What Is It Based On?

[OldGreyEagle]

Happy scouting Kudu

[Bob White]

For anyone who has yet to attend Wood Badge it is important to note that Kudu's description is tremendously inaccurate. Whether it is caused by lack of current program knowledge or purposely misleading is hard to tell.

 

For one thing patrols do not camp together on the parade field. Gilwell Field, as it is referred to, is used only for troop assembly in the morning and at the end of the last day. The patrols camp in separate campsites on the second weekend. How they camp on the first weekend depends largely on the available resources, but it is not on the parade field.

 

There are only two weekends to the current Wood Badge not the three mentioned by Kudu.

 

Situational management is just one element of leadership taught during Wood Badge, to only refer to it and no other element gives an incorrect and misleading image of the course contents.

 

I have been involved in several Wood Badge courses and in each one the patrols camped out of sight, and usually out of earshot, from the other patrols. More inportantly scout leaders need to understand that distance from another unit is not an element of either the Patrol Method or the Den Method.

 

The effectiveness of the Patrol Method hinges on the adult leaders abilities to train and trust the junior leaders.

 

So to suggest as Kudu does that it is dependent on any specific distance is untrue and simply a personal preference of Kudu's and unrelated in any way to the Methods of scouting or their effectiveness in achieving the Aims of scouting.

 

Kudu's biggest weakness in knowing and using the scouting program is that he supports a program of the past that he never actually experienced, because he was not there, and he tries to belittle a current program that he also has never experienced and has little actual knowledge of.

 

So before you buy into his version it would benefit you to to learn about scouting from the current training and resources available through the BSA. Because as a volunteer leader with the BSA you are not being asked to lead what you think the program used to be, but rather what the program actually is today.

 

Happy Scouting!

 

(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[Stosh]

I wonder if some posts could have a bit more forethought and insight into them so as to actually talk to the subject rather than denegrate the writers. My mother always used to say: "Big people talk about ideas, medium people talk about things and small people talk about other people."

 

Just a thought to consider.

 

I'm off to Gettysburg's 145th reenactment with my Venturing Crew so everyone can rant all they want until I get back.

 

Have a good one!

 

Capt. Stosh

Totally adult-led Venturing Crew Advisor!!!

 

:^)

 

 

[evmori]

All this discussion about tenting patrols 1/4 of a mile apart & the differences of the current Wood Badge course from the good Wood Badge course are wonderful, but what do they have to do with servant leadership?

[Eagledad]

I'm sorry, what was the question?

 

Barry

[Gunny2862]

evmori, they have to do with someone having an axe to grind and choosing to hijack a thread rather than start one about what they want to talk about because they are choosing to mix together issues that don't belong together.

 

If they think that they do, they might, spin the thread?

 

As has been discussed at length, there are books available on the topic of Servant Leadership.

 

One resource link that I like, even though it is Wikipedia is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_leadership

 

And even Kudu should like this quote from that page:

"In approximately 600 B.C., the Chinese sage Lao Tzu wrote The Tao Te Ching, a strategic treatise on servant leadership:

 

FORTY-NINE

 

The greatest leader forgets himself

 

And attends to the development of others.

 

Good leaders support excellent workers.

 

Great leaders support the bottom ten percent.

 

Great leaders know that

 

The diamond in the rough

 

Is always found in the rough.

 

(Quote from The Way of Leading People: Unlocking Your Integral Leadership with the Tao Te Ching.)

YiS

[OldGreyEagle]

I still think the story of Jesus washing the feet of the apostles is a great demonstration of Servant Leadership

[Gunny2862]

Well, OGE,

on that subject, there is the issue of whom Jesus chose as his immediate stay behind leadership class... not exactly the upper 10% of their society, nor highly academically credentialed. Fishermen, a Tax Collector, a Revolutionary... one could say with the exception of Saul/Paul and Luke that the first and second Executive Christian Leadership Seminar participants were, um, not exactly upper crust.

Yet they seem to have been extremely effective in promoting their teachers ideas and message. Through lots of leadership methods but all buttressed by the SL style.(This message has been edited by Gunny2862)

[evmori]

I still think the story of Jesus washing the feet of the apostles is a great demonstration of Servant Leadership

 

To me, this is the greatest example of servant leadership.

