Time to remove Merit Badge requirements for rank?

[KenDavis500]

The way I understand the original program, the merit badges were optional; not required for rank advancement. Too often I see the Scouts (and parents) get tied up in knots about the merit badge offerings at this summer/winter camp instead of focusing on actual Scout skills and having fun.

 

The first "summer camp" had no merit badge courses. The Scouts just camped, interacted with each other and worked on Scout skills. I proposed that once 3 years ago for winter camp but got promptly shot down.

 

Merit badges and the process is still a good thing. I think they should be kept around but as an option, not a requirement to advance. What are your thoughts?

[JoeBob]

And replace them with what?

 

POR, time in rank, and service only for Star and Life?

 

I like having Eagle required MBs that reinforce Scout Skills. We can quibble over which MBs should be Eagle required.

 

MBs add some measure of quantifiable effort. How would you replace that?

[LeCastor]

Tenderfoot, 2nd Class, and 1st Class are where Scouts learn the basis of outdoor skills and learn to live the ideals of Scouting. This is where they have a lot of fun and get the foundation of Scouting, both at the same time. My opinion would be to return to the days where Scouts were encouraged to focus on advancement to 1st Class before earning merit badges. Summer camp for the younger guys need not be about merit badges but we know that it's become so focused on advancement rather than on fellowship and adventure.

 

Now, for Star, Life, and Eagle I'd advocate for keeping the merit badge requirement. Once a Scout has earned 1st Class he's ready to move on to honing his leadership skills, his attitude of service to the community/fellow Scouts, and his desire to learn about the world around him. Done correctly, merit badges can lead to some life-long interests!

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think earning Eagle used to be about having 21 merit badges and a few other things. The service project was added much later in the game.

[KenDavis500]

No need to replace them. The effort to complete the rank requirements for Tenderfoot - 1st Class can all be measured. Maybe beef up the requirements from Tenderfoot to 1st Class and get rid of the "First Class, First Year" nonsense.

 

Here's a link to the original requirements for First Class.

[LeCastor]

...Maybe beef up the requirements from Tenderfoot to 1st Class and get rid of the "First Class, First Year" nonsense.

 

 

It's interesting that you bring up this point. Despite the studies that have been done, suggesting that if a Scout earns 1st Class in the first year he'll stay longer in a given Troop, I don't like the emphasis on potentially rushing a young man to 1st Class.

 

I'm conflicted, too, because I've been asked to present "1st Year Scout Skills" at a winter training gathering. This a broad topic for a 60-minute "class", no doubt. I don't plan to advocated for FCFY. Rather, I intend to discuss the Methods of Scouting and how advancement and the Patrol System are linked. I might even mention that merit badges can wait until after 1st Class...

[skeptic]

Would agree we need a stronger skill emphasis in the first three ranks, including some things that push the scout far harder than any we now have. That would include NOT allowing almost automatic optional stuff for those who claim emotional reasons not to meet swimming minimums. The only ones getting that option should be ones with true physical reasons, or exceptional psychological ones (which would likely limit them in other areas too).

 

But keep the merit badges, especially those that give them skills no longer taught in school, like Personal Management. Could possibly combine the citizenships again into some variation on the level of the old Civics badge.

 

A couple of approaches from the past might be: Allow actual "spot" checks of two or three (at the most) requirements, varied from board to board; and put the boards of review back into the hands of the boy leaders through First Class, with the adult (silent unless absolutely needed) observer. Not only would that strengthen the skill levels due to peer pressure, but it also would improve the leadership growth.

 

I know for me, the challenge of signalling was a really hard, but it made surely was good for me. At tenderfoot back then, we needed to know seven knots, and that was not just tie them once and say good boy. We had to do them all correctly two times running one week, then come back and do the same thing the next. Took me months to finally make the goal, but I did it, and felt really good.

 

Our biggest challenge, from where I sit after decades of adult leadership, is to keep the parents at bay and to not let scouts slip by just because they tried. We do them no favors by allowing parental excuses, scout excuses, or emotional responses to sway us.

 

Just my opinion of course.

[qwazse]

LC ... just let them know that there are troops out there (one in Steeler country in particular) that dropped FCFY and have the same percentage of boys making Eagle.

 

Ken, sounds like we're opposites. Mainly because we already have a program without MBs. It's called Venturing. The recognition rates are disappointing.

 

If I had my druthers. I'd keep the MB program, and ditch service hour and EDGE requirements.

 

For folks that are really EDGE addicts, create a Pedagogy MB, if they insist on it being required, require it for 1st Class and increase the number of MBs required for Eagle.

 

While we're at it, replace the Eagle service project with a Service Projects MB, require it (could be earned any time in the scout's career) and increase the number of required MBs for Eagle.

 

That way when folks harp about why kids take until 18, the kids can say "Look, gramps only had to earn 21 MBs, I have to earn 23!"

