Mandatory Training

[FScouter]

"Council would advertise the training as "Cub Leader Specific",... "

 

Yeah, it's a problem when you take 5 different trainings and try to roll it up into 1 package. Sadly, volunteer district training chairs resort to that sort of thing because it's easier than selecting and recruiting a training staff to do the job properly.

[Bob White]

I agree, the all in one cub training is a real problem. One of the reasons for developing the job specific training was to solve a problem caused by the old Cub Scout Leader Training where you went once at the beginning of being a cub leader and then never had to go back no matter how you position changed.

 

So the BSA broke up the the training to be job specific. Roling all of the job specifics into one course is just sliding backwards into the old problem.

 

Now there is no reason for a person who takes the training as a Tiger leader to go back and learn how to be a Webelos Leader. To expect that will will retain information that they do not need or use for three years until they need it is illogical.

 

As it has been mentioned before you both conscientious trainers and participants for good learning to take place.

 

I accept that the professional service need to have measurable results, but councils and districts need training chairs with enough knowledge and confidence to help the pros get the measurements they need without sacrificing the goals of the training.

 

Even if a council achieves 100% of their leaders having attended traing, if the training was not done well then the numbers will suffer in the years to come. When units are poorly lead then there will be a resulting drop in membership, in FOS pledges, in # of units, even product sales are effected by poor training and poor leader selection.

 

Mandated training alone is not a path to good scouting. All it does it create a meaningless number, no matter how high that number is.

 

 

[Stosh]

I guess I'm from a different planet on this one. I have had training all the way from Cub Basics through Crew Advisor, along with WB and Univ/Scouting Masters Degree.

 

Simply put, if a person even sits through a training session, no matter how poorly done, they will often pick up something of value they could use later. If they are not in any class, then there is zero chance that any such learning will happen.

 

I'll take a poorly trained leader over an untrained leader any day.

 

If you stop and think about it for a minute, isn't that what we're expecting our youth to do? How can we say we require it for our youth and not our leaders who will be teaching them. I can't see how the math is going to add up on this one. Poorly trained teachers, teaching adults with a poorly designed program, who then go out and create terrifice scout troops! Yeah, right.

 

If your training programs are not working, fix them.

 

Stosh

[Beavah]

Simply put, if a person even sits through a training session, no matter how poorly done, they will often pick up something of value they could use later. If they are not in any class, then there is zero chance that any such learning will happen.... If you stop and think about it for a minute, isn't that what we're expecting our youth to do?

 

I certainly hope we're not expecting our youth to sit through poorly done training sessions and rack up seat time for advancement . I reckon we usually expect 'em to learn through formal and informal instruction, then practice, then get tested, eh?

 

Almost everything that's taught in trainin' is available in other ways, like through that old-fashioned skill called reading. Me personally, I buy every piece of BSA literature for the upper 3 programs (I don't work as much with cubs). Even the stuff I've seen in pre-press, and da training syllabuses for stuff I don't teach. Then talk about it with folks, try it out, practice it, troubleshoot it in different units. Learnin' should be a habit, not a class session. Part of what we promise the units or boys we work with, eh? And part of what we want 'em to do, too.

 

If yeh got leaders of the right sort, they're gonna go seek out the resources they need to constantly improve their programs, both BSA resources and other resources like WFA and WFR and group challenge games and more info about youth protection and even on-line forums .

 

If yeh don't have leaders of the right sort, puttin' 'em in a mandatory training session just fills a seat and a checkbox. You can give 'em credit for the "advancement" I suppose. Chances are, the one or two things they manage to pick up will be urban legends or just plain wrong, and they'll go back to their troops sayin' Boy Scouts can't use power tools or the insurance monster will eat 'em.

 

B

 

[Stosh]

I agree with you Beavah up to a certain point. Too often these improper notions floating around get passed on from one generation of leaders to the next because there is no "formal" training that someone sat through to correct the notion. Too often I have heard people use the, "that's the way we've always done it", or "the former SM did it that way," etc.

 

At least with some kind of mandatory instruction there's going to be correction being done. After all we do it with Child Protection training, why not with everything else. Yes, there will be those who go through CP by filling a seat and getting a check mark on their records, but somewhere along the line, I think it's still vitally important that they do fill that seat and get the check.

 

Too often the desire to avoid the training alterior motives and not always in the best interest of the scouting program. I taught Webelos Outdoor for many years and people were always complaining that they had to take the extra outdoor part of the Cub Program to get Webelos training. Yet there were a lot of people who showed up, who would one day take a group of boys out into the woods to camp, who on the way to training stopped at the local sporting good store to buy a tent and sleeping bag. Without the training, would you want your child out in the woods overnight with a person who has never even slept in the outdoors before? I quit teaching when the voices of those not wanting to spend the night in the woods prevailed.

 

Stosh

[BrentAllen]

"While it might be OK for a CO to mandate training, I do have issues with this idea of an adult patrol??"

 

Eamonn, what are your issues? The adults camp together, cook together, work a duty roster, hang out together - sounds like a patrol to me. In my troop growing up, the adults were in the "Over The Hill" patrol. They modeled patrol behaviour. They didn't complete with the Scout patrols, but developed camaraderie that held them together for years after their sons aged out. Just curious about your issues.

[John-in-KC]

Brent,

 

I don't have an issue of adults modeling behaviors. There's no reason at all why one Scouter can't say "I'll buy", another "I'll cook," and two others "We'll do cleanup, help prep, and site select." We're trying to get the kids to learn interactive cooperation and thought process.

 

I have a tremendous objection with calling ourselves a Patrol and wearing a Patrol patch, among other things. My reason involves an accusation made against me by someone, and spread in my community. I believe that is why we have the stricture in the Uniform Guide that adults shall not wear articles designate for youth (which patrol patches are...).

 

Let's be the adults we are.

 

Returning to mandatory training: GIGO. Garbage in will yield garbage out. If anyone in the food chain wants mandatory training, that person has to do things needed to make the training worth the students while. Othwise, the old adage will come true: Money talks, bu##### walks.

 

Bad mandatory training will eventually result in an increased adult flight from Scouting.

[BrentAllen]

"I believe that is why we have the stricture in the Uniform Guide that adults shall not wear articles designate for youth (which patrol patches are...)."

 

Where did you find that? The only language similar to what you mention is in regards to rank awards. I do find it interesting that the Insignia Guide includes room for a patrol emblem on the Universal and Nonunit Insignia page, right sleeve position 2. What else would go there?

 

In some troops, the adult patrol does wear patrol patches, in others they don't. We do this in WB and in SM training, so why not in a unit? Aren't the goals the same? Bring the individual members together to form a team?

[Gold Winger]

In the books, the SM and a couple ASMs go camping with the boys. In the real world the SM, ASMs, CC, MCs and a few assorted parents tag along because they have to drive three hourse to get to the campsite.

 

What to do with all of these adults? They all aren't needed to "lead" so they become a patrol. Someone cooks, someone does dishes, someone collects firewood. Then after dinner when the boys are either talking about killing zombies or asleep, the adults sit around and discuss adult topics like how we didn't worry about zombies at their age.

 

 

[evmori]

You got it GW! And the SM & ASM's in this patrol can use these times as training sessions for the other adults! All without them knowing they are getting training!

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10