New girls in Scouting

[ParkMan]

1 hour ago, RememberSchiff said:

The BSA has defined Family scouting as serving families. "Bringing the family together to experience Scouting was one of the key reasons the BSA chose to expand its programs to welcome girls." IMHO, many here are concerned  with this change of focus in this new program.  Family camping ,  minimizing patrol method, YP changes  are  by-products.

My $0.02

for quote

https://scoutingwire.org/how-cub-scouting-is-bringing-this-whole-family-together/

 

Okay - uncle.  I'm not looking to criticize or stir the pot.  In threads like this, it just strikes me how negative they get.  That national is trying to ruin the BSA through [choose one: girls, family scouting, YPT].  Yet, when I go look I just don't see it.  I push back because it saddens me for all the Scouts, Scouters, and parents who come to this forum and read post after post about how awful the BSA is.  Guess I just see the future of Scouting with a more positive outlook. 

I guess I'll just leave it alone and go back to avoiding Issues & Politics topics.

[JoeBob]

The double standard for validation of argument has provoked me to react.

One side of this discussion has required that their suppositions, predictions of the future, and personal anecdotes are to be taken as valid.  While at the same time, they have demanded empirical data from the other side and dismissed years of personal experiences as unsupportable fantasy. 

I considered going back over the last four pages and cutting/pasting the many examples; but it's not worth my time.  One side won't change their minds, and the other side knows exactly to what I am referring.  They just have more patience than I.

Family Camping hasn't undermined the Patrol Method?  Linked Troops won't be going coed ?  Girls in coed troops won't impact the learning and personal development of boys?

Right...

Back to being a lurker. 

[shortridge]

21 minutes ago, JoeBob said:

While at the same time, they have demanded empirical data from the other side and dismissed years of personal experiences as unsupportable fantasy. 

JoeBob, since you’re clearly talking about me I’m going to respond. Barry cited data in support of his argument that girls are oriented differently. I’m asking for his sources. That’s all.

[Treflienne]

44 minutes ago, JoeBob said:

One side of this discussion has required that their suppositions, predictions of the future, and personal anecdotes are to be taken as valid.  While at the same time, they have demanded empirical data from the other side and dismissed years of personal experiences as unsupportable fantasy.

 

19 minutes ago, shortridge said:

JoeBob, since you’re clearly talking about me I’m going to respond. Barry cited data in support of his argument that girls are oriented differently. I’m asking for his sources. That’s all. 

Even if there were studies that showed that girls were, on average, paid more attention to organizational details,  that doesn't remove the worth of the patrol method for the girls.

Firstly,  because averages are just that.  There is also a broad distribution, for both girls and boys,  of instinctive organizational skill levels.  Some girls are a lot less naturally organized than some boys.

Also patrols are not merely about learning to be organized.  They are also about learning leadership in a kid-sized setting.   They are about having the opportunity to try,  and to mess up,  and to overcome those mistakes --- all in a kid-sized setting.

I would argue that the differences between boys and girls mean that single gender patrols are the way to go --- so that the girls don't end up doing the cooking while the boys do something else.   Of course,  since the troops won't be coed,  neither will the patrols.

[cocomax]

Family scouting is all about the WHOLE FAMILY going on outings and activities together.

So that moms and dads can spend more time together with their boys and girls in a scouting setting.

--------------

Julie Anderson has been there. Like most parents, she laments not being able to spend enough quality time with her two children, Ian and Samantha.

That’s why Anderson is such a fan of Family Scouting, the BSA’s push to welcome all members of the family into our life-changing movement.

Do you crave more time with your children and less time bouncing between drop-offs and pickups?

"She’s pumped to share the ways Family Scouting will appeal to moms and dads out there. It lets parents “take the whole family on outings and activities for scheduled fun family time,” she says."

https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2018/06/08/as-bsa-welcomes-families-into-scouting-some-councils-are-adding-a-family-scouting-director/

[Ranman328]

On ‎10‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 10:59 AM, packsaddle said:

LOL, I suspect that there will be little chance that a bunch of scouts will see how fast they can hurtle down a steep hill riding on a propane stove or hatchet.

Don't be so sure.  Some of these Scouts come up with some interesting ideas.

[Eagle94-A1]

6 hours ago, cocomax said:

Family scouting is all about the WHOLE FAMILY going on outings and activities together.

So that moms and dads can spend more time together with their boys and girls in a scouting setting.

--------------

Julie Anderson has been there. Like most parents, she laments not being able to spend enough quality time with her two children, Ian and Samantha.

That’s why Anderson is such a fan of Family Scouting, the BSA’s push to welcome all members of the family into our life-changing movement.

Do you crave more time with your children and less time bouncing between drop-offs and pickups?

"She’s pumped to share the ways Family Scouting will appeal to moms and dads out there. It lets parents “take the whole family on outings and activities for scheduled fun family time,” she says."

https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2018/06/08/as-bsa-welcomes-families-into-scouting-some-councils-are-adding-a-family-scouting-director/

Don't know how I missed that.  Looks like the DEN METHODS is the future of Scouting.

[shortridge]

I’m still not seeing anything except some inartful phrasing on Bryan’s part to suggest that anything beyond Cubs is going to have a family-camping focus. The core Scouts BSA program is not changing. Besides: Most teens I know would rather lock themselves in their room for a year than go on “scheduled fun family time” with their parents and siblings.

[Eagledad]

On 10/14/2018 at 8:14 PM, shortridge said:

JoeBob, since you’re clearly talking about me I’m going to respond. Barry cited data in support of his argument that girls are oriented differently. I’m asking for his sources. That’s all.