[NJCubScouter]

For such a new thread, there are already several different issues being discussed here. To respond to the original premise, I see no reason to stop requiring merit badges for Star, Life and Eagle. I think that in general, the advancement requirements (including the requirement to earn merit badges) are a good way of having the Scout learn the advanced Scout skills (including citizenship) that go beyond the First Class requirements, while also allowing for a little "exploring the world" through the non-required badges. However, I do think that the number of Eagle-required MB's has gotten a little out of hand. There are now 13 required MB's, so a Scout can now make Eagle with only 8 non-required MB's. (Most of our Scouts earn more than that, though.) One of the original ideas of the MB program was that Scouts would be encouraged to explore different hobbies, interests, potential careers, etc. I think that between the number of required badges, and the emphasis on merit badges in some summer camps and units, the "exploring" aspect has been largely forgotten. In our troop, when an Eagle BOR comes around, you can almost guarantee that the Scout will have earned Leatherwork, Indian Lore, Nature and several others, because those are the "popular" badges at summer camp. The badges where you actually have to go find a counselor, like Architecture, Truck Transportation and Aviation, I don't see very often. (Though my son did earn Aviation.) But that is a "local issue." Nationally, I think the BSA should trim (or merge) one or two of the required badges.

 

By the way, Ken, based on my reading, merit badges became part of the requirements for the three highest ranks when those ranks were introduced in 1911. So you have to go way, way back to the first year of Scouting to find a time when they were completely "optional" for advancement.

[skeptic]

So here is what the earliest scouts dealt with; so we really do not compare apples to apples. Eldred, and a few others did have to go to New York for their board, and supposedly, at least Eldred had Beard, Seton, and West as his interviewers.

 

 

The BSA comes into existence. For the first few months, the highest rank is First Class.

[h=2]1911 Eagle Requirements[/h] The BSA adds three higher ranks for earning merit badges beyond First Class: Life, Star, and Eagle (Star was switched before Life in 1924, apparently because the five points of the Star could symbolize the five merit badges required for the rank). Neither Life nor Star is required for Eagle (a Scouting magazine article [May-June 2003] indicated that 8 of the first 9 Eagle Scouts [including the BSA's first Eagle] did not earn either Life or Star ranks).The 1911 Scout Handbook refers to Eagle Scout as "the highest scout merit badge" rather than a rank.

• Earn First Class
  
• Earn any 21 merit badges
  

1912â€â€Arthur Eldred becomes the first Eagle Scout.

[h=2]1914 Eagle Requirements[/h] [created an Eagle required list of 11 badges by adding 6 badges to the 5 formerly required for Life]

• Earn First Class
  
• Earn 21 merit badges, including the following 11:
  First Aid
  Physical Development
  Lifesaving
  Personal Health
  Public Health
  Cooking
  Camping
  Bird Study
  Pathfinding
  Pioneering
  Athletics
  
• 
  

[DuctTape]

I don't think I would agree to the elimination of them as rank. However, I would support a significant restriction on how and when they can be earned.

 

Such as limit the merit badges which can be earned prior to 1st class, add pre-requisite MBs to some MB's, eliminate/reduce the double-dipping of requirements, prohibit merit badge "classes" with large groups, prohibit scouts from being MB "counselors" at summer camp, to name a few.

[resqman]

In 1972, 24 merit badges were required for Eagle. Not sure when it got reduced down to 21. I know cooking was removed as one of the three. Not sure what the other two were.

 

I agree there are too many required and not enough optional required for Eagle. Merge the three citizenship badges. That would free up two spaces to encourage more optional badges.

 

When I went to summer camp the first time in 1970's, there was no New Scout program. You were a scout so you did what all the other scouts did, you signed up for merit badges. Having been the First Year Adult Mentor for my troop for 5 years, I saw that the New Scout program did help get the new first year scouts a good foundation. But at the same time, they all lamented that they did not earn any merit badges. The summer camps that offered half day New Scout Programs and allowed the scouts to take an MB or two were better received. We always tried to get the new scouts into Swimming. Then let them choose one other MB. They got the New Scout Program and they got a merit badge so they felt they were on the same level as all the troop members.

 

FCFY is too ambitious. FC18 months is more realistic and the scout still retain the skills. Merit Badges are fun and scouts want to earn some. Limiting earning MBs until FC would be detrimental to the program.

[Stosh]

I guess I'm a bit off here but I find very little benefit for post FC advancement. I do know they have been arbitrarily added over the years because the highest rank used to be FC. Now we have FC scouts wilth little or no skill level because they were rushed through and then the whole hassle of MB's, POR and projects which really have very little if anything to do with being out in the woods doing adventures. The citizen MB's are the worst. They asked me to do those at one time when I was an ASM. Nope, camping, canoeing, cooking, and such, but anything that smacked of a classroom, I didn't have the time of day for. POR's? How much headache are those and how many boys are slid through these to get them the Grand Prix at the end? It's not that they really do any leadership, they just spend the time and get the credit. I just find that once a scout makes FC, the real headaches begin.

