Is Wood Badge just about "the beads"?

[Beavah]

Beaver is absolutely wrong about "real live kids" making anyone "less convinced" of the Boy Scout program as Baden-Powell and Bill Hillcourt describe it.

 

Yah, I would be wrong, if that's what I had said . I said it kept yeh from becoming "too convinced" and strident.

 

That to my mind is da issue. Learnin' about "storming and norming" or any of those other management theories isn't a bad thing. It might give yeh an insight or an idea that helps. It's when yeh start takin' that stuff as gospel that it gets silly. Same applies all around, eh? I reckon that your current "biggest troop in da county" doesn't match your vision, and even has some WB21C'ers, but still does an OK job.

 

"Real live kids" prove that when you pick the best natural leaders and separate their Patrols by 300 feet, Scouting begins to work just the way Baden-Powell and Bill Hillcourt describe it, even with Scouts who have never experienced the Patrol Method before. Anybody can do that.

 

Yah, hmmm... That's a testable hypothesis. I don't think "anybody" can do it, eh? I don't think "anybody" can pick da best natural leaders. In fact, I offer as evidence your congress and da officials in your BSA district. . I don't think just "anybody" will let those rogueish lads lead. Nor can "anybody" develop da skills and character in both boys and parents that will allow boys to be on their own without windin' up in court or hospital at some point. Or just bein' removed or quitting under da pressure of a parent backlash.

 

"Real live kids" prove that you can register 28% of an auditorium full of skeptical boys if you offer them the kind of adventure that Baden-Powell and Bill Hillcourt describe (a total of 70% will sign your list in front of their peers). That is above and beyond the best efforts of what Wood Badge trained volunteers and professionals can do, which is what? 2%? 4%? 8%?

 

Yah, except anecdote is not da same thing as data, eh? Yeh did that once, in one location. I can point to even more impressive one-shot successes, includin' a crew that in one year recruited over 60% of a high school. Do it a dozen more times in different locations and then yeh might have somethin'. Otherwise it's still a great success story, but a fluke.

 

Beavah

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[SeattlePioneer]

Was AS from 1981-1982 and SM from 1982-1987. I took Wood Badge in 1985.

 

When I got back into Scouting in 2004 I went through the SM training again, including the OLS program.

 

In our area, it's taught by a corp of dedicated old Scouters who have put together quite a program.

 

While it's not a place to master all the Scout skills in a couple of days, it was a good place to review those skills for me.

 

Perhaps most important, it modeled the method of teaching multiple patrols Scout skills simultaneously, by setting up various stations and rotating patrols through the training. I think that was excellent for a lot of adults to see and experience.

 

Also, this training featured superior use of ceremonies, creating an impressive sense of majesty about completing the course and earning the "trained" patch and such. I was mightily impressed by that and it has influenced me to use ceremonies more effectively.

 

I went back and participated in subsequent classes two or three times as a Patrol Adviser.

 

 

Anyway, my experience was a good one and I learned some useful lessons.

[SeattlePioneer]

 

 

 

 

Ummm. I took Wood Badge in 1985. At the time I'd been Scoutmaster for three years, and had significant climbing and backpacking experience before that.

 

The Wood Badge Course I took was not ABOUT teaching outdoor skills. But in the week long camp, people had a chance to learn or improve their camping and outdoor skills. People learned from each other and learned by doing, not by formal instruction in the arts.

 

I vividly remember laearning about the importance of being on time for meals and other aqctivities. Wood Badge Staff "adults" took their meals with patrols. The first couple of days meals and other things could be on the ragged side, and the staffers waited perhaps twenty minutes or so before dinner was served.

 

After about five minutes, they got up and politely excused themselves, saying that they had a meeting scheduled to begin in a few minutes they had to leave for.

 

They didn't have time to eat much of their dinner.

 

A quarter century later and I'm still trying to get Scouting activities started on time and ending when scheduled because of that lesson, most recently at our districts Roundtable last night.

 

To me, that experience was a dramatic example of how to teach Scouting values and practices!

[SeattlePioneer]

 

 

 

 

Ummm. I took Wood Badge in 1985. At the time I'd been Scoutmaster for three years, and had significant climbing and backpacking experience before that.

 

The Wood Badge Course I took was not ABOUT teaching outdoor skills. But in the week long camp, people had a chance to learn or improve their camping and outdoor skills. People learned from each other and learned by doing, not by formal instruction in the arts.

