Earning Cooking MB without doing any cooking.

[John-in-KC]

Ok, this one is a puzzler.  A first class scout goes to summer camp where the merit badge Cooking is offered.  After five days of instruction, he is awarded the badge by the camp.  The camp has a computer generated blue card that shows all the requirements checked off.  The card is given to the troop advancement coordinator, who enters the earned merit badge into the Troopmaster software.  The badge is earned, right?

 

What do you think?

Lots of thoughts.

 

First, Messrs SM, CC, COR, and IH need a not-so-friendly cup of coffee with the District and Council Advancement Chairmen.  Their question should be:  You are required to ensure the Scout performs to the identical standard at camp that he would at home.  How did you screw up on this, and when will this MB be stricken from ScoutNet for these boys?

 

Next, Messrs COR and IH need to have a business meeting with the Council President and the Chairman of the Long Term Camping Committee (or whatever entity oversees the council camp on this particular council board).  They need to ask a simple question:  How are you delivering the Scouting program in compliance with the terms of the charter (licensing agreement)?

 

Finally, the boys need a Scoutmaster Conference.  They need to be told, gently, the truth (their experience was substandard and they have not properly earned the badge).  They need to be given credit for what they did do, and they need to be pointed to Counselors so they can complete this Eagle Required MB.

 

One more thing:  Before Mr Scoutmaster lets kids take cooking at camp next year, he drives out to camp and inspects the program in action, to ensure it meets the requirements...or that it only gives a partial.

Edited August 11, 2017 by John-in-KC

[qwazse]

Several concepts we all must internalize:

• A scout is not "paying the penalty" when he does not get an award he didn't earn. He is getting awarded appropriately for his work. (I miss @@Beavah.)
• A camp is not paying a penalty when they can't take credit for giving an award that they only partially counseled boys on. They are being given the privilege of accurately reporting the services that they do and don't provide.
• Scouts have a responsibility to know the published requirements for any award. Reading a reference is the first step in any ideal method mastering any scout skill. Any method that does not explicitly include this step should be banned from scouting's lexicon.
• Scouts should have the courage to turn down an award that they did not earn. I know that's a big ask. But the whole blue card exercise is to give scouts agency in their own advancement. They get to choose which counselor has the honor of their signature on the scouts' trail to Eagle.
• Boys will be denied agency in their own advancement so long as camps don't require the scout hold on to their blue card at all times,only keeping the counselor portion upon badge completion, and the SM only holds on to the unit portion of the card whenever the scout so chooses to report badge completion.

Compromises on any of these four concepts lead to "high speed, low drag" issues and the consequent denying good scouters like @allangr1024 

the right to do their part in seeing boys grow up strong and good.

[Col. Flagg]

^^^^^^

 

I found my last Scoutmaster's Minute!

 

This should be a sticky.

[TAHAWK]

"Are you suggesting that the scout has not earned the badge because he did not follow the normal blue card procedure?  if he did not get SM approval, does the MB have to be awarded?  "

 

It is the MBC's option whether to accept work done prior to SM signature on the Blue Card.  The guidance is that if the work has been done it ought to count.

 

 

Not up to the Scout to prove anything.  The option for the SM to deny the badge is based on the SM's knowledge that the MB could not, in fact, have been earned.  Example I am aware of is Personal Management, starting from zero, being given after five hours of sessions at camp.  Ditto for Family Living.  Cannot have been earned.

 

Cooking "earned" without doing any of the required cooking?  Nothing capable of defending.  No one except National can waive a requirement.  Cannot have been earned.

 

Council Merit Badge mills are a disgrace to the values of Scouting.

[Ranman328]

I would be interested to see if the camp had any prerequisites for the Merit Badges.  A camp my son went to offered multiple badges that had prerequisites prior to camp.  The Scoutmaster was running the camp set up and sent the information to the scouts going and ensured they had completed those requirements before camp. 

 

This is indeed a tricky situation because you don't want to discourage the scout but at the same time want to teach him and have him learn the right way.  This might be the only way some of these scouts will learn to cook or get some of these life skills.