Leaders who don't know their cheating.

[matuawarrior]

I mentioned this in another thread but once I get started on this subject. I just get going.

 

How do you deal with Leaders who cheat so that their boys can have the advantage in district competitions?

 

What is sad is that they don't see that they are cheating and neither do their Scouts. They bend the rules to so that when we question it. Their reply is that the rules didn't say how many lashes or what kind of raft. It makes my job harder as a Camp Director where I now have to spell out and be precise in all the rules for every competition at camps. That time could be used someplace else.

 

I was taught that Scout competitions are supposed to build teamwork within that patrol, troop, or crew. It's supposed to be FUN not work.

 

The cheating had reached a point last year where my Scouts and Venturers would not attend a District Camporee or Event if they knew that certain unit was also participating. Two others units also followed suit after they went through the same experience. And we are a small district.

 

So now council is wondering why there is a low unit turnout at camporees or other events.

 

Our DE and other volunteers have tried talking to this Scout Leader. Yes,he is trained but not WB. And his Unit was the top unit years ago before he took over. They used to have a large number of youths but not lately.

 

It just burns me up when certain leaders use the program for their ego trips. It is not them that suffers but that Scouts who are under their tutelage. These Scouts pick up what is taught to them and then go out to the world thinking that it is okay because someone told them it's okay.

 

Matua

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Chippewa29]

If this "leader" is truly helping his kids cheat so that he can boost his own ego, then he is no longer a legitimate leader. Once a leader uses their office to serve themselves instead of helping their followers learn, grow, and become better, he no longer has the right to be the leader.

 

I've seen people like this before. They try to bend the rules in every which way so they can get some kind of advantage. If they would try as hard to just do it fairly, then it would probably be easier for them. Ultimately, people will recognize his lack of character and the troop will slowly die off. Otherwise, someone else will take over with a better attitude.

[saltheart]

I doubt that there are many places in this country that don't experience this to some degree. In my years around scouting, I've witnessed much of it, as have many here. My perception is that a lot of it has to do with where one is from, and what is referred to as "street smarts" or being "street wise". Being such is a real embedded part of life is some places, and while not intended to be malicious in nature, those who practice it see it as gaining the greatest advantage in a life where one might otherwise be trod upon by playing strictly by the rules. For sure, there are some out there who know absolutley what they're doing, and that it's not playing by the rules. But by and large, I think most of what we witness in this regard is those who have learned the trait because that's how life is, or was, where they grew up or live now...it's been that way for eons...and it's not about to change soon. There are some who will try to take advantage of others who do follow the rules, and they'll shout "hurray" when they win, even if the rest of us realize all too much that their "victory" was , and is, false. The sad thing is that they learned in the same fashion as they teach and lead. That has been passed on , and will continue to be so. Not a lot can be done to change that where "street wise" and street smart" rely upon those tactics and traits, as learned, and learned, and learned.

 

Little by little, perhaps, when Scouts from those troops and areas venture out into the broader world and come to see the difference between the way that the many do things as opposed to the way they were lead to do things, when they return to their roots, they bring a little of that new found experience with them.

[Twocubdad]

A very interesting observation, Saltheart. I wouldn't have thought of it that way.

 

Sometimes we look at ethical decisions as strictly black and white with only one "right" choice. We further take a puritanical view that we are required to fall on our own swords to do the right thing, even when it's against our best interests. Sometimes that is the case, but not always.

 

Adapting and overcoming, making due, and solving problems -- all important skill and atributes of a good Scout -- sometimes involves "working the system" or street smarts as you describe them. The trick is knowing where that fine line is between stretching the rules and breaking them.

 

Example: Klondike derby rules call for a 10-foot length of rope on the sleds. One of the challenges is using the rope to cross a 20-foot obstacle. One patrol unwinds their three-strand rope and makes a 30-foot length out of the three pieces and easily crosses. Was that cheating or just smart?

[matuawarrior]

Cheating is . . .

 

. . using sterno or white fuel to presoak wood used for fire competitions. This looks really off base when other patrols are huffing and puffing to get their fires going but two patrols from the same unit have thier "Blue" fires going right after they light their tinder.

 

. . using radios to help patrols in your troop find points in an orienteering competition. This was used as a guise for safety. In case a scout got injured they can call for help.

 

. . building pioneering projects at summercamp before competition starts. This tower laid on its side for three days until tower day at camp, when it went up. We were told that the unit's first year scouts were "practicing" thier lashings.

 

I agree that there is a point when one has street smarts and can use that to their advantage. I believe that's fine. But when a leader starts to cross that fine line between right and wrong.