 

I vividly remember laearning about the importance of being on time for meals and other aqctivities. Wood Badge Staff "adults" took their meals with patrols. The first couple of days meals and other things could be on the ragged side, and the staffers waited perhaps twenty minutes or so before dinner was served.

 

After about five minutes, they got up and politely excused themselves, saying that they had a meeting scheduled to begin in a few minutes they had to leave for.

 

They didn't have time to eat much of their dinner.

 

A quarter century later and I'm still trying to get Scouting activities started on time and ending when scheduled because of that lesson, most recently at our districts Roundtable last night.

 

To me, that experience was a dramatic example of how to teach Scouting values and practices!

[Basementdweller]

I hate woodbadge, it is a cult by most definitions. The further from the course I get the more angry the experience makes me.

 

The quality of the program, the attitude of the staff and course material.

 

I bought into the who spiritual experience that was supposed to happen. WRONG, maybe for the self important scouter who never thought about what he was doing and what he was teaching his charges. It formally asks all of the questions that every scouter should have asked before becoming a leader.

 

The win all you can game. Everyone acted like idiots trying to beat the other teams, Despite seeing the option for everyone to win. I had Scouters lie to me during the game, And it was only a game. Imagine what would happen if real money or jobs had been on the line. The indigent looks when we stood up and recited the oath. I am supposed to trust these fools????? Egos and attitudes. A DE lied to me during A fricken game, You could argue it was merely a game, but integrity knows no limits in my book.

 

Yes, my patrol finished last because even after the oath winning was more important to some scouters.

 

 

In my years in scouting I have only met a handful of selfless scouters, The retired gent who works summer camp because he likes the boys, The baloo trainer who cooks because he like to teach. No politics, no ego, no attitudes just enjoying his thing in scouting. I hope you have had the opportunity to met, speak and work with a few. They are a rare bird, someday I hope to be considered one of them.

 

 

Yes woodbadge is about the beads and indentured service, want your beads you had better do your projects.

 

[BadenP]

Basement

 

I have been through WB21stCentury, and its predecessor both of which were very different experiences. In both classes we had some of those self important scouters Basement talks about and in one case we got all of them into one group and the rest of us proceeded to trounce them in all the games and activities which shut them down very quickly. The result was an immediate improvement in the tone of the class and the attitudes of the participants, while the staff seemed oblivious to the entire situation.

 

Sometimes you need to stand up to these arrogant scouters and put them in their place. Half way through the course those same scouters came up to us during a break and apologized to the rest of the participants for being so rude and pushy, after that they acted more scoutlike and we all wound up havin a lot of fun. Is WB a cult? In some cases it can be if you allow it to happen in your council and district but it doesn't have to be.

[Kudu]

OldGreyEagle writes:

 

Just to be clear, Kudu's dislike of WoodBadge did not start with WoodBadge for the 21rst Century, it started with the curriculum change in WoodBadge in 1972

 

That is correct, however the decision to destroy William "Green Bar Bill" Hillcourt's Scoutcraft Wood Badge was made in 1965, only a few months after he retired.

 

To that end specific position of responsibility advancement requirements were introduced in 1965. If it wasn't for these PORs, we could at the Troop level just ignore the destructive forces of "Leadership Development" which replaced the Scoutcraft in Wood Badge.

 

The introduction of these POR requirements reminds me of the scene in "Titanic" where Thomas Andrews, the architect of the Titanic, points to his blueprints of the ship and explains to the captain that because five compartments have been breached, the water will spill over the tops of all of the bulkheads. Because of this damage to the structure's integrity, it was a "mathematical certainty" that the greatest ship in the world would sink.

 

John Larson, author of a different blueprint, the 1965 "Blueprint for Action" (White Stag Report), took special delight in his destruction of the world's most popular Boy Scout Program:

 

"Larson later reported, 'He [Hillcourt] fought us all the way... He had a vested interest in what had been and resisted every change. I just told him to settle down, everything was going to be all right'."

 

"Settle down, everything is going to be all right" is Wood Badge jargon for "We will lose two million Boy Scouts over this: 30% of our membership!"

 

See "1965" at:

 

http://www.whitestag.org/history/history.html

 

Yours at 300 Feet,

 

Kudu

 

[Kudu]

I wrote:

 

Beaver is absolutely wrong about "real live kids" making anyone "less convinced" of the Boy Scout program as Baden-Powell and Bill Hillcourt describe it.

 

Beavah writes:

 

Yah, I would be wrong, if that's what I had said . I said it kept yeh from becoming "too convinced" and strident.

