BSA Leadership Course Revisions for 2010

[ScoutOne]

shortridge, thank you for the correction. You are correct if this means it is now part of the program.

[SR540Beaver]

Wood Badge is what the BSA likes to refer to as "program neutral". Even though BSA uses the trappings of a Boy Scout Troop and Patrols for the structure of the program, WB is not a Boy Scout program. It is (was) adult leader training that crosses across Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Varsity and Venturing and includes any and all registered positions thru professionals. The change now is to allow Venturing youth between 18 and 21 who are not dual registered as an adult in Cub Scouting or Boy Scouts to attend the course.

 

My personal opinion is that it would be no different from wneh we have had the occasional LDS female who needed to sleep apart from the rest of the patrol that included males. You acommodate it as best you can. While a boy ages out of Boy Scouts at 18, he is still considered a youth in the OA until 21. If he is a registered adult in the troop, he can't bunk with the boys, but can with the adults on a troop campout. When attending an OA function, he can bunk with the boys, but not the adults. If he joins a Venturing crew, he bunks with the youth and not the adults. BSA needs to get their act together on the age differences between programs and create a one size fits all solution.

[Beavah]

Yah, I think da YP issue is like arguin' about angels dancing on pinheads, eh?

 

In da real world, those 18-21 year olds are adults. There just is no youth protection issue. Da hairsplitting over the Venturing stuff is objectively ridiculous from a risk management and youth protection point of view.

 

I'm more amused by da other stuff. Combinin' the diversity bit makes sense, but the whole generational thing I've always considered mostly myth and completely unhelpful when it comes to workin' with individuals. Can't wait to see what da BSA generates about modern communications and social networking, though

 

Beavah

 

[SR540Beaver]

The digital section of the revised Communications presentation is much like the common sense stuff the handbook and MB's teach the youth. There is a question led discussion about who uses email, texting, blogs, facebook, twitter, etc. and the possible pitfalls and downsides of each. Then the presenter discusses a few important rules to remember. I'm not going to type the whole presentation, but the bullet points are:

 

1. The responsibility for anything you write is yours alone.

2. Be authentic.

3. Consider you Audience

4. Exercise Good Judgement

5. Respect Copyrights and Fair Use

6. Remember to protect Personal Information

 

The details under those bullets is timely and wise.

 

In the past week, I have personally seen three examples where this information would have been helpful with adult scouters. One example was where a scouter discovered emails between his wife and a man she was having an affair with. In his shock and anger, he decided to post the emails as status updates on his facebook account. A digital fight ensued between he and his wife thru facebook. This man and his wife were friends with a good number of council, district and unit scouters and scouts. After being contacted by a number of scouters, they cooled off, unfriended the scouts and deleted their posts. But the damage was already done.

 

The other two examples were scouters posting personal religious and political opinions (in relation to their personal interpretation of traditional Scouting values) on the listserv email address that sends email to the whole troop and crew. I won't go into the details, but their views were not appreciated by folks who believed differently than the posters. The tool is primarily to diseminate information within the unit, not as an op-ed opportunity.

 

Addressing the digital age is a smart move on the BSA's part in their training materials.

[Lisabob]

Yeah, I dunno about the digital stuff. My impression of training along those lines is that it gets dated so quickly that it is next to useless. Also, that the presenter had better know what she or he is talking about and be on top of the technology in question, or else they lose all credibility. (All of us know that guy or gal in our district who hardly knows how to use email - had better hope they're not the one doing the new communications/technology presentation!)

 

I realize not all people have jobs where they work with communications technology. But then I also kinda think that anybody who ventures into the world of facebook, twitter, or just email distribution groups ought to be bright enough to figure out how to use them before dumping a bunch of personal stuff in there. If they are not, I am not convinced that one session in Wood Badge is likely going to help them much, anyway.

 

About including youth in adult leader training - seems strange to me. As if it is an attempt to stretch a program to include people it was never intended for, rather than create a training that would (perhaps more appropriately) meet the needs of those people.

 

Combining the diversity presentations seems ok to me. I'll be more inclined to listen to it, though, when I see more evidence of acceptance of diverse people within the local scouting movement. From where I sit, practically everyone is the same race and religion. I know diversity can be thought of in other ways and I'm fine with that, but let's face the fact that scouting is largely a white middle class, primarily Christian organization, too. And (with a risk of veering into issues & politics territory), someone should make the BSA honchos aware that they sound hypocritical talking about the importance and benefits of diversity while prohibiting some types of people from joining their movement.

 

Yeah, that's enough rambling for tonight.

 

 

[Tokala]

I too have thought that the generational differences in learning is garbage. According to their material, I'm supposed to be a Gen X since I was born in '64. I think this session will not survive long in the syllabus even though they've been shoving it down our throats at Course Director's Conferences for the last 3-4 years.

 

As for youth protection and sleeping arrangements. OA members that are 18-21, we call them tweeners, are typically bunked in separate areas from the youth and adults. I quizzed the man in charge of housing at NOAC why they do that and he didn't have an answer.

[SR540Beaver]

Lisa,

 

I understand and agree with your concerns about the digital material. I will say that it is maybe a single page of material in the syllabus in what is a 50 minute Communications presentation. It is mostly cautionary information that is needed.......as my three examples in a one week period pointed out. And all three of those examples were middle aged professional people who should have known better. I also agree that the presenter needs to know their stuff in this regard. The staff for our upcoming course are all on facebook and one of our chosen primary sources of communication is a private facebook group we set up that only we can access.

[sherminator505]

Post withdrawn.(This message has been edited by sherminator505)

[John-in-KC]

As I've said before, I have a real problem with quite a few young adults ... they've not had their "oh, ####" moment in life yet (young police/fire and military being obvious exceptions).

 

Sharing the "oh, ####" effect is an empowerment ... you can put up with whatever MickeyMouse anyone else throws your way, and that includes the artificially enduced time pressure in WB. People who've had the oh #### moment tend to get through or even bypass storming in group dynamics.