What would you do differently in Training?

[Lisabob]

"We neither wanted to, indeed we refused to, be handled like children again. "

 

Bingo. I hate it when we are asked to "play scouts" as adults. It is never genuine because we are NOT scouts. We have a great deal more life experience behind us and so we are not going to learn things or see things the same way a scout will anyway. I find this sort of thing to be a waste of my time and demeaning to boot, and it is one of the few times when I find it very, very, very hard to play well with others, as opposed to just getting up and leaving. It was one of the major sources of irritation for me with the early WB/21, that they had us "play" cubs for a few hours in the early part of the course. It was such a caricature. As a cub leader at the time, I thought it was awful. (I hear they've changed a little of that to make it less offensive.)

 

I also recognize that people learn in different ways. While the above sure doesn't work for me in the slightest bit, I suppose it might work for some others. None the less, I prefer to think (as someone who does a lot of group seminars) that it makes better sense to treat people as they are when they walk into the room, instead of asking them to pretend to relive their youth. Especially when you don't know them well and won't have them for more than a few hours.

[Gold Winger]

I loved playing Scout when I went to Scoutmaster school as did most of my classmates. We played silly games, sang songs, tied knots and sometimes did our best to disrupt the meeting. In fact we were told to put ourselves in the shoes of an 11 year old boy in a new environment. To help with that feeling, pains were taken to make sure that your patrol include no one from your unit if possible. 95% of the students left the class with great sense of joie de Scouting

[Crew21_Adv]

Fellow Scouters,

 

I highly concur with certain John and Lisa's comments. I tried to illustrate that in my comments, but possible was misunderstood.

 

I attempted to state by establishing a peer to peer relationship rather than a Course Director-Learner relationship. Attempting to remove the illusion that the experience would become demeaning.

 

From the beginning of WB 21C, that has been one of the ongoing topics coming back from the CD Conferences. It was best decided the population preferred experienced based, but did not want a demeaning atmosphere. The popular reflections and critiques enjoyed experience based learning seeing the WB experience as a youth (especially working as a team and not as an individual, learning how to network and not stand alone). Since Wood Badge for Boy Scout Leaders and WB 21C common critiques repeatedly enjoyed experiences but were critical of demeaning talk, demeaning comments, and senior-subordinate "know it all-know nothing" insinuation.

 

I have seen many, many friends temporarily assume the role of a Cub or Scout and enjoy their learning experience, while I also have seen very few friends (2, maybe 3) feel insulted and walk away from training feeling insulted. It's not for everyone, but it appears to be the most effective.

 

Experienced based learning, or some BSAs practices of asking participants to experience a class in this manner is not popular with every learner. But it is popular and effective with the majority. Ideally if it is delivered in an educational, fun, but still mature manner.

 

So my bottom line. I highly agree. I do not desire to be talked down to, and have entered many of my training events with many of my own experiences. I dont expect anyone would be comfortable in a demeaning and insulting atmosphere. Where I do disagree with John and Lisa, I do believe the experience based learning and participating as a Scout is effective. While keeping the demeanor mature and respectful.

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv

 

[Gold Winger]

" The staff worked us not as "live it again", but rather as "here is how you can best assist your child."

 

Apples and oranges.

[John-in-KC]

"Apples and Oranges."

 

Will you settle for Royal Galas and Granny Smiths?

 

1) There was a new field, never really seen.

 

2) There was new information, and much to be absorbed in a short time.

 

3) The staff itself was at the end of their season, and yet was maintaining high energy

 

4) There were new ways to consider older procedures.

 

5) There were the usual manner of life support issues.

 

Now, a near perfect comparison would be between this program and the Cub Scout Resident overnight camp we run. Even so, the preparation for passing information to adults (parents) through the fire hose was better than I usually

see at most BSA training.

[Gold Winger]

Still apples and orange.

