How has training changed and is it for the better?

[Kudu]

Good news (if your account of the Patrol Method section is accurate).

 

My printing was prior to 2008.

 

The "Patrol Method" section beginning on page 53 was about matching "adult leadership styles" to the "needs of the patrol/troop/group," and included the example of adults telling random Scouts when it was time to put out a campfire. Patrol Leaders were NOT mentioned, only generic "boy leaders," and the formula "patrol/troop/group" was used rather than "Patrol."

 

I will add this to our recent victory in the introduction of an outdoor uniform (which took ten years) in the column of "Why Discussion Group Diatribes Work"!

 

Kudu

 

[TAHAWK]

I am engaged in a civilized discussion with individuals at National Council about problems I see with the Wilderness Survival Merit Badge pamphlet and new Handbook. We shall see. Although my last "issue" -- safe dishwashing -- went uncorrected for twenty-four years, I never thought it was the result of a conspiracy. Much less do I claim any credit for the change. I know for a fact, among other factors miliating change, that others also repeatedly pointed out the problem -- and did so without ascribing dishonorable motives.

 

A diatribe is "a bitter, abusive criticism or denunciation." I think you fail to see how many can be "turned off" by "diatribes" -- more, I suspect, than are inspired to support or agreement.

 

"f your account of the Patrol Method section is accurate" - indeed! I will have every edition of the SMST syllabus in due course.

[SR540Beaver]

Kudu,

 

I'm beginning to have reservations regarding your council's training team. This whole thing with your syllabus differing from what everyone else knows and has learned is similar to the "Patrol Leaders serve at the whim of the Senior Patrol Leader" handout someone claimed was from Wood Badge at your roundtable. Do you have local folks dinking withh the national training materials?

[SR540Beaver]

Kudu,

 

I'm beginning to have reservations regarding your council's training team. This whole thing with your syllabus differing from what everyone else knows and has learned is similar to the "Patrol Leaders serve at the whim of the Senior Patrol Leader" handout someone claimed was from Wood Badge at your roundtable. Do you have local folks dinking withh the national training materials?

[sherminator505]

I feel that training in the BSA, for the most part, has improved. The offering of training courses online makes it much easier for Scouters to take certain courses on their own schedule and frees up district and council training staffs to provide leader-specific training, IOLS, and WB21.

 

One aspect that has suffered, in my opinion, is the level of outdoor skills courses offered to Scouters. WB21 shifted away from this, and nothing has been developed to fill the void. My suggestion would be a second outdoor skills course as a sequel to IOLS. I'm not sure what you would call such a course, but it would pick up on some of the nuances of actually camping as a patrol and complete the Scouter's instruction in First Class Scout skills. Given the conversations I have had with other Scouters and the posts I have read, I think that such a course would be very well received.

[TAHAWK]

Rick ("Kudu") posted:

"Trustworthy deals with facts that can be verified. That is my reason for participating in public discussions."

. . .

"White Stag Wood Badge killed Patrol Leader Training in 1972: Sorry no more position-specific training for Patrol Leaders."

 

The topic is changes in training, and the BSA model for training of Patrol leaders has changed over the years.

One thing has remained consistent: training of Patrol Leaders, by that specific position title, has been described as the responsibility of the Scoutmaster in every edition of the Scoutmaster's or Scoutmaster Handbook from 1947 to date.

 

In the 5th Edition (1959-1972), Bill Hillcourt described it in "Tool - 3" "Patrol Leader's Training."

 

In the 7th Edition (1981-1990), it is covered in Training Junior Leaders. The first learning objective for "Junior Leaders" is "State the duties of a patrol leader." Literature to be used is The Patrol Leader's Handbook, SMHB, BSHB.

In the 8th Edition (1990-1998), it is stated that each Scout leadership position is different, that training is tailored to the position, and that, in contrast to other Scout leadership positiion, the trainers for the "Patrol Leader" are the SM and SPL.

 

The 1998 SMHB describes "challenges" for Scout leaders in terms of what look remarkably like those unique to a Patrol Leader's responsibilities and, again, indicates that the SM and SPL are the appropriate persons for intorductory training of the Patrol Leader (except the New Scout Patrol Leader).

