What Is It Based On?

[evmori]

John-in-KC,

 

I know "The study of leadership as an academic discipline actually exists." I just do see the need to study it in the BSA. What is needed is practical application.

[John-in-KC]

Ed,

 

You see the practical application every time a PL sets down and they establish the roster for the next campout. There's a hierarchical way to do that and a collaborative way to do that.

 

Modern leadership practice is moving away from hierarchical, especially at the work team and project level. Much more ad hoc collaboration.

 

I'm not saying BSA has to follow every practice, but the folks who design training certainly have to be current on what is happening in our adult world. Sooner or later, techniques themselves become obsolete.

 

We don't cut browse beds anymore, do we?

 

Do we generally use helioarc signalling anymore?

 

Do we dig fire trenches?

 

Yes, someone, an expert someone, needs to revisit courseware and models now and again.

 

My thoughts, Ed. We may disagree, unlike some other folk here, that's OK Have a great Pennsylvania workweek.

[Kudu]

Eagle92 writes:

 

...correct me if I'm wrong but the main argument, in the classical sense, is that BSA has watered down leadership development and the patrol method in order to have more emphasis as a result of the 70s.

 

The problem is that Leadership Development was INVENTED in 1972, not that it was watered down

 

This new "Method of Scouting" replaced "Patrol Leader Training" which under William Hillcourt was a subset of "Boy Leadership," which was in turn a subset of the Patrol Method. See the outline of the history of the Methods of Scouting at:

 

http://inquiry.net/adult/methods/index.htm

 

Eagle92 writes:

 

Also although national preaches patrol method, in training it doesn't emphasis patrol method enough. Am I correct in this?

 

The real problem with training is that National redefines the term "Patrol Method" to mean Leadership Development theory, in the same way that suburban streets like "Fox Run Lane," "Deer Meadow Drive," or "Wildflower Way" are named after the very things that the streets destroyed.

 

An extraordinary example of this is "Scoutmaster and Assistant Scoutmaster Leader Specific Training." If you examine the course outline for the "Patrol Method" session, it never once mentions the "Patrol Method" beyond a fake Baden-Powell quote at the very beginning (B-P never used the term "Patrol Method"). Nor does it ever ONCE mention a "Patrol Leader" or what he does.

 

The "Patrol Method" session teaches adult leadership styles!

 

It gives the example of a Scoutmaster directing some Scouts to put out a campfire with water. Nowhere does it say or even imply that this particular adult "leadership style" is the very OPPOSITE of the Patrol Method. Is it any wonder that in thousands of Troops adults take over on Sunday morning and yell at the Scouts without even pretending to work though the SPL or the Scouts' Patrol Leaders? And why should they? In their "Patrol Method" training session they were taught to use the adult "leadership style" that the Scouts "need."

 

Eagle92 writes:

 

Also it is an acknowledged fact that BSA screwed up in the 70s and GBB had to become a retread again to get the BSA somewhat back on its feet by writing the 1979 handbook.

 

Actually all that anyone ever acknowledges is that allowing Scouts to earn Eagle Scout without EVER going on a SINGLE campout corresponded with a sharp decline in membership (except in liberal churches where the number of UUA Sponsoring Organizations spiked to its meager but all-time record high for the entire century).

 

GBB (Green Bar Bill) was brought in to restore outdoor activities. Although he is famous for the Patrol Method he was NOT allowed to restore the pre-1972 Methods of Scouting (above), including Patrol Leader Training. This means that the "Leadership Development Method" which was designed to teach Scouts who had never been camping how to be a "leader" was allowed to stand:

 

"In general, Patrol Leader training should concentrate on leadership skills rather than on Scoutcraft Skills. The Patrol will not rise and fall on the Patrol Leader's ability to cook, follow a map, or do first aid, but it very definitely depends on his leadership skill (Scoutmaster's Handbook [1972], page 155).

 

[Bob White]

What Kudu offers simply is not factual. Is there anyone else on this forum who took Cornerstone training? is so what year did you take it?

 

 

 

[Kudu]

Before we launch into a discussion of teaching generic "Leadership Skills" in outdoorsy settings, read my last paragraph carefully.

 

1) GBB (Green Bar Bill) was not allowed to restore the pre-1972 Methods of Scouting. Among other things (like "Advancement" as a subset of the "Activities" method), the "Leadership Development Method" was allowed to stand as a separate Method of Scouting "equal" to the Patrol Method itself.