 

Same thing.

 

Beavah writes:

 

That to my mind is da issue. Learnin' about "storming and norming" or any of those other management theories isn't a bad thing. It might give yeh an insight or an idea that helps.

 

Sure: It might give you an insight or two. So therefore office leadership formulas do merit a mention in the University of Scouting, or even years of study to qualify for a fake PhD in fake leadership.

 

They do not belong in Wood Badge, unless the purpose of Wood Badge is to help the CSE achieve Leadership Development's 45 year-old goal to make Scoutcraft merely optional (so that we can spend millions of dollars on translators to bundle the toxic assets of "character and leadership" with Hispanics who love soccer but hate camping). See:

 

http://inquiry.net/leadership/sitting_side_by_side_with_adults.htm

 

Beavah writes:

 

I reckon that your current "biggest troop in da county" doesn't match your vision....

 

That's why I did not mention the Patrol Method to them for the first two years.

 

I wrote:

 

"Real live kids" prove that when you pick the best natural leaders and separate their Patrols by 300 feet, Scouting begins to work just the way Baden-Powell and Bill Hillcourt describe it, even with Scouts who have never experienced the Patrol Method before. Anybody can do that.

 

Beavah writes:

 

Yah, hmmm... That's a testable hypothesis.

 

Testable Hypothesis, huh? Sounds very scientific.

 

Beavah writes:

 

I don't think "anybody" can do it, eh?

 

Well, if I had known that you were reading my posts again, I would not have been so emphatic in my assertions, or referred to you in the third-person

 

By "anybody" I mean: If I can learn how to do that, then anybody can learn how to do that. That was why Baden-Powell invented Wood Badge. That is why Bill Hillcourt brought Wood Badge to the United States.

 

Beavah writes:

 

I don't think "anybody" can pick da best natural leaders.

 

Sure they can.

 

The problem is that Leadership Development has convinced us that it is is somehow unseemly to figure out which Scouts are the natural leaders: That Scouts need to vote for a Patrol Leader every six months so that they will eventually make a bad choice. Leadership Development's Webelos III environment (called "Controlled Failure") is designed so that the worst consequence of picking a bad Patrol Leader is that the Patrol eats burned pancakes for six months.

 

But yes, it is true that in a Webelos III environment Scouts probably do a better job than adults of picking the Scout who can best pretend to use the EDGE method to wash the dishes.

 

Beavah writes:

 

In fact, I offer as evidence your congress and da officials in your BSA district.

 

Not the same thing, is it?

 

I am talking about Scouts that you know: Like David. Remember when David was eight years old and the football coach didn't show up? The parents all wanted to go home, but he talked the other boys into practicing patterns of his own creation. That weekend the team won for the only time all season. Yeah, David: who when he was nine years old rode his little BMX bike 30 miles with the Boy Scouts, but cried that night when he couldn't strike a match no matter how hard he tried. David: The kid who refused to buy any candy at summer camp when he was 13 because he was saving for a backpacking stove. That's right, David: The kid who when he was 14 and nobody wanted to sleep on Monster Mountain at summer camp, just slung his pack over his back and started off alone until four Scouts yelled to stop because they had changed their minds and then followed up the mountain behind him.

 

I wrote:

 

"Real live kids" prove that you can register 28% of an auditorium full of skeptical boys if you offer them the kind of adventure that Baden-Powell and Bill Hillcourt describe (a total of 70% will sign your list in front of their peers). That is above and beyond the best efforts of what Wood Badge trained volunteers and professionals can do, which is what? 2%? 4%? 8%?

 

Beavah writes:

 

Yah, except anecdote is not da same thing as data, eh? Yeh did that once, in one location.

 

No, I did it perhaps a dozen times, and I will spin off some statistics in a separate thread below.

 

The larger point here is that you talk all sciencey with terms like "testable hypothesis" and "anecdotal evidence," but you are just one of the guys at the foot of the Pisa Tower using LOGIC to prove that a ten pound weight falls twice as fast as a five pound weight:

 

"Yah, Galileo, yeh did that once, in one location. Do it a dozen more times in different locations and then yeh might have somethin'. Otherwise it's still a great success story, but a fluke."

 

But that is not my responsibility, is it?

 

If anyone wants to recruit 15 times better than a BSA millionaire, then read my "School Presentation for Recruiting Sixth-Graders" and try it out at your local school:

 

http://inquiry.net/adult/recruiting.htm

 

If you come back and report that an auditorium of little buggers "Formed and Stormed" you off the stage, only then can we debate if your "scientific" findings do indeed "falsify" my reports.

