Cub Scouts Lasts Too Long

[Eagledad]

I think you're wrong in the way you put that. It's not a myth at all.

and it's not all about the adults trying to make it easier for themselves.

 

But when these sorts of point come up, it's gets semantic really quick, just as it did here.  

It is a situational thing.

 

Barry, I agree with you that there are places and times when the older scouts don't mind, or even enjoy, being with the younger scouts

But I disagree that the idea is a myth.  There are plenty of other times when it's the last thing they want to do..... (and yes, there are times like this even when playing the game of scouting)

and it goes both ways too.  It's not only the older ones not wanting to hang with the younger ones, but the younger ones wanting to do stuff that would not interest the older ones....

We need the program to bigger than one way or the other.

I understand what you are saying, I've talked to a lot of scouters on the subject. But we will just have to agree to disagree with the myth. I have too much experience with older scouts working with younger scouts to say otherwise.

 

Of course there are times when scouts of a different maturity or interest don't want to be together in some situations, but that is different from the generalization of older scouts not wanting to be with younger scouts.

 

And when I say the generalization (myth, theory) is the driving force for how the adults steer the troop program, I'm not necessarily suggesting intentional laziness on their part. Rather, its more of doing the best they can with what they know.

 

I have advised several troops on this subject and they are quite frankly stumped with their older scout program when they approach me. They find that dividing the older scouts into separate adventure patrols hasn't help retain the older scouts, so they are perplexed.

 

It really comes down to not understanding patrol method and how to apply it, or rather how to let the boys apply it.

 

Barry

[Stosh]

I think you're wrong in the way you put that. It's not a myth at all.

and it's not all about the adults trying to make it easier for themselves.

 

But when these sorts of point come up, it's gets semantic really quick, just as it did here.  

It is a situational thing.

 

Barry, I agree with you that there are places and times when the older scouts don't mind, or even enjoy, being with the younger scouts

But I disagree that the idea is a myth.  There are plenty of other times when it's the last thing they want to do..... (and yes, there are times like this even when playing the game of scouting)

and it goes both ways too.  It's not only the older ones not wanting to hang with the younger ones, but the younger ones wanting to do stuff that would not interest the older ones....

We need the program to bigger than one way or the other.

 

This is where I got a small success this spring with my Webelos cross-over boys. 

 

First of all the Cub program is leader trained differently than Boy program trained.  The whole dynamic of how they work is worlds apart in their mission and goals. 

 

I decided this spring to do what I did for my Wood Badge ticket 25 years ago.  I went back and ran the Webelos program using Boy program dynamics.  Interestingly, I found that the new Webelos program is far more Boy program than the old Webelos program.  The old pins could be torqued into Scout and Tenderfoot requirements if the leader was aware of both programs.  Most Webelos leaders were not at the time.  They focused on the pins, not the future.   The new program with their adventure units flat out duplicate much of the Scout and Tenderfoot requirements.  This made the transition into the Boy program far easier than before.

 

Well we have 3 packs and 3 troops in our immediate area.  I sent out an invitation to the Webelos leaders of the three packs inviting them to send their boys over to my program where I would teach/lead the AOL portion of the Webelos program, similar to what I did 25 years ago.  (Back then I was the Webelos leader for the single feeder pack for the troop.)

 

When the dust settled I had gained 8 of the new Webelos boys.  One troop picked up 1 boy and the other troop picked up maybe 2.  All the rest of the 34 Webelos scouts dropped out of the program and did not move on to Boy Scouts.

 

The whole process was adult-led as it would be in a Webelos/Cub program, but I instilled the patrol method with boys leading at every opportunity that came along.

 

My two Boy Scout remnants that were keeping the troop going along with the 8 new boys have basically turned our troop into 2 new scout patrols, but there's one major difference.  These boys have already had 6 months heavy orientation to the boy led, patrol method program of Boy Scouts because their AOL year was taught by a Boy Scout trained leader, not a Webelos/Cub trained leader.  Yes, there's the temptation to have the two patrols functioning as Webelos III, but they were functioning quite well as Boy Scouts while still in the Webelos program.  That would require a concerted effort to wind the clock back to be a Webelos III "patrol".

 

The two older boys will be taking 5 MB's at summer camp, all the rest of the boys will be in the S->FC program and 2 MB's.  As excited as the 8 new boys are, I'm expecting some of them to progress beyond the older boys in rank before the year is out.

 

The nice thing about it is, the new boys have no idea what an adult led program is all about at this point...and I have no intention of telling them what it is either.  The Webelos AOL units were designed to demonstrate the boy led program of Boy Scouts while the boys were still in Cub Scouts.  This is why the transition was exciting for the boys and they didn't want to drop out after AOL when things were just getting interesting.