep everyone happy by morphing them into something that they are not or might have no interest in seems to me to be a waste of time.

One of the big complaints (Areas) that stuck out like a sore thumb on the course evaluations for the course I was CD for was the lack of information we provided the Varsity Program.

I did have handouts that I got from National which we did handout. But as a follow up I looked into Varsity Scout units in the Councils that the participants came from. (5 Councils) None of the Councils had a Varsity unit, none had ever had one and talking with the participants none of them had plans to get involved with starting one!!

Would spending a lot of time on Varsity Scouts have been a good idea? I think not.

I'm 100% for more and better Program Specific Training's.

Commissioners have a on going training program.

Cub Scouters have a specific training for different roles and some Councils offer Pow-wows or Come And Dos.

Venturers have Powder Horn.

Boy Scouters have the Outdoor Training. Is a weekend course enough to get everything you need to be a great SM? Of course it isn't.

But if we were to increase the time to say a week? How many people would sign up?

Brent,

I don't have a problem with conservation projects nor question the good that can be done. I do question if the person who signs on as the Council Treasurer and takes WB doing a project is really time well spent?

The movie has now been shown on TV a lot!! If it is deemed to be a must have? Why not move it to the Patrol Meetings (I picked up a DVD at Wal-mart for $5.50) When I sat in on the Course presentation it seemed to me that the participants were having a hard time staying awake!!

Ea.

 

[John-in-KC]

In some ways, I almost want to add a day to the sylabbus.

 

I agree with Lisa about the Cub "cutesy". I took my academics in 2005. We still had the 45 minute cutesy Cub Scouting. It was wrong, on multiple levels.

 

That said, the quicky elevation to Venturing at the 2d weekend campfire is equally wrong. There are issues of ages and stages which are entirely appropriate for WB, which require some curriculum time.

 

I'm not sure we'll see a return to the old days; I have a hard time relating any pioneering above the basic camp gadget level with the Leave No Trace ethic. Pioneering was a great tool when 2-6" diameter saplings could be cut from a forest with impunity; these days I see the logs for pioneering at our Scout camp carefully racked and stored between sessions, and I see them being inspected for termite damage before the season begins. I have to wonder how much longer pioneering as boy scouting knows it will be in the program.

 

It saddens me when people say "scrap 21st Century." The message received continues to be "your beads and necker aren't worth what mine are." Granted, we've seen the reverse, particularly in how some late arrivers at staff for 21C have been treated in being asked to retake the course. Wood Badge, like any training involving people... what you get out of it usually is greater than what you invest into it.

 

Enough said.

 

John

I used to be an Owl

C-40-05

[Gold Winger]

"But if we were to increase the time to say a week?"

 

Scoutmaster training in my old district used to take six weeknights and had two weekend outdoor sessions. The course was always full.

 

With the changes in cirriculum, it is hard to get people to commit to one or two nights.

[BrentAllen]

Gonzo,

You are helping me make my point. My dad, who took the course in 1975, would say "What, you didn't have to dig that huge latrine? You used porta-potties?!?! Digging that latrine was a huge team-building excercise! What have they done to my Wood Badge Course??"

 

The course has been evolving since in began. I would argue the new course is more relevant, and helps better prepare Scouters to deliver the program. Sure, we don't have as much pioneering or camping skills. If any of you think your mission is to teach boys how to camp, you are missing the whole point of the program. There isn't a word in the Mission Statement or Aims about camping or the outdoors. Camping and outdoors is only one of the Methods. The other parts of the new course deal with the other Methods. In my view, the course has changed from "How to be a Scoutmaster" to "How to be a Scouter." Let's face it, there are lots more Scouters out there than there are Scoutmasters, and there are lots more positions in running a unit than just the SM.

[Gold Winger]

"Sure, we don't have as much pioneering or camping skills."

 

However, an SM who doesn't know how to light a fire or sharpen a knife doesn't have much credibility with boys who he is asking to do the same.

 

The mission statement the army doesn't mention blowing things up or killing anyone but they sure spend enough time and money both training to do so and actually doing so. They could meet their mission statement by going to Afghanistan and scolding the terrorsits.

 

BP thought that the outdoors was the best classroom, who are we to second guess him?