 

Yours at 300 Feet,

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net/

 

 

[Stosh]

I took WB 15+ years ago. Don't remember much about it, had a good time, met some nice people (I was just getting back into scouting), totally enjoyed doing my ticket (Webelos transition), still wear the beads. You couldn't pay me enough to repeat the program with the new 21st Century program. From what I have seen and heard from participants, it's probably a good thing I won't.

 

I thought it rather strange this year the new Council Training Chairman didn't seem to want the "old guard" doing the outdoor leader training and has come around and asked some of us old last century guys to teach instead. I haven't been on training staff since I was a SM on Fundamentals. I guess I'm back in the saddle again.

 

Your mileage may vary,

 

Stosh

[Kudu]

I wrote:

 

We no longer train Patrol Leaders how to take their Patrols out on patrol.

 

SeattlePioneer writes:

 

The Wood Badge Course I took was not ABOUT teaching outdoor skills.

 

Just about everybody confuses "teaching outdoor skills" with teaching Patrol Leaders how to actually apply those outdoor skills when they take their Patrols out on patrol:

 

Scoutcraft Competency + Leadership Formulas =/= Applied Patrol Leader Scoutcraft

 

(Scoutcraft Competency plus Leadership Formulas does NOT equal Applied Patrol Leader Scoutcraft).

 

It is the difference between signing Scouts off on Tenderfoot through First Class Swimming requirements, versus teaching potential BSA Life Guards how to use those skills to save lives.

 

If Wood Badge did to BSA Lifeguards what Wood Badge did to Patrol Leaders (take away their position-specific training, count "Lifeguard" as a POR, and encourage six-month popularity contests for Troop Lifeguard because "boy-led" means Scouts know better than adults which of their friends will make the best Lifeguards), then BSA Waterfronts would be scaled down to baby pools and splash pads (to resemble Leadership Development's Webelos III campsites where even the most incompetent Patrol Leader can learn office management formulas without any real risk to the other Webelos III Scouts).

 

When I took Wood Badge the content of the course was about the Fake Leadership Formula of the day called the "Eleven Skills of Leadership."

 

However, three (3) important Patrol elements remained:

 

1) Wood Badge Patrols separated over 300 feet, with each Patrol in its own "Troop" campsite.

 

The Patrols were so far apart that when we Beavers (camped at the top of the hill) shouted out a "No Files on Us" challenge, it cascaded down the hill from Patrol site to Patrol site until we could not hear, down in the valley, the last Patrol's response to the second-to-the-last Patrol's challenge.

 

2) Wood Badge Patrol Outings.

 

One afternoon each Patrol (equipped for camping) followed a trail of Treasure Hunt Wide Game hints that lead each Patrol to its own remote corner of the camp (in which each Patrol camped overnight without any contact with the Staff or any other Patrol). We shouted out a few "No Flies on Us" challenges, but ALL the other Patrols were out of earshot.

 

3) Figure it Out Yourself.

 

In those days our local Wood Badge Staff never explained much about logistics: Certainly not how to get your equipment from a Quartermaster, nor how to find a Patrol Cart with which to transport the heavy equipment to the distant campsites. Each Patrol had to figure all the practical stuff out for themselves.

 

In the process it quickly became evident which of the participants in each Patrol was its Natural Leader.

 

The intention was generally understood to create in the minds of the participants the absolute confusion that a new Scout experiences when he joins a Boy Scout Troop, and then (over the course of the week of Wood Badge), the gradual building of confidence that a Scout developments as he becomes seasoned.

 

So obviously Wood Badge could be easily fixed: We old goats would unconditionally surrender to the Cult of Fake Leadership. In return the "Win All You Can" game would be eliminated and the Course Director or SPL would use that time slot to say to the participants:

 

"You may have noticed that your Wood Badge Patrols are all separated by at least 300 feet. That was Baden-Powell's minimum distance between Patrols when the Patrols camped together as a Troop. It is our hope that each of you will some day be able to use what you learn in Wood Badge to train at least one of your Patrol Leaders to camp 300 feet away from the other Patrols in your Troop."

 

Likewise:

 

"Did you enjoy camping far away on the trail as a separate Patrol last night?" That was the goal of all training in Baden-Powell's time: 'Patrol Overnights!' It is our hope that each of you will some day be able to use what you learn in Wood Badge to train at least one of your Patrol Leaders to take his Patrol on a Patrol Overnight in a Boy Scout camp just like you all did last night!"