 

As a personal aside, I know that in 1984 and for years thereafter the district-level training for "junior leaders" here in Cleveland began with a session entitled "Welcome to Scouting's Toughest Job" [PL]. Kt was assumed, as Bill Hillcourt wrote, that non-PL Scout leaders need to know the PL's job. The training was very little different from the district-level junior leaders training I helped with in the later 1950's and early 1960's. We weren't in the woods then either.

 

 

Do the various plans for training PL's differ over the years from Bill Hillcourt's? Certainly they do. The emphasis on training out-of-doors is not longer the model, and it was not the model where I Scouted by 1957. But it is simply factually incorrect to say the training of PL's, by that title, ceased to exist in 1972.

 

Your claim also assumes that official BSA literature determines what training is, in fact, given.

 

 

Rick ("Kudu")posted:

 

"2) The following clearly indicates that the purpose of regular elections is to encourage very rapid turnover: "To give more youths the opportunity to lead, most troops elect patrol leaders twice a year. Some may have elections more often."

 

To answer the topic question: Six month election cycles is why "Real Patrols" are no longer defined by a Patrol Leader's ability to lead regular Patrol Hikes and Patrol Campouts without direct adult supervision. This allows White Stag to end position-specific training for Patrol Leaders so that generic training can concentrate on indoor manager skills rather than on applied Scoutcraft adventures. "

 

Bill Hillcourt, not "White Stag," suggested six-month -- OR SHORTER -- terms for PL's in the 4th and 5th Editions of the Scoutmaster's Handbook; "Generally the term of office is about six months, but may be more of less depending on your situation." ("Setting Up the Patrol Method, Term of Office")

 

In any case, a six-month term of office may end with an election of the same PL if he suits the Scouts.

 

In our Troop, the Scouts have decided, and continue to support, year-long terms, with the right to ask the PLC to hold a new election sooner for cause.

[HICO_Eagle]

I'd like to stay out of the Tahawk/Kudu fight here but in general I agree with Kudu. The content and quality of training has declined severely in the past 25 years although it has become glossier, more standardized and more "open". The current handbook is a travesty and should never have been published in its current form.

 

IMHO, Wood Badge should focus on what it used to: teaching and honing outdoor skills. Teaching leadership or management skills should have been the focus of another completely different course rather than appropriating the Wood Badge name (assuming Kudu's chronology is correct). For some reason, I seem to remember that's what JLT was supposed to be for ...

[Eagle92]

HICO,

Please do not tell me you are talking about the BSHB that came out last week? While I admit I have not read it cover to cover yet, but from what I've seen and read so far, it's the best edition to come out since 1979.

[TAHAWK]

There is no dispute that the shift away from Scoutcraft from 1972 to 2001 leaves far, far less outdoor skills training than was part of the "official" training sequence under the original course -- or even in the second course. We have IOLS and whatever "intermediate" training finds it's way into Baden-Powell Institute, University of Scouting, or whatever you call annual intermeniate training days in your Council.

 

Worse in my Council, our former SE pushed one-day, indoor IOLS. He's gone, and the pretend IOLS with him. Thsoe who needed training the most got it the least.

 

Because the outdoor program is what attracts most kids and is still a "Method," there should be outdoor skills training beyond IOLS. It exists as a weekend course in some Councils. Our new SE has no objection, and lots of Scouters have expressed interest. So we are apparently going to give it a spin in 2010. If enough Councils start doing advanced outdoor skills training, it may be adopted as "official." (Didn't someone suggest that very thing?) But even if it' not "official," it can be a reality "on the ground" if we make it so.

 

The lack of training of adults is probably reflected in the lower levels of outdoor skills amongst the Scouts. The biggest problem for candidates to meet the "fires" requirement for Wilderness Survival MB is that the candidates simply are not skilled is starting fires - any fire.

