How would you do it?

[Eagledad]

Happy cold sledding all

 

>>We can pontificate all we want as to the value of training, and castigate those who, for whatever reason, do not place a high enough priority on getting themselves trained.

[OldGreyEagle]

John, Ed, I am with you as well. I started a thread about CO's in the open program section and John, you were the only one to repond. Obviously lack of CO participation isnt as big a deal as we think it is although empiracally it does seem to be an issue

[Bob White]

Hi Barry

"In the pool of volunteers, you basically got what you got. There just arent enough there to get picky"

 

I think that is probably a very common attitude, and perhaps the basis of what has gotten us into this situation. When we take what we can get then we get what we deserve.

 

As a Training Chairman would you rather have a training team of 6 that taught the BSA programs or a team of 16 that didn't?

 

AS a Committee chair in a troop is the unit better off with 3 leaders who were trained and followed the program, or with 7 leaders, none of whom were trained?

 

If you just take what you can get you will get what you deserve. Why cant't units and counil/district committees be selective? The notion that anybody can be a good Scout leader, or anybody can be a good trainer simply isn't true.

 

If the Scouts deserve deserve trained leaders then why are they not getting them? If the problem is the training mechanism, then what would be a better way to deliver the training and make it easily available?

 

By the way I agree that basic training should be free to those who attend. But I think it is the CO/unit that should pay the cost.

[John-in-KC]

OGE,

 

I think it comes down to this: Beavah's approach to Scouting is what the majority of units and people take. They take it, imo, because there are lots of systemic problems above the direct contact leader.

 

If I had to rank order the challenges "behind the scenes," they are:

 

1) Pressure on Professional Service to sell new Chartered Partners and units.

 

2) Chartered Partners who don't really care about what they signed and why they signed it.

 

3) A Commissioner Service which cannot attract and retain enough volunteers to meet the Scouting side of the contract (unit service) to the units in the field.

 

4) A long and hard look at the leader outdoor training curriculum, which works forward from an assumption of no outdoors experience. I do think the majority of Americans no longer know what the real outdoors is.

 

5) A weak Membership Agreement for Scouters which doesn't explicitly say "I commit to training myself for the tasks I will undertake."**

 

6) As a result of 1-5, the sad statistic that fewer than 1 in 3 Scouters has both the skills and the BSA specific methods to implement them.

 

 

** Please note: As an Army officer, much of my service was spent reading documents from on high. Quite often, many tasks were specified... clearly stated. We didn't spend much time analyzing the mission for these; rather, we spent huge amounts of energy divining the "implied tasks"... In other words: The order says we have to do THIS, but to get to THIS we have to do THAT and THAT and THAT.

 

Scouting is not the Armed Forces. The fewer tasks are hidden, the better all will be. IMO, National needs to make the commitment to training an explicit condition of volunteering. Will it help? Dunno. Will it hurt? Probably not.

[Beavah]

Blech!

 

I'm not really sure what we're talkin' about anymore. Seems like an unfocused set of complaints about unit and council volunteers or somethin'.

 

Units are obviously not populated by volunteers interested in learning the Scouting program or their specific role in it.

 

I agree with this. Units are populated by volunteers interested in trying to do a good job for kids, and dealing with the challenges of the week. They're usually actively negotiating different roles among different leaders, not tryin' to conform to somebody's ideal model. That's where they are and where they should be. They're likely to blow off or not implement a cookie-cutter training that doesn't fit their immediate need. Perfectly normal, human response.

 

Trainers do not always deliver the information completely....The Councils all have the exact same syllabi. They are designed to be delivered ...

 

This, to my mind, is da real problem. Learning and education is not about delivery of information or anything else. It ain't an operation for UPS. Learning takes time and practice and experience. If yeh think that anyone is really going to learn in a one-day or one-hour talk session, you must be a child of da sixties and still smokin'. At best, they'll take a couple ideas away from such sessions - quite possibly wrong ideas or misconceptions, just because they latched on to one part of the talk but didn't "get" the part before it.

 

How many folks learned how to paddle a canoe from a Saturday indoor class about canoe theory? Why would we expect anybody to learn how to run a Scouting program from a Saturday indoor class about Scouting organization?

 

Learning takes time and practice. Learning takes a small bit of "telling" and information "delivery", and a lot of coaching, and a lot of encouragement, and a lot of practice and developin' experience. Yeh know. What we do with kids every day, eh?

 

Beavah

 

[evmori]

I musta missed that thread OGE.

 

John, yep I do think we agree.

 

maybe we need to look at this from the top down starting at the council level & not the bottom up. After all, isn't the council responsible for the CO training & isn't the CO responsible for selecting the leaders for the unit(s) they sponsor?

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[John-in-KC]

Beavah wrote in part...

 

Learning takes time and practice. Learning takes a small bit of "telling" and information "delivery", and a lot of coaching, and a lot of encouragement, and a lot of practice and developin' experience. Yeh know. What we do with kids every day, eh?

 

YEA, VERILY!!!

 

Ed... yes, but I think one of the vital points is right in Beavah's post. Too much "hand wave huzzah" and the new person is a trained leader. I've been at this for eight years now, and I will gladly admit there's a long, long way to go in my Scouting education

 

I think back to when I retook BSA lifeguard a few years back. For 10 days, my program hours were spent at the pool, learning skills, practicing skills, and doing some book stuff... but the majority of my time was hands-on.

[evmori]

Good point John.

 

Hands on training is more effective than sitting in a lecture taking notes. If you don't apply those notes you took, they are just words on a page.

