Over-haul of Training

[OldGreyEagle]

OK, Kudu's right, Wood Badge has been hijacked and most liley will never return to it's original purpose, so we shall leave it to teach managerail skills. What seems to be needed is actual scoutcraft skill. Perhaps named after Daniel Carter Beard.

 

Anyway, for a Scoutcraft one week course, what would you say would be essential?

[GernBlansten]

Well if you will take the opinion of a Skunk,

that one week must occur in the great outdoors 24x7 at a large BSA reservation. No PowerPoint presentations. No classrooms. Make it backpack oriented. Broken into patrols, each patrol packs up every day and moves to a new site. At that site, a program is in place similar to Philmont where they learn an essential scout-craft, like LNT, pioneering or first aid from trained staff. Every day a new site and new craft. Cooking will be single pot delicacies. Their patrol operates as an ideal example of what scouting should be in the field, led by an experienced (trained) patrol leader and guide. The distances don't need to be great so even the portly suburbanite will be able to complete, but long enough to challenge everyone. During the hiking and downtime, the PL will engage in discussions on typical challenges, activities and adventures each unit will face.

 

Coming from that course, the graduate will have the necessary skills to take his unit away from the car camp and into the wilds comfortably and safely.

 

This course must be focused on Boy Scouting (serving 11 to 18 Ylds) and cannot be diluted to be relevant to the younger Cubs or their leaders.

[GernBlansten]

Oh, and one other very important thing.

There will be no special recognition or regalia. No cliques. No annual breakfast banquets. Just the special self gratification that you are capable to lead scouts in the outdoors. Hubris will be the underlying theme.

[Eagle92]

I believe Philmont has indeed come up with a course that focuses on scoutcraft skills for adults. SCOUTING did an article on it within the past few months. I think it is great and should be expanded.

 

Problem is the pre-requisite is WB21C.

 

What about Powderhorn? I know it is high adventure oriented, but do they use the patrol method?

 

As for overhaul of training, I would love if they allowed and advertised a test out of the outdoor skills. Coming up through the ranks, the outdoor portion of SMF, now the IOLS course, wasn't anything new to me. Ditto for some of the others I've met with prior military experience/ outdoor experience.

 

[AlFansome]

Eagle92-

You're referring to the Phlimont Leadership Challenge (http://philmontleadershipchallenge.org/).

 

It's basically and adult version of NAYLE, which is still very focused on servant leadership and the like. While it is outdoors and things like COPE, Wilderness First Aid, Advanced GPS use, and Search and Rescue Techniques are included, it really seems to be more about Wood Badge leadership/teambuilding from the info on the webpage.

 

[shortridge]

Such a program, IMHO, should emphasize not only scoutcraft skills, but the patrol method as well. I'd take Gern's concept and toss in several "patrols" of leaders, each operating independently but coming together in formal (pre-arranged) and informal (spur of the moment) interactions throughout the week - competitions, skill contests, an occasional "troop" meal, some campfires, etc.

[OldGreyEagle]

Since Powderhorn is rooted in Venturing, it does not break up participantsinto a patrol, rather, they are in Crews which are sorta kinda like patrols but not really

 

I am talking about Scout Craft only. The Troop I serve and I were just at Summercamp a few weeks back and the axe yard was largely unused. We have very few adults who know how to build a monkey bridge or make rope from Twine, that's what I would like to see.

 

As far as traveling everyday to get to a location and then learn a skill, you knmow that's pretty durn near a descripton of Venturing's Kodiak program, although Kodiak is addmittedly about Leadership, but if we substitute Scout skills for the COmmissions of Kodiak, it may not be bad.

[John-in-KC]

Actually, I think there need to be multiple modules, because some of these skills take more than a weekend, or even a week to learn.

 

Camp cookery.

 

Knife and axemanship. That may even be two modules.

 

Camp equipment. You would not believe how many folks think nylon of our tents is flame-proof.

 

Knots and pioneering.

 

Strength and conditioning for hiking.

 

The challenge is, who can afford to pay the trainers? It's hard enough to take a week off for the sake of the youth members.

 

 

[mdlscouting]

GernBlansten Wrote: "This course must be focused on Boy Scouting (serving 11 to 18 Ylds) and cannot be diluted to be relevant to the younger Cubs or their leaders."