 

If Wood Badge even spent 20 minutes describing the "Real" Patrol Method, at least some participants would then strive to prove that Leadership Formulas actually work in the real world as well as the methods of Baden-Powell and William Hillcourt once did.

 

Yours at 300 Feet,

 

Kudu

 

 

[sherminator505]

Wood Badge as it exists today is not about the beads. It is about National's stubborn and mistaken belief that all Scouters should have the same capstone course.

[Beavah]

Yah, da real issue to my mind is whether scouters should have a "capstone" course at all, eh?

 

It makes sense for the youth programs - something to strive for before yeh graduate.

 

But for adults, it sure seems to send da wrong message. Learnin' is an ongoing thing for adults, or should be. It shouldn't be (which it so often is) "I've got my beads, I'm the best, and I'm done!" To my mind, WB barely gets yeh past "beginner". SM Basic is essentially a "paint by numbers" set of courses. Doesn't really teach yeh a thing. WB is closer to a first course in painting - learnin' how to hold da brush with a few bits of basic technique, and then a chance to go try to paint somethin' (your ticket).

 

So it's just a beginnin', eh? Wearin' WB beads should signify that you're a novice scouter who is workin' on it. 'Tis the start of the real journey, not the end.

 

Beavah

 

[ScoutBox]

Wow. Beaveh! That's a damn good way of putting it. I have ben back in Scouting for the past 15 months. Since my son joined. We as adults want to see our boys, and girls grow, learn, and make good. We advice them to keep learning, and studying. We give them the tools to do what they need to become good citizens, men, and women.. adults.. But many adults I know are in the mind set that they are good enough, and good enough is just that.. I don't want people like this around not only my son, but all of the boys, including myself. Hell, when I was serving in the US Army, and after a lot of the training I went through, Infantry, Airborne, Ranger, etc. etc. schools and just stopped training, and advancing in education and getting all I could from the military, then I might not have mad it as far as to have fathered my son, and daughter.. How can i ask Scouts to keep on truck'en when I wouldn't. I have had a lot of time on my hands this last year, unemployed.. so I got to training. Did all of the basic training as a Scouter serving in a Troop ASM position. I also went to Wood Badge. I loved the experience. I put a lot into it, and got a lot out of it. I learned a lot that the Army didn't teach me. And I will keep on learning, and training. I have a lot of people around me in the Troop who are letting the boys down as I can see it. In fact we had out CoH last night, and a large % of the new Scouts who were ready to advance to Tenderfoot didn't get their BOR two weeks ago due to adults, Not the boys. Adults.. The worst part of Scouting I think sometimes.. they hover around with a title, and don't want to do the work required.. These people are worst then not having enough adults to help. I'd rather do it all myself then depend on some of these people. I plan to keep working and learning, and doing what comes natural to me as a leader. I show up and help.. I plan to attend PTC in 2012 if I can. I want to learn more so I can help the Scout better. I want to do more for them. So doing the basic and then claiming that your good enough is a crock. Not everyone can do more, but the ones who can should. Because if your not there to help the boys, then you should think twice about helping yourself.. And as for which Wood Badge is the best??? I didn't attended WB 20 years ago, I couldn't. But I do know a lot about the outdoors, enough to teach it for money in fact. So I can only guess that I have what it takes to tie knots, and make some of the increadable works of Lashing art I've seen. And camp and what all was done in the early days. I think that the early WB is more for those adults who don't know anything about the outdoors. Today, many people who are involved in the BSA that I've been around know a lot about the outdoors, and they got a lot from the present WB21. But as an adult you owe it to the boys and girls to make sure that you not only know everything to do with the outdoors, but can do it in your sleep. So get out and learn.. If you don't like the new WB, then take a course in Outdoor Woodlore. Talk about learn a lot. You will. And you'll have a great time.

[Eagle92]

In fact we had out CoH last night, and a large % of the new Scouts who were ready to advance to Tenderfoot didn't get their BOR two weeks ago due to adults, Not the boys. Adults..

 

I don't know when national stopped allowing Scouts to sit on BORs, but doing so would stop some of this, at least in the T-2-1 stages. I know up until approx 1989, my troop had youth sitting on T-2-1 BORs. Never had a problem with people having their BORs.

[ScoutBox]

Eagle, Very good point, and one I was wanting to use. Does National allow youths to sit on the BOR's.. If so then I believe that this would be a great or better way of holding BORs..