 

2) Patrol Leader Training, which was designed just for Patrol Leaders (not "Junior Leaders") was never restored, meaning that Hillcourt was not allowed to bring back training designed to run what he called "Real Patrols," those that hiked and camped without adult supervision (this is the whole point of the 300 foot option, a watered-down version of Patrol Camping).

 

It is significant that Leadership Development has removed any mention of Patrol Leaders (or the Patrol Method itself) from the basic training session on the "Patrol Method."

 

Something that Bob White knows very well is "simply factual"!

 

Kudu

[Bob White]

What Kudu offers simply is not factual. Is there anyone else on this forum who took Cornerstone training? If so what year did you take it?

 

[RangerT]

Kudu is correct with his remarks about watered down methodology put in place in approx. 1972 and unfortunately have kept this diluted program since then. Now I am not advocating going all the way back to 1910 but without the challenges of a more vigorous outdoors emphasis boy scout numbers will continue to drop. No matter what the books say without the boy really being challenged the program bores the boy. Look at the 13 year old Eagle scouts most of them haven't got a real clue about leadership or the outdoors. When getting the highest award in scouting becomes so simplified that almost any boy can get it, when they go to one summer camp and come back with 15-20 merit badges what are we really teaching them. I for one am tired of seeing troops which are little more than Eagle mills, and summer camps which are little more than merit badge mills. When the Eagle award has come to mean so little in todays society it is time for a change. I have had this discussion personally with Chief Scout Mazzucca when he was visiting our council recently and he agreed the program is in serious need of revamping. I think Mazzucca eliminating the program departments at National is the first step since they had been doing such poor jobs. The end result of all these changes will be interesting indeed.

[Kudu]

evmori writes:

 

Personally, I don't like the idea of using management tools as leadership development for the BSA. Yes the BSA is a business but the leadership that needs to be taught to the volunteers isn't the same as what corporate America needs. The focus is completely different!

 

Defenders of Leadership Development spin the practicality of using management tools to run Patrols by pointing to their alleged success in both the corporate world and in the military.

 

The fatal flaw in this comparison is that Leadership Development's power over the Patrol Method is maintained by teaching Scouts to expect payment for their leadership in the form of Position of Responsibility (POR) credit for Advancement. This in turn drives the six-month election cycles that the BSA now promotes in its literature with suggestions like "Many Troops hold elections every six months."

 

To the manager consultant mind, the primary function of a Patrol is to teach Leadership Development. Six month election cycles drive rapid turn-over in Patrol Leaders which gives more ungifted boys a chance to learn "how to be a leader" with helpful adults only a short "modern" distance away!

 

I wonder how many of the marvelous books on business management that shape Wood Badge and Scout training suggest the same thing? How many of these trendy manager gurus suggest to their corporate clients that they hold regular elections so that every secretary and mail clerk can vote for their manager (Patrol Leader) and the manager's manager (SPL) every six months?

 

To the Unsinkable Rubber Ducky mind, if the company becomes less efficient then the secretaries and mail clerks all learn an important lesson about popularity contests like Scouts do when their six-month popularity contests lead to burned meals, wet sleeping bags, or even worse (pure boredom).

 

The comparison to military leadership is equally bogus. In which of btphelps' references do the privates vote for their immediate superior and for their commander's commander every six months?

 

The cost of using Patrols as little management labs is that Patrols no longer function independently, just as corporations would go bankrupt and armies would loose wars if they used the BSA Leadership Development Method.

 

evmori writes:

 

I know "The study of leadership as an academic discipline actually exists." I just do see the need to study it in the BSA. What is needed is practical application.

 

To which John-in-KC replies:

 

Sooner or later, techniques themselves become obsolete.

We don't cut browse beds anymore, do we?

Do we generally use helioarc signalling anymore?

Do we dig fire trenches?

Yes, someone, an expert someone, needs to revisit courseware and models now and again.

 

Gee, who could have predicted that leadership fad promoters would play the "Leave No Trace" card to suggest that Traditional Patrol Leader Training is obsolete?

 

Oh yeah, the second reply in this thread:

 

The bread and butter of servant leadership is that the two greatest minds in the history of Scouting (Baden-Powell and Green Bar Bill) are "old-fashioned" (they dug trenches around their tents, didn't they?) and therefore their training techniques must be replaced with the theory of leadership "experts."

