Prepping for Eagle Scout Award merit Badge completion

[Deaf Scouter]

 

I worked with a couple hundred scouts and about 20 Eagles as a scout leader in our troop and not one of them ever complained about our troop advancement policy's and procedures. They didn't know any different. To be honest, I think we thought all troops did it about the same way. I learned differently when I joined the forums.

 

I think the key is start teaching scouts from their first day how to take the initiative for advancing as well as how to take care of their records and paperwork. I can see it being a problem for older scouts who have not practiced those habits.

 

I am not suggesting troops make a sudden 180 degree change in their advancement policies, but I can attest that the scouts can handle it if the adults can.

 

Barry

To be honest, I didn't know any differently until I started doing my annual event.  I got some of the pieces during my one year stint at stand in SM but I didn't fully put it together until later.  Being on the District and Council level, I get to see and watch how different Troops operate that it has clued me in.  Your posting brings this up that this is a good topic to even have at RT.

[Eagledad]

To be honest, I didn't know any differently until I started doing my annual event.  I got some of the pieces during my one year stint at stand in SM but I didn't fully put it together until later.  Being on the District and Council level, I get to see and watch how different Troops operate that it has clued me in.  Your posting brings this up that this is a good topic to even have at RT.

Agreed, and may I suggest to additionally add the information to your training syllabuses. I learned over the years that if you want to educate the district as a whole of changes, do it through training. Sadly a very small percentage of units attend RTs, but just about all adult leaders have to attend training. It's amazing how a district of units develops bad habits in policies and procedures over the years. I attacked them through training and saw a general acceptance of the changes within about three years.

 

One last thing, back everything up with BSA source references so that your information has integrity.

 

Barry

[Eagle94-A1]

Don't do as I do, do as I say.....   I'm sure that's going to sell.....

 

Actually more on the lines of, " Don't make the mistake I made....."

 

 

Agreed, and may I suggest to additionally add the information to your training syllabuses. I learned over the years that if you want to educate the district as a whole of changes, do it through training. Sadly a very small percentage of units attend RTs, but just about all adult leaders have to attend training. It's amazing how a district of units develops bad habits in policies and procedures over the years. I attacked them through training and saw a general acceptance of the changes within about three years.

 

One last thing, back everything up with BSA source references so that your information has integrity.

 

Barry

 

VERY TRUE!

[Stosh]

From day one, the process of planning and organizing needs to be instilled in the scout.  Waiting until he is working on his Eagle is WAY too late.

 

There's a pamphlet in the front of every Handbook.  The boy is expected to schedule time with his parents, go through the pamphlet, have his parents sign on it and bring it back.   At age 10-11 with parents doing everything for them, that's a huge obstacle to overcome.  But they do and then they do the next.  "You did that?"  Where's your book to show me?  Forgot it.  That's one less week you have to work on advancement.  Didn't pack a mess kit?  Bummer.  Clothes all wet and the adults won't let you outside to sled in 10^o weather?  What?  Your mom didn't pack enough?  Well, maybe next time you pack so you have everything."

 

My favorite line is: "Excuses do not solve problems because they have an effective range of zero meters.  Do you want me to convert that to feet and inches?"

 

It is a major disservice to accept excuses from the boys.  Only results move things forward.

[qwazse]

...   You will be surprise how many drop an Eagle packet in a scout's lap without even going through it with them.  Happened my son never even received his so we had to download it off the net.  In the busyness of life and scouting, there are a lot more cracks than you see or know about.

Hmm, that's how I did it with my boys.

 

Now granted, that workbook has gotten absurdly verbose. And for some scouts with learning disorders, we had to walk them through it (again, and again).

 

But, each boy is unique, and although they all face the same deadline (a stupid one, I've come to conclude), they each have different obstacles to meeting it -- from the MBs they have yet to do to how the districts handle approvals to the hoops a beneficiary would like you to jump through. (E.g., Son #1 had to attend a town meeting to garner public support for his project.)

 

Because there is no one-size-fits all, an Eagle advisor is probably the best resource a boy could have.

[Deaf Scouter]

After reading all these, seems like the better solution is training and teaching adults to convert to boy-led.  Show adults why scouts are missing skills needed for the Eagle project because the adults did too much for their scouts that the scout lacked skills needed for the Eagle project.  I love that training thought.  I did the Advancement and Program Planning units of the Scoutmaster training and can see the benefits of incorporating that in there.

