BALOO at Univeristy of Scouting

[nwscouttrainer]

Has anyone ever offered BALOO as a course at University of Scouting? We are looking at adding it to this year's course list, but I have concerns about how to fit what normally runs as an 8-hour program into a 6-hour event.

 

Has anyone here done this, and if so, how did you structure the class to get all of the material covered?

 

[FScouter]

It is impossible to cover 8 hours of material in 6 hours. You just have to decide what parts you don't want to cover. Of course there is no shortage of folks that can tell you the parts that aren't needed!

[dg98adams]

I believe it is discouraged to offer it that way.

Besides, I chair the course in our council and it's hard to shave more than an hour or so off the 8 hour course.

[Novice_Cubmaster]

8 hour course???

 

Ours was about 6 hours, including an hour making & eating hobo meals, plus a guest scoutmaster telling us about leave no trace.

 

Consider yourself lucky to have a class that might deliver some actual training of value.

 

NC

[Overtrained]

We have offered the course a couple of times. I'm looking at the syllabus now and the sample one day agenda does go from 9 am to 5 pm with lunch.

Hmmm...makes me wonder how we did it in 6 hours.

[nwscouttrainer]

Do you know how the BALOO course was structur3ed when it was offered at your U f S?

 

I am trying to worek out what would have been pred down, scaled, back or cut.

 

Thanks

[ghermanno]

I am curious. If you "pare down, cut back, or eliminate" part of the course, how do you present the pared down certificate? As a BSA Trainer, having attended "Trainers Edge", part of the certification was a promise to present the material as BSA requests and to request any deviations.

 

Funny how we hold a boy to "Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful,..." but as adults we feel it is okay to cut corners, certify unattended training, and look for an easier way to lie without batting an eyelash.

 

You can give the BALOO training at UoS. Just make the UoS eight hours long or have a follow-up two hour class. If there is something in the sylabus that needs to be eliminated, contact District, Council, and National to ask if it may be eliminated and the Scouters still certified. Otherwise, you are NOT giving BALOO training but something you developed as BSA BALOO training has a syllabus.

 

My $0.02

 

Rick(This message has been edited by ghermanno)

[nwscouttrainer]

The concerns that you have expressed here are precisely the same ones that I had when it was proposed that we try to offer BALOO at U of S. The suggestions is being supported by our Council Training Chairman,though, who has never taught the course (and may not have actually ever taken it). It was my suggestion that we research it thouroughly before we commit to it to make sure that it is a possibility.

 

 

While I doubt that anything done at U of S would be equal to what is presented when we just concentrate on doing BALOO, I wanted to make sure that someone hadn't figured out a way to do it that got all of the content in without too much compromise. So far I have found at least 5 councils that do offer BALOO at U of S in 6 hours. The responses I have gotten back as to how they do it are not exactly encouraging.