[Hal_Crawford]

"The lack of training of adults is probably reflected in the lower levels of outdoor skills amongst the Scouts. The biggest problem for candidates to meet the "fires" requirement for Wilderness Survival MB is that the candidates simply are not skilled is starting fires - any fire."

 

YES! This is a BFO-a Blinding Flash of the Obvious. Yet for some reason it is missed by those who establish the training continuum. I can't speak for other geographic regions but in our council a huge percentage of scouters work for the government, the military or any of the many government contractors. We have gotten a nearly lethal dose of various management and leadership trainings. They are all well and good. The problem is when we go on a camp out many of us lack the basic outdoor skills to be useful teachers to the scouts. How can we teach scouts to light a fire with one match if we couldn't do it ourselves if our lives depended on it?

 

Just a case in point. When my son was in scouts I thought I knew something about camping. I had camped as a scout. I got the Handbook and for good measure a copy of the Fieldbook as well. I started reading about how to set up a camp. Hey wait a minute, where is the part about ditching your tent? Where is the part about sending two scouts into the woods with a WW2 entrenching tool to dig a huge pit latrine? Does this mean that the things I learned in scouts are wrong? Yeah, pretty much. I had to realize that I had forgotten a lot and most of what I remembered was now considered bad practice. Hey, they even got rid of the Snipe hunts!

 

I was fortunate to have other scouters to learn from and my outdoor skills are now fairly decent. But there are lots of scouters out there who are the SM because no one else would take the job. They lack the skills and probably know it but lack the resources to get the training. That is who BSA is failing to serve and as TAHAWK points out the scouts are getting shortchanged as well.

 

Hal

 

 

[Kudu]

HICO_Eagle writes:

 

I'd like to stay out of the Tahawk/Kudu fight here

 

Me too

 

On the topic of Internet addiction, gwd-scouter once reported that she woke up in the middle of the night to check her Email, only to be struck with wonder at the "Most active recent contributors" list. How do they find the time?

 

Her post led me to realize that I am not a very prolific writer either. It is a lot of fun to unravel Tahawk's logic and then try to counter it, but this will be my last post in this thread.

 

"White Stag Wood Badge killed Patrol Leader Training in 1972: Sorry no more position-specific training for Patrol Leaders."

 

Tahawk writes:

 

The first learning objective for "Junior Leaders" is "State the duties of a patrol leader..."

 

The emphasis on training out-of-doors is not longer the model, and it was not the model where I Scouted by 1957.

 

But it was the NATIONAL model when you Scouted in 1957 and when you became a young adult leader, even though your Troop and district did not follow Hillcourt's Patrol Leader Training course. We hiked and camped without adults when I was a Scout. Maybe it was the exception and not the rule elsewhere, but it was the national "model" and models set the boundaries on imagination and adventure.

 

But it is simply factually incorrect to say the training of PL's, by that title, ceased to exist in 1972.

 

By the title "Patrol Leader Training"? That would surprise me! Hasn't our official, generic, one-size-fits-all manager training been called "Junior Leader Training" or "Troop Leader Training" since 1972?

 

This is my last time around, so I will repeat: Does it pass the BSA Lifeguard test?

 

In Baden-Powell's and Bill Hillcourt's versions of the Patrol Method, the function of a Patrol was to hike and camp without adult supervision. The Patrol Leader (like a Lifeguard) had significant responsibility for the safety of his Patrol members, which is why his training was hands-on, outdoors, and lasted six months.

 

If we had taken this specialized training away from BSA Lifeguards in 1972 like we did to BSA Patrol Leaders, forced them to sit through generic "Position of Responsibility" training where we merely LIST "responsibilities" (only hinting at the water --like we now only hint at the woods-- with a single non-specific mention of "activities"), and limited his training to "team-building exercises" and EDGE theory, then I'm sure that someone would now be saying that Boy Scouts never REALLY swam in water over their heads, and to say they did is to "pine for something that never was."

 

Your claim also assumes that official BSA literature determines what training is, in fact, given.

 

I do agree with that. It neatly sums up the topic of training, doesn't it?