[Stosh]

With my troops, the boys are all expected to personally take the lead on whatever service project they wish to do.  For the new boys it might be something as simple as picking up garbage in the local park or along side of roads.  They find a date, plan the scope, etc. and put it all together.   They don't have to do any booklets; nor make any reports; or even have the project reviewed, but from an early age on they know how to put together a project.  They might have a good half dozen of them under their belt before they are expected to do their Eagle Project.  By the time they get to that point they are doing major projects such as cleaning up a neglected park, cleaning up the construction garbage and then landscaping around a local church's new addition.  These aren't small projects like some little lending library kiosk outside some church, but the boys have had the experience that what they put together is pretty awesome at times. Often times I tell them they don't have to have such grandiose projects, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

[Deaf Scouter]

With my troops, the boys are all expected to personally take the lead on whatever service project they wish to do.  For the new boys it might be something as simple as picking up garbage in the local park or along side of roads.  They find a date, plan the scope, etc. and put it all together.   They don't have to do any booklets; nor make any reports; or even have the project reviewed, but from an early age on they know how to put together a project.  They might have a good half dozen of them under their belt before they are expected to do their Eagle Project.  By the time they get to that point they are doing major projects such as cleaning up a neglected park, cleaning up the construction garbage and then landscaping around a local church's new addition.  These aren't small projects like some little lending library kiosk outside some church, but the boys have had the experience that what they put together is pretty awesome at times. Often times I tell them they don't have to have such grandiose projects, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

That is a good example to share with leaders and parents of the importance of the Scouts doing for themselves, hence why we have boy-led.  Anyone have any other examples please?

 

The other is accountability.  Yeah we have Eagle Advisors/ Eagle Coaches but do they truly understand their role also incorporates scouts accountability in attainment of steps along the way?  Even accountability of deadlines the scout set for himself?  Thoughts please?

[Eagledad]

That is a good example to share with leaders and parents of the importance of the Scouts doing for themselves, hence why we have boy-led.  Anyone have any other examples please?

 

The other is accountability.  Yeah we have Eagle Advisors/ Eagle Coaches but do they truly understand their role also incorporates scouts accountability in attainment of steps along the way?  Even accountability of deadlines the scout set for himself?  Thoughts please?

I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for, so I will kind of give a simplistic example of how we encourage scouts to initiate and control responsibility.

 

Our goal is for out scouts to initiate their goals, imagine the process to the goal, and a timeline to complete the goal. With a new scout it goes something like asking the scout when he wants to learn the Tenderfoot knots. The answer can be anything, but the ball is in his court to making a choice of learning the knot. Now likely he will be asked if he wants to do it now or later. If later how about... . Believe or not, these are tough decisions for boys this age. But most say now and he learns the knot. Now he is asked if he wants to complete one of the other Tenderfoot requirements. When would you like to complete it? If later, then we show him how to set a goal and even write it in his book.

 

This is all very simplistic for new scouts, but as the scouts kind of get used to making decisions of completing single tasks, the habit is developing and you can see him setting multiple goals with multiple timelines. Its about now that we start to suggest processes or mini-actions to complete larger task. For example, we now ask him when he wants to complete the first class requirement. That is a much more difficult goal because it requires achieving several smaller goals. But by guiding him to think in steps of knots, first-aid, cooking and so on, he starts to develop a process of setting small goals to reach a bigger goal. 

 

This all seems regimented and complex, but it's a the scouts pace and very informal, if not in passing. One scout may request teaching for first-aid and the instructor decides to schedule a class for several scouts. At that time, the scout can choose to take the class or wait for another time. The hard part is that parents are tempted to tell their son to take advantage of the class to speed up his advancement. But we want the scout to make decisions based on his goals so he can live with the consequences of his decisions. Scouts learn to build a pace by their personal ambitions in the program. Some like to advance, some rather camp. I once took A LOT flack from a parent whose son didn't earn a single mb at summer camp. But taking talking to her son, it was his best summer camp ever. However, because all his friends jumped a head in rank, he spent his next year catching up, which was not only fine for him, some of his friends admired his choices.

 

You see, we all develop habits as we make decisions and learn from those decisions. Where most leaders in my opinion struggle is they don't allow the scouts to make enough decisions for them to formulate who they are in their minds. Making a decision tell the scout if he mastered a skill or needs to learn a skill. But I admit, standing back is the hardest thing of adults, parents and leaders.