 

Just ask yourself, if MB's are supposed to be an opportunity for the boys to try out new and different things, how does Citizenship work into that? If First Aid is important enough for a MB and rank, why not have the items covered in the MB taught for FC? Same for cooking. Same for orienteering. Same for swimming...... Why have the boys do Swimming for rank and then require it for Eagle? Kinda redundant and useless.

 

Beef up FC to where the boys are actually functional with those skills and dump the MB's for advancement and just have them as electives. Having an Eagle scout that can't start a campfire is totally embarrassing to the program. And yes, I have had such boys in my troop, but they finagled the advancement and got the credit and so they got the rank.

 

I have had some FC scouts that know more about camping, cooking, and leadership than many of the Eagle mill scouts I have met.

 

I would be really happy to have the FC requirements of 1911 updated and fleshed out as being functinal and useful to the boy and then drop Star, Life and Eagle. It'll never happen but then the goal is not the knowledge, it's the medal, and the footnote on the college application, job resume and military advancement opportunity. The goal used to be training of young men to function in the adult world effectively. Now I'm not so sure.

 

Stosh

[walk in the woods]

I think the OP is on the right track but not thinking big enough.

 

First let's eliminate the age overlap between Boy Scouts and Venturing. Then we should move the Star, Life and Eagle ranks into Venturing as a track in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th level of recognition. All the merit badges would move into Venturing as well. No need for them in Boy Scouts if they are part of Venturing. Then, make a set of requirements for Venturing 1 level that is equivalent to T21. That way girls,or boys that weren't interesting in Cubs or Boy Scouts, could join Venturing, do a proof of skills for the V1 rank and earn Eagle in Venturing if they chose. Or Venturers could choose other recognition paths or ignore them all together. Venturing Crews could still do everything they do today, SLE would be optional for those that choose to pursue them.

 

This would in turn allow us to map T21 to 11, 12, and 13 year old boys, allowing the hard core outdoors guys to enjoy three years with young men building those skills. Having the year to work on each rank makes an easier transition from the Cub Program to Boy Scouts (WIII+) to the Venturing Program. It allows parents longer to linger before they let their sons "venture" out more. Venturers could serve associated troops as SPLs and officers much like we use Boy Scouts as Den Chiefs.

 

I think this idea solves many of the program problems often raised on the forum:

 

1. No FCFY because it's now FC3Ys. T21 requirements can become sequential ranks with in depth instruction and skill proof. FC once again becomes the highest rank in Boy Scouts.

2. Summer camps can be just for fun at the Boy scout level. Camp, Canoe, Swim, Hike, do patrol activities, and whatever age appropriate activities are designed for Jr. high boys. Since the camps will have fewer Boy Scouts to serve they can open up to Venturing Crews a few weeks each summer for MB/adventure work as well.

3. Eliminating the age overlap eliminates all the carping about Crews stealing scouts, etc. Using Venturers as Den Chief kind of role eliminates the complaint about stealing leadership.

4. This plan opens a path to Eagle for girls without opening Boy scouts to girls.

 

If the Cub Scout Adventures program works it might be the new model for T21 advancement. I'm sure there are some bugs to work out but we have big issues, and lots of complaints about the program. Let's propose some big solutions.

[packsaddle]

Jblake47 wrote, "Just ask yourself, if MB's are supposed to be an opportunity for the boys to try out new and different things, how does Citizenship work into that?"

I can only answer this in terms of what I experienced personally. I think your question applies critically to the citizenship series if it is offered by, say, a summer camp MB mill (see the other thread on this topic). But when I did this, my counselor for community was one of the leaders of a local charity organization. He was a paid professional in his position and I never would have imagined such a career otherwise. Another counselor was a man involved with the civil rights movement. The Citizenship in the World MB didn't exist yet so I can't respond for that one.

So while I sympathize with your question if it is applied to the (evidently common) summer camp experience (one of my pet peeves regarding BSA summer camp), if these are done differently I think the boys can greatly expand their horizons with the Citizenship series.

[Stosh]

I find nothing wrong with your ideas about the Citizen MB's. It's all part of what I said about beefing up the T-FC requirements. What they teach is very important. But to merit 3 different classroom type MB's? That's a bit of overkill. Visit a community leader is pretty weak as part of what it takes to make a FC scout. Leaving the T-FC requirements weak just to have a MB is not good programming for me. I also like the idea of dropping MB's for advancement for what Packsaddle also says about how valuable they were but were taught with more than just pencil whipping requirements. I would love to have MB's taught by people who have a passion for the subject and will elaborate and make the subject interesting and exciting for the boys without having to worry about doing too much/too little for advancement.

 

Take the required MB's for Eagle and incorporate them into the T-FC After all, if they are necessary to be an Eagle, they are surely necessary to be a Scout in general. This also allows the boys to take more MB's as electives on subjects of their own choosing.

 

Stosh