 

John-in-KC writes:

 

You see the practical application every time a PL sets down and they establish the roster for the next campout. There's a hierarchical way to do that and a collaborative way to do that. Modern leadership practice is moving away from hierarchical, especially at the work team and project level.

 

The idea that "modern leadership practice" in the "work team and project level" has anything new to offer Boy Scout Patrols is false because human nature has NOT changed in the hundred years since OUTDOOR Patrol leadership was invented.

 

Academic leadership "science" advocates who do not STUDY history are forced to INVENT it!

 

Experts have nothing to offer Patrol Leaders that was not said better in boy-language back in the first half of the last century:

 

"Line up meetings, hikes, projects, Good Turns and ways and means of keeping your boys interested--dong something, getting somewhere, being somebody.

 

"This of course doesn't mean that you should be the 'Big Boss' of the Patrol, planning everything yourself, ordering everybody around. On the contrary, your Patrol should be a small democracy in which every Scout has a chance to take part in the planning, to practice leadership, to learn to do things for himself.

 

"Be the leader, the fellow who points the way--but share your leadership. That's the way to get every single boy in the gang to do his part in anything the Patrol undertakes" (Handbook for Patrol Leaders, William Hillcourt, page 3).

 

For those who collect mental checklists of leadership, the pre-1972 Patrol Method model (on page 8) was:

 

1. Be a Leader

2. Be a Friend

3. Be Ahead

 

Be honest: Which model is more useful to a young Patrol Leader alone with his Patrol in the field, The Patrol Method's "1. Be a Leader, 2. Be a Friend, 3. Be Ahead"; or the White Stag's academic "Telling-Selling-Consulting-Delegating-Joining"?

 

Kudu(This message has been edited by Kudu)

[Kudu]

RangerTwrites:

 

When the Eagle award has come to mean so little in todays society it is time for a change. I have had this discussion personally with Chief Scout Mazzucca when he was visiting our council recently and he agreed the program is in serious need of revamping. I think Mazzucca eliminating the program departments at National is the first step since they had been doing such poor jobs.

 

RangerT,

 

Thanks for your comments. We agree that the cheapening of Eagle Scout is a result of the lack of a vigorous outdoor program. Any indoor boy can go to Boy Scout summer school and earn Eagle without ever once walking into the woods with a pack on his back.

 

I have not met Mazzucca personally as you have, but reading between the lines of last month's USA Today article his vision of revamping seems to be more of the same shift away from outdoor skills toward "Leadership Development" that began with its invention in 1972, the year after he came to work for the BSA.

 

For instance, the interview begins by characterizing the test of the tragedy in Iowa as the triumph of leadership skills rather than outdoor skills.

 

Mazzuca then minimizes outdoor skills as "rubbing sticks together," and insists that all that really counts is adult association with the goal of leadership: "Our goal is not to teach someone to rub two sticks together and make a fire. But when you rub two sticks together and make a fire side by side with an adult of good character, you're going to learn about who you are and go on to lead men."

 

When asked about Scouting becoming as obsolete and irrelevant as the buggy whip (the bread and butter of selling management fads), Mazzuca replies, "You can teach a kid about character and leadership using aerospace and computers. The secret is to get them side by side with adults of character. We run the risk of becoming irrelevant if we don't adapt to things that attract kids today...."

 

Contrast this image of Scouting as learning "character and leadership" by hanging around with adults indoors with the opening lines of the fifth edition of the BSA's Handbook for Boys that present Scouting as OUTDOOR ADVENTURE.

 

"Have you ever dreamed of hiking the wilderness trails that were worn down under moccasin feet hundreds of years ago? Do you hear in your imagination the almost noiseless dip-dip of Indian canoe paddles in that stream where you fish today?

 

"Have you stopped to think of the pioneer wagons whose great wheels cut the tracks for our present roads?

 

"You can follow those trails, those streams and tracks! You can have your share of that adventure.

 

"Wherever you live, you are not too far from the woods and prairie, the desert or mountain--the country where once the Indians roamed and where the great Scouts of yesterday did their part in making America. There is some place where you can go camping and feel that you are in company with men like Rogers' Rangers, Lewis and Clark, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and Pere Marquette.

 

"This adventure awaits you in Scouting!

 

"The first streaks of the sun slant down over the ridge and rouse you from deep sleep to greet a new day. You stretch and worm out of your bedding to dress. Outside your lean-to or tent you pause to drink in the glory of the sunrise, and fill your lungs deep with the clean morning air.