 

Tahawk writes:

 

Bill Hillcourt, not "White Stag," suggested six-month -- OR SHORTER -- terms for PL's in the 4th and 5th Editions of the Scoutmaster's Handbook; "Generally the term of office is about six months, but may be more of less depending on your situation." ("Setting Up the Patrol Method, Term of Office")

 

That is from the 5th edition. Office workers had already begun to take editorial control away from Hillcourt by then: For instance, his iconic capitalization of Scouting elements such as "Patrol," "Troop," "Patrol Leader," etc, was neutered in the 5th edition to "patrol," "troop," "patrol leader," etc.

 

The forth edition clearly states under Term of Office:

 

"As a general rule, a Patrol Leader stays in office as long as he gets results, or until he moves into another leadership position in the Troop." Elections are only a way to "simplify matters where a boy proves a poor Patrol Leader..."

 

To me that is the opposite of the "modern:"

 

"To give more youths the opportunity to lead, most troops elect patrol leaders twice a year."

 

Maybe most people see no significant difference between "a Patrol Leader stays in office as long as he gets results," and "To give more youths the opportunity to lead, most troops elect patrol leaders twice a year," but it is my conviction that the rapid turnover of Patrol Leaders in the POR Modern Manager Mill is the reason that everyone instinctively demonizes Baden-Powell's guideline of 300 feet between Patrols (even though it is still the standard in most Wood Badge courses and is most likely the reason that many participants leave Wood Badge with the feeling that they have experienced the Patrol Method for the first time in their lives). Everyone knows that their six-month Patrol Leaders would be lost 300 feet from the nearest adult.

 

Tahawk writes:

 

The biggest problem for candidates to meet the "fires" requirement for Wilderness Survival MB is that the candidates simply are not skilled is starting fires - any fire.

 

I agree on this point but when you put Scoutcraft into the Advancement box (no matter how interesting you make it), it will ALWAYS be something that you just check off a list. Nobody is going to learn it as if his life depends on it because it doesn't.

 

(Leaving the issue of fire bans aside) I would turn this around 180 degrees and make some form of Wilderness Survival Merit Badge mandatory (required) so that when a Scout learns how to make a campfire, he knows that he will need that skill for an upcoming scary night where he will be "all alone" in the deep dark woods.

 

This final test on an impending solitary real-world adventure was the function of the required BSA "First Class Journey:"

 

"Make a round trip alone (or with another Scout) to a point at least seven miles away (fourteen miles in all), going on foot, or rowing a boat, and write a satisfactory account of the trip and things observed."

 

See:

 

http://inquiry.net/advancement/tf-1st_require_1911.htm

 

The spun thread below will be my last post for a while, but I will still be available by PM.

 

In closing, my "old school" convictions are based on two things that have always amazed me:

 

It is simple to convert to Scouting an auditorium of sixth-graders who initially try to hoot you off the stage, if you spend twenty minutes describing BSA Scouting as the same adventure that appealed to their great-grandfathers when they were 11 years old.

 

No matter what millionaire "youth" marketing experts tell you, 2/3 (66%) of an auditorium of "modern" boys will sign in front of their peers a list asking you to call their parents so they can join Boy Scouts, if you try the following:

 

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

 

The second amazing experience that anyone can enjoy, is to deliver on the "Promise of Adventure" above by simply separating your best Patrols 300' as Baden-Powell advised.

 

I can't say that in 13 years of Internet discussions I have EVER convinced ANYONE to actually try either of these simple but amazing things, but I have just begun a project that will convert my "retail" (one auditorium at at time) presentations into a wider, more direct approach.

 

This project will require five months of work just to get started, so if you see me hanging around here again posting anything before 2010, be sure to greet me with:

 

GET BACK TO WORK, KUDU!

 

See y'all further down the trail,

 

Kudu

 

 

[desertrat77]

Best wishes Kudu, you have certainly given me food for thought, and provided a much needed chuckle now and again.

[TAHAWK]

Frank Clark observed that being among those who don't agree with us is a growth opportunity. If you were not to steadfast in your opposition to so much of what I find satisfying in Scouting, I would not have devoted nearly so much time to thinking about how we agree and disagree -- and why.