 

I for one do not believe a Square Knot is a lashing. I don't know what pioneering book he got that from. But I've been in this program to long to have that pulled on me.

 

Matua

 

 

[Eamonn]

Much as I hate to have to admit it, there was a time when I was a young leader, when I went out of my way to find the loop holes, and play all the angles.

I'm not sure if coming from a big city (London) had anything to do with this. But I had an ego as big as the Great Outdoors.

Needless to say I never looked at what I was doing as cheating, but I sure as heck bent the rules, as much as they could be bent.

I can now say with hindsight, that I never gave a thought to the example that I was setting, in fact at that time I was in Scouting for one person and one person only - Me.

While I never went as far as is stated in the examples, I did make sure if it was a patrol event, that we had a made - up patrol that would win, the others were there just in preperation for next years event. The boys in the Troop, would get upset and yes there were boys crying, when we didn't win.

It took me a long time to learn the idea of true leadership and I'm still working on servant leadership.

To this day I remain very goal oriented, and still like to be on the winning team. But thanks to Scouting and my religion, I now try to do my best to lead by helping others, where as I used to use them. Still it took a long time to get there, and I'm indebted to a lot of people who stuck with me and didn't give up. They were true leaders.

[silver-shark]

Great insight guys.

 

I was first tempted to bend rules by the trainers at my OLS Training. This consisted of things like placing the water pot directly on the fire during a water boiling contest. Nothing big, but something to make ya think.

 

Since then, we have taken the 2 weeks prior to a camporee to practice for the competitive events, so that the boys would know what to do when the time came. This might be cheating to some.

 

We had our District Camporee last weekend. At the beginning of the competitive events we had 2 patrols try to merge and send the newest scouts out on their own. We did not allow this to happen even though the older boys would have easily done better alone.

 

They still managed to come home with a ribbon, and I would like to think that it meant more to them since they were at greater odds to have done it.

[OldGreyEagle]

The patrol who takes apart a 10 foot rope to use the 3 strands to make a 30 foot rope isnt cheating, its using the resources at hand. Of course, they really oughta reconstitute the rope in case its needed some place else. Thats showing ingenuity.

 

"Preping" firewood is out and out cheating. While taking the rope apart is unconventional, its using the rope in its natural state. Unless the Camporee is being held in the La Brea Tarpits, most wood is naturally free of petroleum products.

 

I can understand the use of the radios for "safety" reasons, but I would add if I heard them used even once, someone from the patrol would have to leave the competition since obviously their use means someone is ill or injured.

 

"Tower Day" is easily handled, no one can start building until a staff member certifies no pre work has been done. If it has, it has to be untied. After all practising isnt bad.

 

And lastly, if it seems a lot of energy is being expended needlessly do all this ( and it is) what about telling the offending troop you are on to them, their behavior is unscoutlike and one more instance of such behavior will result in expulsion from competition?

[ozemu]

We have two competition camps. Leaders camp separately to the Scouts in both cases and run bases away from the camping area at one. The patrols rotate around and there is only one patrol at a base normally. Difficult to cheat when your Patrol is the only one being watched.

 

The Scouter running the camps of late is not policing either adult involvement or Scout behaviour (remember no Scout here is above 14 years old)and the camps have lost their appeal. Before that however they were pretty good. Would not help all of your cheating issues but might help some.

 

Otherwise:

 

Explain on the morning of Tower Day that the towers had to be constructed at an arena away from the camp sites. The offending Troop would in fact have been 'practicing' or they would have an interesting tower carry - it would look a bit obvious.

 

Prep'ed wood - provide the wood to be used.

 

Orienteer - issue the route and maps at the start point - after the adults have moved to their required safety position.

 

It's hard to play the game this way and only works when you can guess what they intend to do.

[matuawarrior]

We tried talking with the Scout Leader. Apparently, if it's not in the rules then they can do it.

 

As a Camp Director, I now have to expend more energy to insure the rules are detailed. This to me is a waste of my and my staff's time and resources, that can be used in more important areas of the camp program.

 

I thank you for your suggestions. It is just sad that we have to take extra measures to discourage untrustworthy individuals from unscoutlike behavior in a Scout Camp Environment.

 

Matua

[Twocubdad]

I understand how frustrating dealing with this can be. I suppose one solution is to make a cover-all rule that says that camp staff can add and/or waive rules to keep the competition fair and within the spirit of the Scout Law and Oath. That, however, requires having staff on hand who can make those calls. It's unlikely that a 17-year-old Scout is going to enforce that with a gruff, grey-bearded Scoutmaster.