[Gold Winger]

I did the new "Troop Committee Challenge" a few years back just to see what I could learn. I remember some idiotic exercise in which we built a bridge from pre-stamped pieces of paper. I think that it was supposed to show us that everyone has a job to do. Lame with capital L.

 

Newer isn't always better.

 

 

[BrentAllen]

GW,

Again, you make my point. The outdoors is the classroom, not the lesson. That is how current Wood Badge is taught - in the outdoor classroom.

 

The SM should go through IOLS training, where he would learn those skills. Is that what an advanced training course should do - teach someone how to light a fire and sharpen a knife - skills that are very basic and taught in another course? I personally don't think so.

[Eagledad]

>>However, an SM who doesn't know how to light a fire or sharpen a knife doesn't have much credibility with boys who he is asking to do the same.

[OldGreyEagle]

If I were free to change Wood Badge, the first item I would add would be a brief outline of the History of Wood Badge, from the initial course requirements at Gilwell to the current curriculum. Then, I would emphasize that the Wood Badge course has had many changes and doubtless will have many more and that the true spirit of Wood Badge is to support the Program and its leaders who are trying to improve the program by taking the course. In a more strident mood I may even propose any Wood Badger who denigrates the current curriculum should lose their beads as anyone who is so unscoutlike as to deride another's accomplishment because they happen to take the "wrong" version of Wood Badge has completely lost sight of the intent of the program.

I would be sure that participants knew what the program was about. It will not make a master outdoorsman of you, or outdoorswoman either. It is a program to give a scouter skills necessary to improve scouting at that persons level. Whether its as a scoutmaster, a cubmaster, a district commisioner or whatever. It is about finding other people, just like you, that think enough about the program to make a committment to better the program.

And this may be anathema to some, but I would have a 2.5 hour pre course meeting on the ticket process and give examples as what is a good ticket item and why and what is not a good ticket item. With all the secrecy about the ticket, I think it becomes more overwhelming than is roductive.

[John-in-KC]

OGE,

 

I'm not sure you need 2 1/2 hours. I think if the CD were to write each student and say "Part of Wood Badge is giving back to Scouting through service. Expect to design several service projects during the two weekends of WB; expect to implement them in the 18 months after you complete your two weekends."

 

 

[Gold Winger]

"That is how current Wood Badge is taught - in the outdoor classroom."

 

Sitting on a bench under a tarp isn't quite what BP meant.

 

 

[CrewMomma]

Hi EagleDad, I have to agree that a lot of the woman who are in Woodbadge have not lit a fire or sharpened a knife. When I am working with my Crew, I try to get the guys with the scout skills paired up with the gals so that they can teach them those skills that they should know. So we have kids learning how to teach and kids learning how to learn. I find that the guys are more up on the scout skills, but the gals are much better at being organized. I hope that statement isn't completely turned around so that the girls are labeled "over agressive women".

 

I completely understand your statement here:

ED:

"Oh I guess, but in the last six years as a troop leader, I dont think I lit a fire or taught a single scout how to tie knots. If it could be done by a scout, a scout did it. I would venture to say that most of our scouts learned their skills from older scouts. "

 

A lot of the Cub scout leaders who are in Woodbadge are female, they don't have the opportunity to get out on camp outs with the lil guys to learn/show off their skills. So yes, there are a lot of females in the Woodbadge program who don't have those outdoor skills. When I come across a female cub scout leader, I invite them along to camp outs with me. Ok ok, I am trying to recruit more female Advisers.. you got me there!

 

Some of these female leaders weren't just "invited in" to leadership positions, a lot of them were the ones that stepped up when no one else would.

 

I was on course in 06, was on staff last year in 07 as a TG and I am on staff this year coming year in 08 as the SPL. What I would do to change Woodbadge? How tickets are approached. It is a source of complete frustration for the participants. I know that they are suppose to come up with their own ticket items without us suggesting things, I understand that concept but sometimes it just doesn't work. I think OGE said it best about having a segment just on tickets, including past examples. I think that would work well without spoon feeding people.

 

Actually, to be totally honest, I completely agree with OGE's post!

 

Another thing I would like to change it how the Aims and Methods of scouting is approached. I don't think that was clear enough. Again, that just may be something that the CD has to work on. BTW, the CD was female in 07.

 

 

CrewMomma

I used to be an Owl!

WE1-106-06