 

"Suddenly you notice a slight movement in an upwind thicket. Gradually you make out a young deer grazing peacefully. Why, with all its sharp sense of smell and hearing, has it not noticed you?

 

"You know--because your're a Scout."

 

Perhaps under Robert Mazzuca's progressive leadership, the centennial edition of the "Boy Scout Handbook" will open with HIS vision of adventure:

 

"Have you ever dreamed of sitting indoors in front of a computer screen side by side with adults of character?"

 

Kudu

[btphelps]

Kudu, I'm not sure where to you have gained your expertise on

 

"White Stag's academic "Telling-Selling-Consulting-Delegating-Joining"

 

but your derisive comments are out of bounds. I do not feel compelled to necessarily explain the program to you specifically. You do not seem to ever alter your opinion. But for all those who read your words and would like to be acquainted with a few facts, let me elaborate.

 

You cannot lump the White Stag program in with NYLT and by a broad swipe of your hand accuse it likewise of abandoning the patrol method and outdoors leadership education based on camp craft skills.

 

I have just returned from leading most of an intensive 26 hour-long adult leadership development conference for the White Stag adult staff.

 

The program is now entering its 51st year. We have been privileged to have had about 20,000 youth attend our camps in that time. This past year we attracted two participants from Virginia and nine from Los Angeles. Looking forward to the next 50 years, we asked ourselves what are our aims, or the outcomes we hope that individuals will take away 20 years after having attended our camps. There was lengthy discussion about the place of the outdoors experience in our program. We concluded that putting participants in the outdoors, providing physical experiences that cause the individual to stretch themselves mentally, to exceed their own self-imposed limitations, were absolutely essential.

 

We asked ourselves whether our approach, methods, and content in presenting a leadership development program are still valid, or are they in need of updating. We concluded that while technology advances, people's basic psychology remains pretty much the same, and that Manager of Learning is still an excellent way to provide leadership education. Is the definition of sharing leadership as expressed by the rubric "Telling-Selling-Consulting-Delegating-Joining" still valid? Given its alignment with million-dollar programs like Situational Leadership, we believe it does. Especially in conjunction with everything else we do.

 

Six of our best youth staff also attended this adult staff conference. One of them described how so many of her 11-12 year-old candidates during summer camp were convinced they could not complete the 5 mile hike, but who went on to do it anyway, and the increased self-esteem, enthusiasm, and excitement they experienced as a result.

 

One of the next questions I asked of the 25 individuals present is, "What values are absolutely essential to the program, without which the program could not be called White Stag?" Their answers included

 

-- the patrol method

-- hands-on learning

-- the outdoors, which we have previously defined as:

---- "Use the outdoor setting extensively in all phases of the program. Do nothing indoors that can be done outdoors. Provide many hands-on experiences that require outdoors knowledge. Encourage physical fitness with physical activities."

---- "Demonstrate, explain, and apply elements of adventure in all phases of camp life and in all activities, with the intent to equip participants with skills that will make their patrols, troops, units and other groups capable of enjoying and experiencing adventure in their programs."

---- "Exposure to well conducted waterfront activities, games, instructional activities, and campfire programs. Explain the need for planning and the leadership skills needed for the above activities. Create opportunities for using these skills in actual situations."

---- "Impart reliable efficiency in all camping skills, specifically those required for the particular program phase. Teach how to demonstrate the same in front of a group. Help and encourage them to acquire additional outdoor skills."

-- the hurdle method (requiring hands-on application of the leadership competencies)

-- the infinity principle (that learning never stops)

 

We certainly do not claim to have cornered the market on what comprises effective junior leader training. We gratefully recognize we have much to learn.

 

So let it be recognized that we strive very hard to provide participants an outdoors experience utilizing the patrol method requiring them to use camp craft skills and live together outdoors for an entire week.

 

Forward, upward, onward...

 

Brian Phelps

Co-director, 2008-9 White Stag Leadership Development Program

Monterey Bay Area, California

www.whitestag.org

 

[Kudu]

btphelps writes:

 

Kudu, I'm not sure where to you have gained your expertise on "White Stag's academic "Telling-Selling-Consulting-Delegating-Joining" but your derisive comments are out of bounds.

 

Oh?

 

Out of bounds?

 

I had no idea!

 

What other than modern manager ad hominem logic makes my "derisive" comments "out of bounds"?