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[Bob White]

Let's keep in mind that the training is not designed to be one time.

NLE and, Job specific and the intro to outdoor skill courses are BASIC information.

 

This is not a "wave the hand one-time and you are done" process. There is an entire arsenal of SUPPLEMENTAL courses and in the case of cubbing the basic training is designed to be revisited every year or two for Den Leaders, And in Boy Scouts you revisit basic training whenver your position in the troop changes.

 

Of course, and I know this raises and allergic reaction for some "leaders", you can always read a Handbook every now and then.

 

The quality of the training does not come into play until you actually SHOW UP for the training. The bigger problem appears to be that more than 7 out of 10 people do not even take the initiative to do that.

 

[evmori]

So, the question is how does the BSA get those other 7 of 10 leaders to training?

 

Well

>If training was mandatory, 10 of 10 would go.

>If the council required all CO's to attend training, the numbers would go up.

>If the CO required all registered leaders in the units they charter attend training, the numbers would go up.

 

Anyone else?

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[Bob White]

The council is already responsible for providingthe training.

The CO is already responsible for selecting their leaders and getting them to training.

 

And now you want somebody to have to tell you that you have to do it?

 

We are supposed to be the adults in the program. No wonder so munch "telling" goes on at the unit level, if even the adults have to be told what to do before they will do it.

 

Very sad.

 

[OldGreyEagle]

Bow White, you asked how many adults were trained in the BSA. Then Ed and I gave you the answer, then you asked how to remedy this situation and Ed gave an answer. It may not be the answer you were looking for, but it was answer. Having 3 of 10 adults trained is a horrible number I agree. But what is the fix? Ed already has alluded to dormant CO's and I agree with him that non-involved CO's is a big problem in the BSA. Does it prevent dedicated unit leaders from presenting an exciting program, no it does not. Does the involvement of an CO make kids want to join or quite a unit? Not very much, kids come and go based on how worth (fun) the program is. But, if the question is how do you increase the number of trained adults in Scouting and CO's are where the real power lies at the local level, then asking CO's to require training seems like a good idea.

 

When a DE starts up a new unit, I cannot fathom why they would not have the IH, COR, Scoutmaster and COmmittee chair all trained before the first unit meeting. It would requier that an active and responsive Training COmmittee exist, but how do we train all the untrained without an active and responsive training team?

 

It is very sad there are so many untrained leaders and perhaps requiring training isnt the silver bullet, but desparate times call for desparate measures. Many COuncils are losing scouts, is it because of non-trained leaders or a lousy program (you know I have to stop asking this or else I may have to reconsider my position on mandatory training) If we want to beat our breasts about how lousy the trainig rate is in the BSA we have done that, if training is the answer, a model has been presented the question is do we have the will to implement it or not.

[John-in-KC]

Ok, it's time to play "Where's the Requirement?"

 

I'm looking at two BSA Forms online: http://www.scouting.org/forms/28-402.pdf , the New Unit Application (NUA) and

 

http://ozarktrailsbsa.org/downloads/annual_charter_agreement.pdf , a copy of the Annual Charter Agreemnt (ACA).

 

I see in both cases, the Council "Provides training opportunities for your Scouting leaders" (NUA) and "agrees to" "Provide year-round training, service, and program resources to the organization and its unit(s)" (ACA).

 

I also see, in both cases, the Chartered Organization "The executive officer of the chartered organization, by signature, certifies that the organization approves the charter application. The executive officer also certifies that the organization has approved all registering unit adults. The responsibility for approval of unit adults can also be given to the chartered organization representative" (NUA) and "(The chartered organization head or chartered organization representative must approve all leader applications before submitting them to the local council.)" (ACA)

 

OK, I see this on the NUA: The chartered organization certifies that all registered adults: agree to abide by the Scout Oath and the Scout Law, the Declaration of Religious Principle, the policy of nondiscrimination, and the Charter and Bylaws and the Rules and Regulations of the Boy Scouts of America;

agree to respect and obey the laws of the United States of America, and to meet age requirements as follows:"

 

BUT I SEE THIS ON THE ACA: "The chartered organization agrees to:

Conduct the Scouting program according to its own policies and guidelines as well as those of the Boy Scouts of America. Include Scouting as part of its overall program for youth and families."

 

I've seen no requirement for training explicit to either form. So, will someone cite and quote me verbatim from the Charter and Bylaws and the Rules and Regulations of the Boy Scouts of America (as used on the NUA) where the mandate for volunteers to be trained is?

 

Edited to add: Training is good, right and proper. It equips people to do things. Tom Peters, one of the management gurus whom I respect greatly, says train and re-train constantly. The issue comes back to where on a continuum from "training is absolutely voluntary" to "training is mandatory without exception" BSA and the local Councils are. From everything I've seen to this point, BSA National Council has not made training a condition of volunteer service. Some local Councils have decided that volunteers need training as a condition of service.(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)

[Bob White]

From the Troop Committee Guide page 13,

"Troop Committee and Responsibilities"

1st Bullet

"Ensures that quality adult leadership is recruited and trained."

 

From the Cub Scout Leader Book page 10-3

"Selecting Leaders"

" The Cubmaster works with the Pack Committee and pack trainer to select and recruit qualified leaders and make sure they are trained?"

 

I added the underlines just to clarify that the charge is not just to get the leaders trained but to slect and recuit "quality" adults.

 

(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[OldGreyEagle]

Well then, there shouldnt be an issue with untrained leaders, should there?