 

As you can see, scouts by their third year should be pretty much in the habit of initiating their objectives, developing processes to reaching those objectives, and setting some kind of expected completion time. Not just in advancement, but in planning meals, campouts, patrol meetings, fund raisers, service projects, and even summer camp. The habit of setting small goals to reach big goals makes it much easier for scouts to plan projects, major outtings and even the Eagle. A new scout looks at earning the Eagle as almost impossible because the list of requirements in his book is several pages long. But if he look at Eagle one requirement at a time, he surprised to experience that the task isn't all that hard and doesn't require near the time he first expected. We found that our scouts got to Life so fast that they took a couple years off from advancement to do the other scouting stuff. Then at about 16 and half, they realize they still have a few MBs and a project to complete. So they get back up to speed. I remember some adult asking one scout who did his EBOR a day before his birthday why he waited so long. The scout smiled and only said "I was busy". He was the OA Chapter Chef for a year of that. My point is they didn't worry about doing the last few requirements because they had learned how to complete them in a chosen time.

 

As for accountability, there are several sources. Scoutmaster conference is one, the BORs are another. The scouts are responsibile for keeping records, but they are encourage to put each rank and advancement card in a binder with baseball card sleeves to hold the cards. They are ask, but not required to bring that binder along with their book for the BOR to review so they can see just exactly what the scout complete at the point and ask questions pertaining to his personal experience. It is rare that a scout will see the same adults in the BORs, so it's easier for them to review his accomplishments at least by looking at his scout handbook and the binder if the scout chooses. 

 

But I have personally found that peer pressure is a very powerful controller (motivator) for how the scout schedules his expectations for setting goals.

 

I personally never set goals for my scouts. My goal is for them to learn the life long skills of setting goals and initiating a process to reach the goals so that they are reaching their expectations by their decisions, not mine. I do ask scouts to visualize themselves in two or three years in the program and to write it down in his book, In fact, I ask scouts to write down goals for us to review at their next SM Conference just so he has kind of see himself in the future. That is tougher than you would think for this generation of scouts because they live by so much by the moment. I want each scout to plan his own future, so I try to get them to see a future. They can and will change those visions and goals all the time, but settings goals is based on invisioning those goals. 

 

So you can see that see we try to guide scouts in the habit of taking responsibility for their future actions by making simple choices in setting goals. Then a simple choice for reaching that goal. The process of reaching that goals can be more complicated, but we base that development on their maturity and experience. A 2nd year scout doesn't have the experience nor maturity to plan a week long high adventure trip that a 16 year old is capable of planning. 

 

Eagle! It's just a series of goals and accomplishments over the next few years. Its a series of choices.

 

I know this post is silly long. Sorry, I wish I could put down my thoughts more eloquently. 

 

Barry

[Deaf Scouter]

Barry, 

Thanks for the long winded write up as it more helpful with me being deaf to see things I don't hear!  You've given me much food for thought.  I'm thinking about rewriting my training material and adding a couple new mini-session topics to me event that would be helpful to parents and leaders.  THANK YOU!

[Eagledad]

You are certainly welcome. I love this scouting stuff.

 

When you have the time, I think the list here would enjoy learning the challenges of being a deaf Scoutmaster. We had a couple of deaf scouts, one of them made Eagle. We had some challenges, but none that had to do with his hearing.

 

Barry

[Ankylus]

I am in a profession where, basically, "deadlines are for meeting".  By that, I mean that the important thing is that you make the deadline. Should you plan ahead and allow plenty of time? Yes, but sometimes it just can't be done.

 

As for the accountability calendar or whatever, I see that of utility. We all know the deadline is the 18th birthday. Are you going to deny advancement because the scout didn't do the work on the timeline you thing he should have? It's my understanding that you can't. 

 

So, in the absence of some form of punishment, how do you make the scout work on your timeline? You don't. Unfortunately.

 

Yes, it would be better if they were all organized, but I would rather see the scout who earns his Eagle receive it. 

[Stosh]

Not attaining the rank of Eagle is not a punishment.  It just means one did not attain the rank for whatever reason.  As to having to pass around some sort of blame, I guess it would fall on the boy.  It is not a life requirement to attain the Eagle rank in scouting.

[perdidochas]

One of the biggest things I see with Scouts is more and more are doing last minute completion of merit badges that is such stresses so many who are involved and helping a scout.  One of the things that I see missing from Eagle packets is a calendar for accountability for the scout in meeting deadlines.  This is especially true on merit badges.  Does any one use one or have a design of calendar deadline if completing merit badges they can share please?

 

Are the deadlines listed in the Merit badge as required?  Are they listed on the Eagle application?  It's not your business to do that schedule--it's the scout's business to complete the badges. 

[Deaf Scouter]

So strange how today's announcement through Bryan On Scouting really hits home and on the tails of my post just a couple weeks ago.  Check out the 'NEW' Planning Sheet:

http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2017/02/01/scout-planning-worksheet/

 

Makes me wonder.. do we have Scouters in Scouter.com that are directly connected to National Council??