[GMitch]

Crew 21,

 

I find that some Scouters in Districts I have been in are very much as you describe, namely insulting. I have seen this at Roundtables and Basic Trainings. The prevelant attitude with a few of these jokers is "we know everything, you are stupid, therefore if you have a question ask us". I know they probably mean well and are probably doing the best they can. It is tough sometimes to sit through that when these guys are not fully uniformed, improperly or sloppily uniformed with the pieces they do have, and sometimes share false notions in their self proclaimed attitude of "expertise". I know most of them have never been to a Trainer's Development Conference, and many are not Wood Badge trained. They really set up a "us-you" dynamic though. It doesn't bother me today. It was very discouraging though as a young 20 something Scouter. I just felt that I would never be as good as those guys. I let that attitude and their lack of drawing people in; but rather pushing them away, push me out of Scouting for 7 years. Now as I near 40 I realize that I have something to offer. Rather than complain about this type of so-called trainer, I am going to accept an open position as a District trainer on top of my other Scouting duties and try to help people along with a hand of friendship and the heart of a teacher.

[Lisabob]

Crew21, perhaps there is misunderstanding all the way around. I don't object to being placed in a situation which a boy might face and I don't object to the patrol organization that is used in several scouter trainings. I definitely don't object to being reminded to consider how a situation looks through the eyes of a scared new tenderfoot scout. For example, in another thread recently, someone was talking about a first-year boy scout who was alleged to have cheated his way through the swimming requirement to inflate clothing and float on it. Somebody else pointed out that what seems simple to us, might indeed have been very scary to a young scout who wasn't sure it would work or that he could do it. Being reminded of the different mindset youth have from adults, can be quite valuable.

 

I do (and did) object to using the patrol structure as a way to bludgeon adults. In WB, one thing that I found useless was that our CD and SPL and Guides were often late for things. Our CD frequently changed the directions or rules at the last minute. He would then either tell us this was a lesson in how the boys feel when adults do these things to them (which, I agree, happens too easily - adults are not always thoughtful about how their caprices impact the youth) and/or he would berate the PLs of the day for "not communicating" or "not asking enough questions" as if they should have read his mind and known when it was about to change. Sheesh. I felt, and still do, that this was just a really poor way to treat people of any age, and that "playing" at being frustrated youth scouts was hardly a worthy teaching technique.

 

I don't object to some role playing activities (and in fact I use them in my classes sometimes), but the truth is that skillfully setting up and debriefing from a role-play scenario is hard to do well and take a lot of prior thought and preparation - two things I seldom see much of in scouter training. I'm sorry if that sounds cynical but it is based on plenty of experience with low-quality trainings. The actual exercise itself is easy for the instructor (sit back and let them role play away the time) but of no use if the set-up and de-brief aren't carefully done.

 

I do object to being with a group who are told to channel their inner 11 year olds and ham it up. Some will ham it up to ridiculous proportions, just to play the class clown. The rest may try to take it seriously, but reality is that we just can't go back. We will never be 11 years old again and pretending/ play-acting is therefore contrived, at best. So role playing needs to be focused, well-prepared and followed up with a carefully guided discussion, and the duration should not be stretched past the point where the players get the point of the exercise, or it just becomes ludicrous.

 

I'm guessing we're probably in more agreement than disagreement?

[acco40]

I took 21st Century WB the first year it was offered. It was taught fairly well in my book. But in some of the courses I've taken and trained, like Intro to Outdoor Skills - I do find it "weird" to try and get the adults to perceive the training as Scouts.

 

Of course, what I would really like to see the BSA offer Den Leaders, Scoutmasters and those working directly with the youth is a basic child development course with special emphasis on boys (obviously) and for the age group (6 - 10 or 11 - 17). I'm always flabberghasted how some adults treat children as "mini-adults" and have no real comprehension for age appropriate behavior.(This message has been edited by acco40)

[Lisabob]

acco, I think that's what the "ages and stages" portion of NLE is supposed to accomplish. Although I am not certain how effective it is, and people only ever need to sit through NLE once in their whole time as Scouters, at least BSA has attempted to speak to this topic somewhere/somehow.

 

But yeah, having an honest discussion about development could be really useful. I know it is one thing I value about scouting, as a parent of an only child (and he's the oldest boy in the extended family too), is the chance to learn from parents of slightly older boys what I might expect/look forward to/dread in the years to come.