 

John-in-KC wrote that we need management "experts" like you because "modern leadership" has moved from "hierarchical" to "collaboration." To this false version of Scout history I countered with the example of Green Bar Bill's fundamental "don't be the Big Boss ... share your leadership" advice that dates back to the BSA's belated introduction of the Patrol Method itself.

 

It does not take any "expertise" to see that the Patrol Method's old fashioned "1. Be a Leader, 2. Be a Friend, 3. Be Ahead" is more useful to a boy than abstract business manager words like "Consulting" and "Delegating."

 

btphelps writes:

 

I do not feel compelled to necessarily explain the program to you specifically.

 

If you do not have statistics that indicate that your program increases the frequency of ADULT-FREE Patrol Meetings, Patrol Hikes, Patrol Campouts, and Patrol Advancement (the step-by-step training for which Leadership Development killed in 1972), then you need not feel compelled to explain anything. Really, it's OK

 

btphelps writes:

 

You do not seem to ever alter your opinion.

 

That is an interesting personal insult, since just before your initial post in this thread, I wrote:

 

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.

 

In some circles that would qualify as "altering my opinion," although my interest would be to lean the SL jargon for the B-P and Green Bar Bill training that already existed long before SL was invented (to prove --as in "Big Boss" above-- the definition of a management consultant as someone who borrows your watch and tells you what time it is).

 

Perhaps you are simply clueless. After all you describe the post-adolescent attack ("Ever new idea is to be used to insult people. White Stag is evil") of your earnest disciple as "subtle parody"

 

If so, here is a pointer: If you believe that my posts are (as you say) "a bit tedious and redundant" then just ignore them: On the left side of your screen there is a link called "Ignore this user" which will greatly enhance your Scouter.Com experience. Ignorance is bliss!

 

My work is intended only for volunteers with an interest in how Scouting worked back when it offered real adventure and almost every American boy wanted to join.

 

btphelps writes:

 

So let it be recognized that we strive very hard to provide participants an outdoors experience utilizing the patrol method requiring them to use camp craft skills and live together outdoors for an entire week.

 

The problem with that statement is that you refuse to comment on the BSA's modern manager definition of the "Patrol Method adult direction leadership style" as adults bypassing Patrol Leaders so they can walk around directing individual Scouts (what every group "needs" when the adults want to pack up and go home).

 

An example might be found in your glowing account:

 

btphelps writes:

 

One of them described how so many of her 11-12 year-old candidates during summer camp were convinced they could not complete the 5 mile hike, but who went on to do it anyway, and the increased self-esteem, enthusiasm, and excitement they experienced as a result.

 

If from the term "five mile hike" we can assume that you are talking about BSA Scouts (in the former British Empire the 2nd Class standard is eight miles), then why do you give as an example of the success of your program a female leading their five mile hike rather than the Scouts' Patrol Leader?

 

Is "increased self-esteem, enthusiasm, and excitement they experienced as a result" your justification for substituting the new "Patrol Method adult direction leadership style" for Real Patrols?

 

Finally, I just had to include this gem:

 

btphelps writes:

 

Is the definition of sharing leadership as expressed by the rubric "Telling-Selling-Consulting-Delegating-Joining" still valid? Given its alignment with million-dollar programs like Situational Leadership, we believe it does.

 

That, I think, says it ALL!

 

Robert Mazzuca himself used a similar boast in his USA Today interview:

 

"We recognize the evolving science of leadership. We've had CEOs on our board say they want to send their people to Wood Badge, our adult leader training program, because we use state-of-the-art techniques."

 

This I believe is the real explanation for the sustained and determined effort to replace Traditional Patrol Leader Training with "modern leadership." It just makes sense to millionaire Scouting executives and the millionaire CEOs on the national BSA board to believe that boys want to learn how to be just like them in "million-dollar" manager school, rather than organizing their own five mile hikes (which can be better led by female "Managers of Learning").

 

And what dad stuck in a boring manager job does not want to think of all those management classes he nodded through as having some great value to boys, given that the "alignment" of consulting and delegation with "million-dollar programs like Situational Leadership" proves their "validity"?

 

Kudu

 

[Gold Winger]

"But when you rub two sticks together and make a fire side by side with an adult of good character . . ."

 

I'm confused here, why would a Scout be making a fire side by side with an adult? Shouldn't the Scout be making a fire side by side with another Scout whilst the adults watch the proceedings from a distance?