 

Rick, you have said, Trustworthy deals with facts that can be verified. That is my reason for participating in public discussions.

Yet, you repeatedly quote the website of White Stag (Of whose devotees it is fair to say, "He loves them not.") for a quote from a third party, Larson (equally in bad flavor with you) as the sole source for the proposition that Bill (then six-seven years retired from BSA) was supposedly hostile towards the then-new Wood Badge course. So White Stag (NOT BSA) says that Larsen said that Bill said . . . Can we not verify this supposed exchange by some primary source? Such comments by Bill would be consistent with his running a back-to-Scoutcraft Wood Badge Course in Ohio in 1988 (+/-) but inconsistent with his coming to Cleveland in 1992 to support fund-raising for the now superseded White Stag courses here.

 

 

Regarding White Stag and its alleged assault on the Patrol method, you posted:

 

The following clearly indicates that the purpose of regular elections is to encourage very rapid turnover: "To give more youths the opportunity to lead, most troops elect patrol leaders twice a year. Some may have elections more often."

 

To answer the topic question: Six month election cycles is why "Real Patrols" are no longer defined by a Patrol Leader's ability to lead regular Patrol Hikes and Patrol Campouts without direct adult supervision. This allows White Stag to end position-specific training for Patrol Leaders so that generic training can concentrate on indoor manager skills rather than on applied Scoutcraft adventures.

 

I noted that The Scoutmasters Handbook spoke of terms of office for PLs (pls?) generally being six months, but may be more or less depending.

 

You replied that such language must be understood in what you

claim to be surrounding circumstances context, if you will -- where Bills editorial control over the SMHB was declining, implying that this language was not really Bills.

 

This is unsatisfying, to me at least, on several grounds:

 

1. How is this change in 1959 attributable to post 1972 White Stag WB?

 

2. How is the claim and the implied fact verified?

 

3. The FOURTH EDITION (1947) says: As a general rule, a Patrol leader stays in office as long as he gets results, or until he moves into another leadership position. In some cases it is well to agree on a term office say six months or a year with the Patrol Leader eligible for reelection. This may simplify matters where a boy proves a poor Patrol Leader and may have to give up his job to a better leader. P. 50.

 

Recognizing that not all change is improvement (So Change is Good is rather silly.), may I observe that some people change their ideas over time.

 

And I suspect you vastly overrate the "power" of Wood Badge to have been moving in the background since 1947 to undue reasonable terms for PL's (which I think would be one year).

 

When I suggested that you might want to stop teaching what you believe is anti-Patrol Method language in the syllabus, you replied: What is the point of going off the reservation at the Council level? Nobody there can influence national policy

 

In reply, may I respectfully observe: 1) White Stag was off the reservation for years (and some feel it is once more); and 2) You could influence Scouting where you are; not an petty aspiration for most of us.

 

Then there is Wood Badge sucks because it changes the meaning of the term "Patrol Method" from Patrol-based Scoutcraft adventure to teaching Troop-based business manager theory."

 

Rick, you know that Wood Badge models, and thereby teaches, that the patrol is led by the elected patrol leader, and has independent existence and independent activities, some in the outdoors, at which troop-level leaders are present by invitation only.

 

Wood Badge teaches: "The uniqueness of Scouting is the patrol method. The use of the natural gang of six or eight boys who elect their own leader and plan and carry out many of their own activities is a democracy in microcosm. Here young men learn the give and take of working with people as they must surely do all their lives. Here, too, they are given leadership and learning opportunities which prepare them for their future roles as citizens. It is for this reason that it is so crucial that all adults understand thoroughly the patrol method."

 

Woodbadge.org

[HICO_Eagle]

Eagle92,

 

No, I was talking about the now-superceded BSHB. I just got back from overseas this week and haven't had a chance to go get a copy of the new HB -- sorry, I wrote that post in the one day I had between trips and wasn't aware the new HB had finally been released. I hope the new one is indeed as good as you say as I'd just as soon scan and teach from the 9th or 10th editions than use the 11th.