 

While I'd tend to agree with you on most of what you said, I think it should be emphasized that promoting scoutcraft/outdooring skills among cub leaders should be a high priority. (Although, as you said, not in the scope of this particular course)

 

It's very easy for cub leaders to turn scouting into arts and crafts central. I think one long-term method of helping beef up the scoutcraft/outdoors skills of Boy Scout leaders is to do a better job building those skills among Cub Scout leaders. Again, outside the scope of this course, but possibly a good lead-in to this course.

[Eagle92]

Why not use Venturers for these trainings, after all aren't they suppose to be able to teach these skills, especially for the Ranger Award?

 

Also let's not forget our older scouts and young adult leaders, i.e the 16-21 crowd. Just because they are young doesn't mean that don't have something to offer. One thing I learned was to know your your abilities and seek self improvement from those who can teach you.

[AlFansome]

 

Speaking of an overhaul of training, I had gotten this in an e-mail conversation with Dan Zaccara at National last month:

 

"We are in the process of revising OLS. When we do there will be one OLS for all Programs. The program specific outdoor courses will go away."

 

This thread sparked my memory on that, so I figured that I'd pass it along.

 

This could be seen as a good thing (Cub leaders getting OLS training) or a bad thing (dumbing down OLS to the least common denominator). It will be interesting to see the results of the revamp.

 

 

[GernBlansten]

As the virtual director of this virtual course (I'm calling it GernBadge), I hereby declare that youth may serve as troop guides, but must have attended at least one of the national high adventure bases (preferably NTiers or Philmont, Seabase is really just a nice vacation).

The patrol leader (lead adult staff) must also have attended a National high adventure and have done this course previously as a troop guide.

 

Why do I require a national high adventure for staff? Because they force you to run your crew as independent patrols, without outside support. Its the proving grounds for the patrol method. They are tough and anyone who completes a trek has demonstrated their ability to survive in the woods.

 

Powderhorn is no substitute. They teach high adventure options and how to deliver it to Venture scouts, not scoutcraft to scouts. This week will be chock full of knots, lashings, knives, axes, cooking, tenting, hiking, orienteering, fire building, story telling, song singing, tower building, animal tracking, first aiding, canoeing, climbing, pot cleaning, cathole digging, water pumping, bug swatting, sweating, getting dirty, getting wet, getting trained.

 

If the council can support it, yes, have multiple patrols rotating stations every day. Possible nightly roundups and competitions. The more the merrier. But you could do it with just one patrol too.

 

Why move them every day? Because that makes you rethink everything you carry into the wilds. If you have to pack it, haul it, unpack it every single day, you will seriously reevaluate every piece of equipment. That in turn will make you a better camper and more confident in doing more with less. This will set the tone of the course. Hubris. With your equipment, your capabilities, your environment, your patrol.

 

I think it would be great for Cub leaders to take the course, but they better not complain that what they learn won't transfer to their Tigers or Den Leaders. But they will get an idea of what real Boy Scouting should be and start their boys on the path.

[Eagle92]

Gern,

Would you also accept GBB's BA22 course for staffer positions, as you decribed my course to a T . Patrol method, worked on scout skills, and backpacked everywhere. Heck I bet we even got Kudu's 300 feet rule down pat except for the last nite ( only about 175 feet apart) !

 

If only national would consider it.

[shortridge]

AlFansome,

 

I really hope that flops. Talk about a completely ineffectual course... the outdoor skills appropriate for Cubs are a thousand times removed from what Boy Scout leaders need to know. The outdoors goes from being just one small portion in the Cub program to 99 percent of the Boy Scout program.

 

Unless the idea of progression is taught precisely and properly, and reinforced over and over, we'll end up with Webelos den leaders taking their dens on wilderness survival treks and chopping wood with axes - "because the trainer said I could."

[John-in-KC]

Gern,

 

Only one problem: Restricts training to the summer months, or Christmas vacation. State mandated K-12 attendance laws ... you aren't going to get past them.

 

BTW, since we've debate WFA for quite a while here, "First Aid for the Leader", covering all the essential skills to include CPR.