 

Another option may be to think outside the box and completely restructure the competition so this kind of attitude doesn't give one patrol a competitive advantage. I don't have a solution for how to make this work with your camporees, but here's a Cub Scout example:

 

One of the reasons we like the Raingutter Regatta is that it is much more dependent on the sailors' blowing skills and less on design and construction. Unfortunately, over the past few years, our regattas have become more and more competitive with some boys using design tricks (like splitting the hulls and making catamarans) to gain an advantage. We keep adding rules to the effect that the race is a "one design" regatta but people keep pushing the envelope.

 

Next year we've decided to eliminate the problem by eliminating the race. We're moving the ragatta to our summer pack pool party and letting the boys sail their boats while in the pool. We're coming up with a number of non-competitive games like obstacle courses.

 

Now before someone complains that we're "dumbing-down" the regatta by making it non-competitive, I have two thoughts on that subject: 1) kids these days have PLENTY of opporutnities for competition these days. EVERYTHING has become a competition, not just sports but everything from scholastics to Scouting. 2)we're not holding the same races and just eliminating winners and losers, we're completly restructuring the program. While we haven't completly ironed-out all the details, we hope to make the event more fun and encorporate more of the core values. We'll see how it works.

 

 

[mk9750]

Twocubdad,

 

Although in general I agree with the purpose behind your change of the regatta, I have to take issue with your stance on competitions. I think the world has become LESS competetive for young people, not more, and regretably so, IMHO.

 

School work has become "outcome based". We no longer care how you stack up against other students. All we care about is that you meet a minimum standard. And even then, it's more important that kids "feel good about themselves", and not feel pressure that could hurt their self esteem.

 

We don't count runs in the tee ball. We give everyone who participates a trophy or a ribbon. We want no child to feel as though they aren't as good as any other child.

 

In years gone by, no one looked at competition as a way to make the non winners feel bad. It was a way to point out what the second, and third, and fourth place individuals or teams had to do to get better. I never heard my dad say "you should feel awful! You're not as good as ..." What I heard (assuming I had given my best) was "Well, he did this much better than you. When we get home, do you want to go out in the back yard and practice?" Or Cindy got a better grade than you did on her paper because she used a wider range of sources. Do you want me to help you learn how to use periodicals to write your next paper?"

 

I have no evidence to back up what I am going to say, except to point out the obvious coincidence: thoughout our country's history, our country has been the strongest when its people had a more competetive nature. Nowhere is this more evident than in commerce. If all we were worried about is meeting a minumum standard, no one would make the effort to develop better equipment, be more efficient, or do things like explore farther into space. As our general attitude has evolved from a competive spirit to what it is today, our country has lost some of the aura we have always enjoyed as the best country on earth. War should never be fought in order to make this point, but it is wars like we are fighting now (a competition) that we again show that we are a great country. When we raced the Russians to the moon, the competition raised our technology, our intellect, and our national pride in ways that could never happen if we had just said "it doesn't matter who gets there first".

 

I think we are less competetive than ever, not more, and I think this is sad. I am all for cometitions being fair, but boys learn more from competing than they do from just participating. Besides the obvious of learning to win gracefully and lose with class, competition causes all of us, but particularly youth, to challenge ourselves beyond what we would have accepted as our best if it were not for the competition.

 

I served on my community's board for determining assessment criteria for our schools a few years back. I can remember the debates vividly. A number of teachers wanted to eliminate our distict's use of class ranking, because it ran the risk of bruising children's egos. They also felt that the competition to improve class rank led to cheating. As much as I disagreed, the aurguements the teachers made were well reasoned and seemed valid. The measure was adopted, and class rankings were eliminated for all incoming freshmen the following year. Four years went by, when one of my neighbors and I were talking about his son trying to get into college. He was having a tough time, because all of the colleges to which he was applying wanted to know how he compared to others in his class. They demanded having his class rank. As you might imagine, most of the college bound students encountered the same problem. The district had to reconstruct all of the rankings. My point is, even if the goal is reasonable, the world just won't allow the discontinuation of competition, and the more we allow youth to avoid it when they are young, the bigger disavantage we create for them later in their lives.

 

You might be able to tell that the issue hits a nerve with me. This is a topic that is very near to me, and I am passionate about it. Don't discontinue competitions, don't avoid them. Make them fair, make sure they are set up so that everyone, winners and losers, get value from them (and I don't mean a participation medal!), but PLEASE give our youth a fighting chance in their adult lives, where competition is the rule.

 

Mark

[Twocubdad]

You make some very good points, but I'm afraid we're going to have to agree to disagree.

