1-Day Indoor OLS?

[TAHAWK]

Our Council CEO has decided to enforce a rule that no Troop may recharter unless the SM has completed basic training, including Interoduction to Outdoor leadership Skills. Good.

 

I now discover that "professional" Scouters are giving a one-day (about 8 hrs.), indoor course called "Introduction to Outdoor leadership Skills" that Council is accepting as compying with the above requirement.

 

Is this legit?

[scoutldr]

There is a printed syllabus for the IOLS course. If the SE signs the training card that the requirements were completed, then it's "legit". In my opinion, you may get "trained" but you won't learn much. In some councils, you are allowed to meet with a "mentor" to demonstrate the skills (mostly T-1 requirements). No formal training required.

[scottteng]

This is what happens when someone makes up an arbitrary rule and then has to bend other things to fit the arbitrary rule. Our IOLS is done a camping weekend where we demonstrate the skills we are expecting the boys to learn from setting up a tent, site selection, making a campfire, knife and ax, fire safety, cooperative cooking, proper dish washing, sanitation, hiking, doing an orienteering course. There are also lecture sessions on safe scouting topics, BOR, SM conf., sizzle the outdoor program, equipment and discussion group participation sections. The course is not onerous and their is typically a lot of bonding that takes place among the participants.

I can hear the leaders complaint though I've been taking the troop camping 11X per year for X years now and you expect me to do another camping trip just to get this training. There's no way my wife won't let me she's been buggin me about backing off this scouting stuff maybe its a good time to start. The professionals end up accommodating the squeaky wheels who are probably the ones in most need of the training. Just because one has lots of experience doing something does not mean that there is not a better way to do it.

[GernBlansten]

This is sad.

One of the biggest complaints I've heard about WB2K is that they don't do outdoor skills and rely on IOLS to give them. Now IOLS doesn't really practice it. So where does the new leader go for hands on skill training? Or is this a message from BSA that they intend to take the outting out of scouting?

[FScouter]

It's a common complaint. "I already know how to camp, I don't need this training." The purpose of Introduction to Outdoor Leaders Skill is not the teach adults how to camp. The primary purpose is to teach the SM and assistant SM how to teach Tenderfoot, 2nd Class, and 1st Class outdoor skills rank requirments to boys.

[Lisabob]

THANK YOU FScouter!

 

Now, having said that, what I've seen is that we really need some scouter training for basic camping skills (which IOLS should not be). Since we do not have something like this, IOLS tends to be the catch-all. If you don't know how to do something yourself, you really won't be able to teach it to others.

 

And then we also really need people who understand that IOLS is designed to *teach adults how to teach* rather than simply to teach adults the skills. Of course this is a more complex matter, which might be why so often we fall back on just teaching the skills to adults, some of whom already have the skills but couldn't teach their way out of a flaming paper bag.

 

But no matter how we slice it, this course sounds like a bit of a joke. If I were a leader in that council I think I'd start looking for an OLS course in another council. Convenience isn't everything.

[TAHAWK]

"There is a printed syllabus for the IOLS course. If the SE signs the training card that the requirements were completed, then it's "legit". In my opinion, you may get "trained" but you won't learn much. In some councils, you are allowed to meet with a "mentor" to demonstrate the skills (mostly T-1 requirements). No formal training required."

So we pretend to train them and then pretend they are trained? Who's kidding whom? "Trustworthy"?

 

The BSA description I found on line says "hands-on": setting up of a campsite, setting up tents, cooking, use of woods tools, hiking, rope work in "outdoor session." I know how that is accomplished in a weekend outing format. I do not know how it's done in nine hours ----- indoors.

[nldscout]

It really isn't going to matter because the one that are not trained won't show up at the new course anyway, atleast a majority won't.

 

Then your CE will have to deceide like ours did who tried to enforce this rule, do I lose 25-30 percent of my units?

[scoutldr]

Well, TAHAWK, since none of us, including you, has been through the course, we really have NO idea on how they intend to pull it off, do we? Why not give them the benefit of the doubt and hold our complaints until they actually screw it up, if indeed they do.

 

Our "SE" (proper title-Scout Executive) tried the same thing a couple of years ago. Since we are a highly transient military area, it would be impossible for every unit to stay "Trained", and several units said they would just fold. The idea quietly died. As a district training chair, my stats hovered around the 20-30% range, no matter how many training courses I put on (and I put on a LOT). I mainly trained other districts' scouters, for some reason.(This message has been edited by scoutldr)

[TAHAWK]

Sure. Why not. Always presuming they take place.

[evmori]

Until training is required, this is absurd. Training should be required to be an adult leader!

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[John-in-KC]

Lisa,

 

I second your post, word for word!

 

YIS John

[TAHAWK]

"But no matter how we slice it, this course sounds like a bit of a joke. If I were a leader in that council I think I'd start looking for an OLS course in another Council. Convenience isn't everything."

 

No need to look outside our Council. Weekend courses are offered Spring and Fall - in competition with these one-day, $20.00 courses.

 

Let's see. I can go the weekend for $30 (includes food) or do the nine hours course and pay $20.

 

The weekend courses go begging for learners. The Fall, 2007 course was dropped (a first) when only four signed up.

[scottteng]

Yes the being able to teach is a big part but the way it's done is also a demonstration. When I have a patrol come in for their wood tools skill session I hold up a whetstone and ask who knows how to use this then hand it to them and ask them to demonstrate how to sharpen a knife. The same with the rest of the session. The idea is to show that it is the members of the troop that need to be doing most of the teaching. The other thing they experience is the bonding that takes place very quickly in a patrol while making their flags and songs. The other thing is they experience is how difficult it is to be a patrol leader because two of em get to be one and the others see their discomfort. It is much easier to be an adult leader of youth than to be the leader of a patrol of ones peers. We combine the boy scouts IOLS with the WEBELOS leaders on the second day. The boy scout leaders have been there for Friday night session and the WEBELOS leaders show up at 9 on Sat and are assigned to already existing patrols. During the day there are some sessions that are break outs with boy scouts one way and cubs another most of the material is the same though.

[evmori]

If ya don't know how to camp, how are you going to be able to teach it to someone else? By taking an 8 hour catch-all course? I doubt it! You ain't putting up my dining fly!

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10