[btphelps]

Kudu, you are obviously a man of seasoned opinion. I would love to hear what you've learned from writing a leadership development curriculum and then recruiting adults and youth, funding, designing, developing, planning, and implementing a leadership development experience for youth based on the principles you advocate.

 

Forward, upward, onward,

 

Brian Phelps

Co-director, White Stag Leadership Development

Monterey Bay Area, California

 

"The big divide in this country is not between Democrats and Republicans, or women and men, but between talkers and doers." Thomas Sowell

 

(not affiliated with White Stag in Indiana)

[SSScout]

Man, I will just do anything to avoid housework. And that was one of the things my wife said attracted her to me (my willingness to help with housework, not my desire to avoid it).

When a thread becomes a hawser so quickly and consistantly, I tend to wait to read thru the history.

I think kudu sees a trend and BW sees an improvement. The first sees a lack of real training and the latter sees a continuence, an addition to.

What I see in my small experience as an ASM since the boy became a Scout, in many Troops (not just ours) is a desire of the boys to LET the adults do the planning, the arranging, the leading. So long as the adults are willing to, and MODEL such behavior, the emphasis will be NOT on the DOING of outdoor stuff by boy led Patrols.

I think I agree with what some threaders have posted.

If the desire is to encourage the Scout to be knowledgeable and self-sufficient in the out of doors, both alone and in teams (Patrols), then the training will be arranged accordingly. Knowledgeable adults will teach other adults(BSLS, IOLS) who in turn should be able to teach/encourage the senior (PLC) Scouts who in turn should take pride in passing on this woodslore to the junior Scouts. And the circle should be self powering and self healing.

If the desire is to teach "how to lead", then the question becomes "lead what?"

 

I would posit that the activity should drive the need for leadership, not the need for "scientific" leadership drive the need for an activity to lead.

 

I am not an authority in any of the academic leadership curriculums cited above. I am close to completing my WB tickets. The WB course I took was worthwhile, for an adult to lead and organize adults, in hindsight not much for encouraging boys to lead boys. But what it did do for me and the others in my Patrol (hoot hoot) was to 'empower' us to organize stuff for our boys, hence the 'tickets'.

 

I reviewed the BSLST manual I was given three years ago. It has alot of "National" pages, and alot of "inserts". There are 6 pages on "organizational charts, Leadership principles, Leadership Styles, Leadership skills and Adult Job Descriptions". There is ONE page titled The Boy Led Patrol. It is a description of the Patrol organization, and types "Regular, New Scout and Venture". ONCE is mentioned "That size (about eight boys) is appropriate... also for hiking and camping without leaving a trace." It then suggests the reader refer to 'Chapter 13, The Outdoor Program". Although there is LOTS of reference material in this three ring binder (some of which reminds me of the Boys' Lifes I read), there is NO "chapter 13" in the book. Don't remember recognizing that way back when.

It is a wonderful compilation of info, skills and observations about what a Scout Troop CAN be, but little about how to obtain a Boy Led Troop.

I'm not sure how much of our discussion back then included how to obtain a Boy Led Troop/Patrol. It sure ain't just saying to the boys: "go do it".

 

'Nuff for right now.

YiS

 

 

 

 

[btphelps]

Came across this info, written by Bela Banathy in his 1963 master's thesis, Parameters of a New Design in Leadership Development, which I thought I'd share.

 

"In his book Scouting for Boys, Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, established the principles of training junior leaders when he suggested that the Scoutmaster should select 'a party of six to eight youth or bright boys, and carefully instruct them in the details of peace-Scouting.' These boys, he then says, could act as patrol leaders in training each five to six more boys in Scouting.(1)

 

"Based on this philosophy, the Boy Scouts of America has consistently defined as the number-one job for the Scoutmaster to 'train and guide boy leaders to run their troop.'"(2)

 

(1) Baden-Powell, Robert (1908/1957). Scouting For Boys. London: C. Arthur Pearson LTD, 342-343.

 

(2) (1959) Scoutmaster's Handbook. New Brunswick, N.J.: Boy Scouts of America, 31.

 

Brian Phelps

Co-director, White Stag Leadership Development

Venture Crew 122

Monterey Bay Area Council

 

The big divide in this country is not between Democrats and Republicans, or women and men, but between talkers and doers. Thomas Sowell

 

(not affiliated with White Stag in Indiana)