Push for Coed Scouting

[Col. Flagg]

No, Col. The number of boys doing sports overall decreased by 8,600 while girls increased by 20,000. That's for all sports not just wrestling. 

 

So girls are getting more involved while boys are getting less involved. 

 

I don't have the national stats in hand but I found this and thought it was interesting. The drop in wrestling certainly mirrors what you are saying. I don't have time to get the details on boys versus girls by sport, but that would be an interesting set of stats to see.

 

Given how much time kids spend inside in front of consoles these days, it would not surprise me that there may be an overall drop in sports participation across all sports. I am sure someone here has that stat somewhere. 

 

 

I'd be all for lowering Venturing age to 11. Whatever it takes to solve the venturing problem will surely help the boy scout side.

 

The outreach programs I've heard of (Mexican and Vietnamese) have come back and said these communities want not not so much coed, but the whole family. Siblings tend to stay together, so when the older brother goes to an event there needs to be something for the rest of the siblings. There's nothing wrong with having a separate program, just make sure they can meet the same time in the same place. That's another way to make it coed. High school sports are not coed but we do have title iX.

 

Again, what's wrong with an all girl troop that shares a CO with an all boy troop? That would certainly make life easier for parents.

 

All girl Boy Scout troop? Why not just be a Venturing crew and be done with it? That way the guys that want to keep their little corner of the world can do so.

 

My point with the ethic group outreach was less to do with the coed argument, and more to do with the sub-thread conversation on ways to increase BSA membership without having to open Boy Scouts to girls. Sorry if that was not clear.

[Stosh]

One notices 4-H more in the rural areas of the country, yet it is not uncommon to find a 4-H club in a city as large as 50,000+  It was started in the rural Midwest, might not be as prevalent in the urban settings of the coastal states.  Still, they command a huge youth membership so it still remains popular.

[Stosh]

I don't have the national stats in hand but I found this and thought it was interesting. The drop in wrestling certainly mirrors what you are saying. I don't have time to get the details on boys versus girls by sport, but that would be an interesting set of stats to see.

 

Given how much time kids spend inside in front of consoles these days, it would not surprise me that there may be an overall drop in sports participation across all sports. I am sure someone here has that stat somewhere. 

 

 

 

All girl Boy Scout troop? Why not just be a Venturing crew and be done with it? That way the guys that want to keep their little corner of the world can do so.

 

My point with the ethic group outreach was less to do with the coed argument, and more to do with the sub-thread conversation on ways to increase BSA membership without having to open Boy Scouts to girls. Sorry if that was not clear.

 

Never work, the girls only want the Eagle and the prestige that goes with it.

[Col. Flagg]

I admittedly know very little about 4-H, and I did not know they were that large. From the 10 minutes of research I just did, I'm not sure they adequately compare to the BSA, though, at least not in my area where it looks like my kids would only have the option of joining a 4-H Lego club or an Environmental club. Looking at their website, however, it does look like 4-H has a more outdoor-focused program elsewhere in the country. Whether it really compares to the outdoor adventure type of focus the BSA has, however, I'm not sure. 

 

In my area it is big. 4-H is nothing but outdoors for the most part. Spend a weekend farming. If you've never heard the Paul Harvey bit on a farmer it is good.

 

The next town over has a 4-H gig next month. The meeting time? 4:30am...its a calf birthing class.

[Eagledad]

The next town over has a 4-H gig next month. The meeting time? 4:30am...its a calf birthing class.

Pretty sure we can get that on U-Tube.

[Stosh]

In my area it is big. 4-H is nothing but outdoors for the most part. Spend a weekend farming. If you've never heard the Paul Harvey bit on a farmer it is good.

 

The next town over has a 4-H gig next month. The meeting time? 4:30am...its a calf birthing class.

Can you see your boys birthing a calf? 

 

In North Dakota a 12 year old can get a farm driver's license and drive the 16' grain truck to the elevator in town.

 

The former SM's wife of my second troop passed away recently.  She was a really classy lady who owned her own insurance agency.  I was looking over her history at the wake and noticed when she was 11 or 12 years old she had won a ribbon at the Oklahoma State Fair.  Not bad for a gal that raises pigs.

 

Some of these youth organizations are great and to think BSA is "the Best"  just doesn't hold true.

 

If nothing else, 4-H teaches a work ethic comparable to none.

[David CO]

In my area it is big. 4-H is nothing but outdoors for the most part. Spend a weekend farming. If you've never heard the Paul Harvey bit on a farmer it is good.

 

The next town over has a 4-H gig next month. The meeting time? 4:30am...its a calf birthing class.

 

Is it a La-moo-ze class?