[Kudu]

Bob White writes:

 

I have been involved in several Wood Badge courses and in each one the patrols camped out of sight, and usually out of earshot, from the other patrols.

 

More inportantly scout leaders need to understand that distance from another unit is not an element of either the Patrol Method or the Den Method.

 

The effectiveness of the Patrol Method hinges on the adult leaders abilities to train and trust the junior leaders.

 

So to suggest as Kudu does that it is dependent on any specific distance is untrue and simply a personal preference of Kudu's and unrelated in any way to the Methods of scouting or their effectiveness in achieving the Aims of scouting.

 

To say that distance is not an element of the Patrol Method is like saying that the Five Mile Hike is measured only by the adults' abilities to train and trust the junior hikers.

 

Distance is the medium, and distance is the test.

 

Baden-Powell put this distance at 300 feet, and the BSA's definition of a "Real Patrol" was one in which the Patrol Leader could organize Patrol Hikes and Patrol Overnights.

 

Apparently some Wood Badge courses still include this one remaining vestige of B-P's training, the distance of 300 feet between Patrols, but because it is not relevant to using manager theory to train Cub Scouters, few Wood Badgers are able to see why distance is the measure of the Patrol Method.

 

As Marshall McLuhan wrote: "I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it," or "I'll see it when I believe it" (also attributed to other authors).

 

Bob White writes:

 

Kudu's biggest weakness in knowing and using the scouting program is that he supports a program of the past that he never actually experienced, because he was not there,

 

I was there as a Scout, and the BSA's "Patrol Leader Training" course still trained Patrol Leaders how to run a BSA "Real Patrol" when I became an adult. The Guide to Safe Scouting still allows Patrol Hikes and Patrol Overnights, and an article of mine about a Patrol that mastered them appeared in Scouter.Com's print journal Scouter Magazine.

 

The Real Patrol Method lives on in this country, despite the fact that "Patrol Leader Training" was replaced by "Leadership Development" in 1972.

 

evmori writes:

 

All this discussion about tenting patrols 1/4 of a mile apart & the differences of the current Wood Badge course from the good Wood Badge course are wonderful, but what do they have to do with servant leadership?

 

I stated that I never hear how servant leadership facilitates an increase in the distance between Patrols, or Patrol Cooking at summer camp, to which Stosh replied that it does indeed help the Troop he serves accomplish those ends.

 

So from this it would appear that SL is worthy of further study by those of us who value B-P's and Green Bar Bill's Traditional ("Real") Patrols. SL might also turn out to be relevant to one of Baden-Powell's five methods called "Service for Others (Chivalry and Self-Sacrifice the Basis of Religion)," See:

 

http://inquiry.net/traditional/b-p/scoutmastership/service.htm

 

I also stated that until recently I thought that one Patrol per Troop Campsite was the standard operating procedure for all outdoor Boy Scout Division courses (IOLS, WB, NYLT), and that every trained Scouter could draw from that common experience.

 

Another significant result of this thread was Stosh's paradigm shift of framing Baden-Powell's "300 feet" rule as the "WB approach of separated patrols."

 

This may produce far more "Aha moments" than my historical approach, as many Scouters realize that they have already experienced the dangerous-sounding bedrock of Traditional Scouting themselves.

 

Kudu(This message has been edited by Kudu)

[Bob White]

"To say that distance is not an element of the Patrol Method is like saying that the Five Mile Hike is measured only by the adults' abilities to train and trust the junior hikers."

 

That statement makes no sense whatsoever. You cannot compare an organizational element to a physical activity. There is nothing magical about the distance of 300 ft that makes it a reuired elemt in order to be able to group into clusters that can be lead by another youth. To suggest that a youth cannot lead a group of 8 scouts unless they camp 300 feet from another group is just silly.

 

"I was there as a Scout" No you weren't. In fact I would be willing to bet that you and B-P nver trod the earth at the same time. The scouting you remember you recall through the eyes and experiences of a child. You never took the adult leader training then and you have no way of being able to accurately compare the training of the past to the training of today because you never took the former and you do not know the latter.

