Why is Wood Badge calling the Prisoners Dilemma the Game of Life?

[emb021]

"There ain't much in WB that hasn't already been taught in Management 101 at any community college or corporate professional development seminar. I await the revelation of what makes the WB version of these games and lessons so special. "

 

That's as maybe.

 

But the thing you (and others) need to grasp.

 

MANY people have never taken such courses.

 

I have a masters degree. I've worked for a corporation for 15 years. I've NEVER taken any college course OR had to take a course at work that covers ANY dealing with management or leadership development. I'm not a manager, so I don't get management training. ALL my training in management/leadership has been done thru the various organizations I am a member of (BSA, APO, Toastmasters, etc).

 

For everyone who whines that WB covers the same stuff they got in some course in college or work, there are probably 10-20 who have NEVER taken such courses.

 

 

[jrush]

No need to scrap woodbadge.

 

There's no reason it couldn't be "converted" into MOLS or something along those lines. Will it? Not as long as the national vision of scouting doesn't focus on the outdoor experience, but that's no reason to simply abandon the adult leadership course started by the founder of scouting. If you're going to do that, let's just disband the BSA and be done with it.

[Jay K]

Explaining the game beforehand would completely defeat the purpose. I think that the point it makes, however belatedly, is one of the most important things in the whole dang course.

Denigrating it as a "management" course is to miss out. There are mangement principles taught and even practiced, but that's maybe 40% of the course, if that.

And anyone, if you don't want to take the Wood Badge course, don't. I, personally, suggest that you do. Don't get all analytical, let some of it be mystery. I bugged every Wood Badger I knew about "what is it?" and I put all the answers together, and didn't have the picture AT ALL. Basementdweller's experience was Atypical. Yours could be like his, but, probably not.

[sherminator505]

@desertrat77 - Yes. Exactly.

[jrush]

Jay, I wouldn't say Basement's experience was "atypical"...his WB course sounds like like every other modern WB course.

 

He certainly has a different assessment of the VALUE of the course than you or I do, but that's not atypical, either. This board is FULL of Scouters who were cajoled/pushed/etc into taking WB for various reasons, and if I was similarly manhandled into the course, I'd have a sharply negative point of view about it, as well.

 

(This message has been edited by jrush)

[packsaddle]

I was having an incredible sense of deja vu and then I realized why:

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=306438

 

 

[Basementdweller]

Rush.....The woodbadge course that BP created is long dead.

 

This is kinda like a mom and pop restaurant that turns franchise. The original was the best, then they start adjusting the menu to appeal to a broader audience, change the lighting and the paint. While it still says mom and pops diner on the door it isn't the same as the original.

 

I am going to say that my experience while not typical is not as atypical as your trying to portray it. More an more folks are walking away from WB saying WTH.

 

BTW, I finished my ticket, have my binders of documentation. Ticket councilor is too busy to meet with me. Guess it will be after the first of the year.

[Eagle92]

Base,

 

GOOD FOR YOU!!!!! (and I am screaming at ya, but in a nice way, heck i'd slap you on the back and shake ya hand if i was there, esp. withthe challenges ya faced)

 

 

Just make sure you document every time you try and contact your TC. And I wouldn't wait to long before the deadline to contact the CD or the staff advisor if the TC keeps putting you off.

[Basementdweller]

Ya know eagle......the ticket wasn't that big a deal. It was stuff that I would and should normally do with my group. I did do some presentation to a couple of other packs and troops, which I will never do again. I took some training a couple of weeks ago, Did my presentation to my Pack and we have a hike this coming saturday to do the field work and I am done. no big deal.

 

Why everyone makes such a big deal about the ticket mystifies me, of course the entire mystic of woodbadge is lost on me.

 

 

 

[desertrat77]

Basement, congratulations--you've got my deepest respect!

[Eagle92]

Base,

 

Maybe I hung out with too many pre-WB21C WBers, but the stuff I heard and saw them do for their tickets usually went beyond what they would normally do with their units. My understanding, stress understanding, was that the ticket not only applied what you learned, but also took you out of the comfort zone so to speak, and do some new things. Now I admit I haven't done everything in scouting, I got 3 excuses to go to one of the HA bases like Philmont, N Tier, or FL, but I am doing alot already in scouting, applying what I have learned through the years, and honestly don't see how I could fit in ticket items, let alone WB.

[JFL49]

The Ticket is NOT supposed to be a big thing. The Ticket SHOULD be 5 goals to help you do your EXISTING Scouting job(s) better. Its up to each Wood Badge Course Director to set the tone and guidance for Tickets and its up to each Troop Guide to work with participants to develop specific Ticket goals. If you are considering taking Wood Badge, ask the Course Director in YOUR Council what his/her expectations are for Ticket goals in the course. Have that conversation one on one, not in a group setting. If YOUR Council Course Director cannot articulate in 90 seconds or less what the Ticket is designed to accomplish, dont take Wood Badge.

[jrush]

Base, I guess I should've been more clear with what I was saying...

 

There is "the woodbadge experience" as far as the course content (which is what I was saying most of us see the same thing), and there is "the woodbadge experience" as far as what the participants get out of it...largely based on why they went and how the course was presented.

 

I'll grant you, there were some disgusted faces among the patrols about halfway through TGOL, but as I've said in other threads, people are who they are, and putting them in a shirt with some patches on it doesn't change that.

 

WB today is different than WB from 100 years ago...but then again, the Boy Scouts as a whole is that different, as well...that's my point. Should we all just abandon Boy Scouts as a "pale imitation of what it was" because it isn't the program that West and Goodman and Boyce were involved with? Hell, Boy Scouts today isn't even the BSA I was involved with just 25 years ago...that's not going to make me say "WTF...this is a waste of time".

[emb021]

We've had long discussions before about The Game of Life.

 

My own comments are such.

 

First off. TGOL is one of those activities that REALLY needs good people staffing it, otherwise it doesn't work. It requires people who are trained in facilitation. The BSA frankly doesn't do a good job with facilitation training.

 

I first experiences TGOL at the OA's NLS. It overall went well, but NLS works real hard on staff development. When I later staffed WB, I was really leery about the use of TGOL as I didn't think our staff was adequately prepared to do it RIGHT. It seems that WB had made changes to how the game was run and I didn't think it would work right. We had problems, but it was causes a much by certain problem participants as how the game was run.

 

My Fraternity uses TGOL in our conflict resolution training. However, as the various groups don't have a strong built-in identity like WB patrols, we don't have some of the intergroup conflict that can happen when its done in WB.

 

 

[TAHAWK]

"Ethics and moral behavior really can't be legislated."

 

Behavior can be legislated, and the laws can be successfully enforced.

 

As only one example, the concept of murder was introduced to formerly Saxon England by William I. He responded to the belief that this was all nonsense, and resulting behavior, with the rope and axe. After a time, it sunk in that killing another without lawful excuse was a wrong against the government (The People of xx vs. ), not merely a personal matter between families and their supporters. Those who "murder" now are outliers.