[Stosh]

Naw, a lamooze class only encourages the boys to hold a hoof and tell her to breathe.  This class has the boys reaching up inside up to their shoulder and pulling out the breech birth calf.....Big difference!

[Col. Flagg]

Is it a La-moo-ze class?

 

Somewhere, a student at a university is trying to figure out how we are culturally appropriating the 4-H event to feed our privilege.   

[RememberSchiff]

So you want to pile-on, is that it?

 

Barry

Nope. The BSA can't have it both ways, it leads to the continued, collective pile-on by scouters over National's illogical, unfair interim decisions. They can't say:

   females are acceptable as Scout leaders but not as Scouts.

   gay scouts are acceptable but not gay leaders   (how long did that last?)

   14yr old Venture scouts can shoot pistols but not 14yr old Boy Scouts

   girls can join Boy Scouts if they think they are boys but not if they are okay with being girls??

   and, did I read correctly, that now we have some accepted religious groups with atheists are okay but other atheists  are not?

 

Another $0.01

[ianwilkins]

Your statement suggests a single culture, or even a majority culture, in the US.  If that was the case, we wouldn't be having these kinds of debates internal to the BSA or across the country.

 

Don't worry, I get that too. I mean, I've seen Baywatch and The Dukes of Hazard so...[yes, I'm being flippant]

 

Ian

[NJCubScouter]

Nope. The BSA can't have it both ways, it leads to the continued, collective pile-on by scouters over National's illogical, unfair interim decisions. They can't say:

   ...

   gay scouts are acceptable but not gay leaders   (how long did that last?)

 

About a year and a half (effective 1/1/14 for openly gay Scouts, to sometime in the summer of 2015, I am sure if you wade back about 10,000 posts you can find the exact date, on which this forum basically blew up.)

 

   ...

   girls can join Boy Scouts if they think they are boys but not if they are okay with being girls??

 

Now now, it's not just what "they think".  

 

   and, did I read correctly, that now we have some accepted religious groups with atheists are okay but other atheists  are not?

 

Well, we're trying to figure that out in the other thread, come over and help if you'd like.  

 

Another $0.01

[TAHAWK]

 

[D]id I read correctly, that now we have some accepted religious groups with atheists are okay but other atheists  are not[?]

 

Depends on what you mean by "now."  We have accepted some atheists since 1926 and others, but not all, since.  In view of which, BSA policy statements on religion, reverent, and Duty to God, are as clear as . . . . . BSA policy statements.

[qwazse]

But venturing always was coed, so girls can't be the reason for the drop. I think the drop in venturing holds the key to the problems. Two things I can think of is scouting in the US is seen as a way to stuff your college app by too many people. Imagine boy scouts without Eagle. How many scouts would drop out.

 

Another other issue is friendships. They develop early on, before age 14. That doesn't explain a drop in venturing though.

 

 

I'd be all for lowering Venturing age to 11. Whatever it takes to solve the venturing problem will surely help the boy scout side.

 

The outreach programs I've heard of (Mexican and Vietnamese) have come back and said these communities want not not so much coed, but the whole family. Siblings tend to stay together, so when the older brother goes to an event there needs to be something for the rest of the siblings. There's nothing wrong with having a separate program, just make sure they can meet the same time in the same place. That's another way to make it coed. High school sports are not coed but we do have title iX.

 

Again, what's wrong with an all girl troop that shares a CO with an all boy troop? That would certainly make life easier for parents.

 

The reason for the plummet in numbers are several. However, the one thing we know could offset it: about a million boys who could ask to join or start a co-ed crew at any time. One thing that did not happen: millions of boys over the past two decades remained in their unisex program.

 

Lowering the age to 11? They lowered it to 13, numbers are still declining. When I have a chance to meet a regional or national officer, I'll ask his/her opinion of lowering the age from 13 to 11, although I bet I know what the answer will.

 

Besides, there are plenty of scouters out there who feel that helping venturing only hurts their troops.

And ultimately, activists won't be satisfied because venturing doesn't allow girls to earn Eagle and reap the "benefits" of all of those trappings.

[Pale Horse]

National heaved tradition off a cliff long before that. Traditional scouting was a handful of badges, service to community, and lots of camping and bushcraft. 

 

In any discussion about change of any kind in Scouting it always cracks me up that people resist anything in the defense of "tradition". We haven't had a traditional scouting program since maybe the 50s or 60s. 

 

Agree. And what's more, the most "Traditional" scouting program, BPSA, which uses the last version of the BS Handbook that BP wrote and still has the major emphasis on camping and bushcraft, allows girls and athiests.  Pretty sure they don't feel BP is "rolling over in his grave" about those decisions.