 

The patrol structure you wax poetic about from the past is still taught today, you just don't acknowledge that it is or do not realize that it is.

 

I agree it would be beneficial to the program if more adult s used the Patrol Method, but you cannot say that it is not taught, that simply is not true. You were fortunate to be in a troop that at that time had a leader that understood used the patrol method. So did I, until the leadership changed and with it the benefit of having a scoutmaster that followed the program.

 

The problem is not in the methods of the program, it is simply that not all leaders follow the program. That is as true of yesteryear as it is today. This forum is proof that some leaders know and use the patrol method and some do not. Your bemoaning is misdirected. The problem is not today's program it is the way today's leaders are selected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[evmori]

Well, I tried!

 

Who wants pie?

[Gunny2862]

Pie!?

 

But I don't want to be a pie, I don't like gravy!

[evmori]

Gravy????

 

How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?

[Kudu]

"To say that distance is not an element of the Patrol Method is like saying that the Five Mile Hike is measured only by the adults' abilities to train and trust the junior hikers."

 

Bob White writes:

 

That statement makes no sense whatsoever. You cannot compare an organizational element to a physical activity.

 

Prior to the 1972 invention of "Leadership Development" (of which Servant Leadership is a subset) the BSA defined the organizational element called "A Real Patrol" by its physical activities:

 

Patrol Hiking:

 

Boys, and especially Scouts, want to go hiking. The out-of-doors fascinates them. The woods, the rivers, the "wide open spaces" call them. And they obey. As soon as you are able you will want to take your boys on Patrol Hikes. You want your Patrol to be a real one, and only a hiking Patrol is a real Patrol (Handbook for Patrol Leaders, Chapter VII).

 

and Patrol Camping:

 

One of your greatest services as a Patrol Leader is to try to make your Patrol into a Camping Patrol trained in the ways of the experienced campers. This takes time. It takes also patience and perseverance. But it can be done, and you are will under way toward doing it, the day you have made your boys into real hikers as described in the previous chapter (Handbook for Patrol Leaders, Chapter VIII).

 

Bob White, you claim to have been influenced by William Hillcourt. If that is really true then his official BSA policy that "Real Patrols" required the physical activities of adult-free hikes and campouts should be crystal clear to you. For instance:

 

Patrols are ready to go hiking and camping on their own just as soon as the Patrol Leader has been trained, and the Scouts have learned to take care of themselves....It should be your goal to get your Patrol Leaders qualified for hike and camp leadership at an early stage (Handbook for Scoutmasters (fourth edition), pages 118-119).

 

Bob White writes:

 

There is nothing magical about the distance of 300 ft that makes it a reuired elemt in order to be able to group into clusters that can be lead by another youth. To suggest that a youth cannot lead a group of 8 scouts unless they camp 300 feet from another group is just silly.

 

It is just silly to say that "the effectiveness of the Patrol Method hinges on the adult leaders' abilities to train and trust the junior leaders," and then to tell them "OK, set your Patrols up close together so that I can trust you."

 

The Wood Badge approach of separated Patrols (with your best Patrols out of sight, and out of earshot--roughly 300 feet) on a Troop Campout offers a compromise between the BSA definition of "Real Patrols" and the reality that since 1972 BSA training has eliminated "Patrol Leader Training" (how to take your Patrols on Patrol Hikes and Patrol Campouts) and replaced it with Leadership Development concepts like "Servant Leadership," so it would be foolhardy to allow Patrols to go off hiking and camping on their own unless you go beyond mere leadership concepts and use the old BSA training techniques or something like them.

 

The problem with Servant Leadership (SL) is that its advocates never talk about how their Patrols venture out away from the adults' close supervision: That is a discussion "hijack!" They can only defend SL with the idea that SL is "modern" and that trusting Real Patrols is "old fashioned," or they use personal attacks with the goal of making my personality (rather than the Patrol Method) the issue for debate.

 

The only person with experience in using Servant Leadership in what the BSA defined as a "Real Patrol" is jblake47, and he is off to Gettysburg's 145th reenactment with his Venturing Crew.

 

Likewise I am packing to leave for summer camp, so this will be my last post until sometime in July.

 

Kudu