 

True, we don't keep score in t-ball, but isn't t-ball supposed to be an instructional league? Thirty years ago, there was no such thing as t-ball. When I was a kid, we didn't start playing competitive baseball until we were 10 or so. Now, 6-year-olds are not only have their own organized leagues, but also competitive "traveling" leagues for these kids. Last season I overheard the coach of a 9-10-year-old team complaining that he got "stuck" with a 10-year-old who had never touched a baseball and that the parents had the gall to expect that the kid would actually get to play. Unless a kid shows up for tryouts with a golden glove, they don't have a chance. When are these kids supposed to learn the game?

 

Every kid knows exactly where they stand in school, too. And they better. Second grade is when kids start being considered for the more competitive programs and classes.

 

What's sad, is most of this competitivness is forced on kids by their parents. In all the years I've worked with Cub Scouts, I can't think of a single time when the boys have taken a free-play period to organize a game in which they kept score. Even when they play a competitive game, like baseball, it ends up being some goofy variation of the game. Note that the problem in Matua's original post (remember Matua's original post??)was not that the boys were stretching the rules, but that the ADULTS were stretching the rules.

 

I do agree that your example of the school district dropping class rank is just silly. That would be like having a ballgame just shutting off the scoreboard. Everyone knows what the score is, just as everyone is aware of their class rank (although perhaps not as precisely.) That's why we're changing the whole format of our regatta, not just eliminating the awards at the end of the race. Hopefully, we can replace the competition with other elements which emphasize core Cub Scout values like compassion, cooperation, respect and resourcefullness.

 

To me, one of the great things about Scouting is that everyone can "win." And it's not a contrived "everybody gets a medal for trying" win either. Everyone has the opportunity to to earn the badge and make the rank. It's up to the boy if he earns it or not. The first kid to Wolf isn't the winner.

 

As far as the overall competitivness of the country, I just think that's wrong. Innovation and productivity in the US has never been higher. I can't think of a single area in which the US doesn' dominate, save some low-level manufacturing jobs.

[mk9750]

And you make some great points too.

 

I share your distaste for things such as traveling teams and stacking teams in order to arrange winning. I've actually fought against such things in the past.

 

And I'll agree that competetiveness, when it exists, is largely the responsiblity of the adults. but that is a good thing. It is us who know that it is important to prepare for what will come later in life. I do disagree that kids inherently don't compete. Quite the opposite of your scenerio, most times I have witnessed kids playing a game in which historically score is kept, they DO keep score. I'll agree, they bastardize the rules to some degree to accompodate their ability. But it does matter to them who wins. It is the adults (particularly the "enlightened" adults like teachers and politicians who tend to try to mitigate the competition.

 

And lastly, I agree 100% that it is important that we in Scouting teach the values you enumerate. But what better way to learn them than in the heat of competition? If our youth learn to be honest good sportsmen now, during competition, the likelihood that it will continue into adult life increases. If it taught now but never put to a test, can we be so sure the lesson was learned? Again, I can't prove cause and effect, but I think there has been a momentous decline in our culture's integrity that coincides with the reduction in competetive situations in which we place the youth.

 

As a direct answer to your situation with the regatta, we dealt with a simliar issue concerning Pinewood Derby. It was obvious that not every Scout had the skills to make a competetively fast car. So we created catagories like most creative, best design, fasted looking, most boy made, and I think 3 or 4 others. the intent was not to try to give every boy a prize, but to allow the guy who might not be able to make a fast car try to make a unique car, or one that really just looked fast. We also created a dad's division to try to take dad's interest in building cars and channel most of it away from the boys' efforts.

 

Twocubdad, please don't misunderstand. I don't think everything in the world should be based on who's best. But I truly believe we have lost a lot of our desire to compete, and I think it can be tied to many of the positions I've stated. And I think eventually, if not already, it will have a detrimental effect on our society.

 

Mark

[Twocubdad]

I see your points and I think we probably agree more than we disagree. It may be a matter of semantics. Competitiveness or a desire to excell, is a wonderful, important character trait. Unfortunately, it all to often becomes simply a desire to win.

 

Sticking with baseball, there is a lot a kid can learn from the game -- the satisfaction of mastering a set of skills, teamwork, scarifice, humility. Unfortunately, most coaches I seen don't teach those skills -- hell, most of them don't even teach baseball. They just want to draft a team of ringers which will guarantee a winning season. Competition -- the disire to win -- is paramount.

 

I just think it's a matter of honest disagreement between us. I think the silliness of not calculating class rank or forming sports leagues where they don't keep score and "everyone's a winner" is far more than compensated by parents who unreasonable push their kids to win.