I gave a clear answer. Life’s collection of knowledge is data, no matter how it was collected. You can take it or leave it of course just like all the experience data that posters provide on this forum. If not, then what would be the point of requesting information from experienced members on subjects like, Starting a new troop: budget items.

Collected experience data isnt always noted, recorded, and stored away because who would expect some shortridge down the road of life challenging that knowledge to sway opinion against our integrity. After all, if a person has the knowledge gained from the experience of starting a new troop, why would that person expect that data to be challenged?

Is it so really so hard to believe girls are different from boys?

Barry

[shortridge]

Barry, I think we can end this particular line of discussion and agree to disagree on the meaning of “data.” For you it means life experiences; for me it means facts and statistics.

[packsaddle]

8 hours ago, Ranman328 said:

Don't be so sure.  Some of these Scouts come up with some interesting ideas.

Riding a hatchet? Ouch! 😂

[Eagle94-A1]

OK, I cannot find my old papers and what not. Going from memory. Girls mature faster because the onset of puberty starts earlier and the hormones released throughout the body. The hormones do affect behavior and that is why girls tend to be more organized and nurturing.

I had some time yesterday at work to look up data, and it is very interesting. I have not read all the stuff, but from glancing over the material, women's brains and men's brains are different. Different portions of the brain control different aspects of behavior. Those areas vary in size and proportion to total brain size between males and females. Since puberty starts earlier for females than males, their brains actually increase in size rapidly faster and their brains may be larger than male brains at this point in life. Over time, male's brain size do catch up and then exceed females' brains by 8-12%

On 10/14/2018 at 9:42 PM, Treflienne said:

I would argue that the differences between boys and girls mean that single gender patrols are the way to go --- so that the girls don't end up doing the cooking while the boys do something else.   Of course,  since the troops won't be coed,  neither will the patrols.

BSA has come up with the "LINKED TROOPS" Model which allows the girls troop to share committee, equipment, meeting space and time, camp outs, and ASMs, If two troops are meeting at the same time, share the same leaders, and do activities at the same time and place, is it really 2 troops, or 1 troop? On paper it may be separate, reality says it's coed.

And do not think this won't happen. Some packs, like the one I'm working with, have combined the girls' den with the boys' den for meetings. It is really a coed den. And at the town hall meeting I attended, I told my key three exactly what Scouters in my area told me, the girls' troops would be paper troops, they would be doing everything with the boys's troop. And many in my town hall agreed with that sentiment

[walk in the woods]

2 hours ago, shortridge said:

Barry, I think we can end this particular line of discussion and agree to disagree on the meaning of “data.” For you it means life experiences; for me it means facts and statistics.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/10529134/Girls-really-do-mature-quicker-than-boys-scientists-find.html, with the published study, 

https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/25/6/1477/299218?searchresult=1

 

[Eagle94-A1]

24 minutes ago, walk in the woods said:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/10529134/Girls-really-do-mature-quicker-than-boys-scientists-find.html, with the published study, 

https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/25/6/1477/299218?searchresult=1

 

THANK YOU for the plain English version of what I've found which is the 1st link. Everything I've found is from medical databases at work, and extremely technical.

[packsaddle]

WITW, So I took a look at those two references out of curiosity. So The Telegraph article basically is an opinion piece based on scientific articles that are not obviously referenced. The actual scientific article that you gave a link to is dated 2015 while The Telegraph article is dated 2013 which makes me think the scientific article is not the same one referenced by the newspaper. But as the conclusions are probably similar and perhaps better supported by the article in Cerebral Cortex, this difference is probably ok. 

In the Cerebral Cortex article I was struck by the similarity of the analysis to ecological studies that rely heavily on statistical inference. Their data consist of measurements made using tomography and tractography which produces images of the structure of 'slices' through living tissues, in this case brains. Physical measurements of size and position are possible and inferences of connections of different types are also possible. All of this data is then analyzed using, in this case, some basic statistical methods. They relied on a public database of these images and data for their analyses. 

We are all potentially susceptible to what we seem to term 'confirmation bias'. If there is anyone in these forums who hasn't thought, or heard, the generality that female humans seem to mature more quickly than males, with respect to cognitive development as well as other characteristics, then that person has just not been very aware of their surroundings. In education circles, this is a central assumption, mostly based on empirical observations of the actual behaviors of children at different ages. I am wearing my 'skeptic hat' right now so here is what I think about that article:

The authors may be influenced by the 'background' notion that there is a difference. They went looking for it and, wonder of wonders, found it. What did we learn that K-12 teachers don't already know? 

Look at the results. Figure 4, for example, is a map of the resulting differences in their version of the connections. These 'maps' show what? That there is a difference. If anyone thinks these maps are going to become something that we use to make predictions about behavior in the future or how to 'control' it, that is indeed a 'stretch'. 

Figure 5 is totally reminiscent of ecological data because while those regression lines are significant, a casual glance at the scatter of the data indicates that those lines have virtually no predictive power whatsoever. And then these results are employed in creating sweeping 'models' (Figure 7) that look like we have actually mastered the questions of what it all means. LOL, and we certainly haven't, I assure you. 

I was unable to find in the article the words 'hypothesis' or 'experiment'. I was unable to find conditional statements such as, 'if this is true then we should find the following' or 'if this is not true then we should observe the following'. These kinds inquiring statements may be implied but they are not stated and as such, it seems that the authors make the assumption that differences may exist and then they look for them...and find them. All that is just fine except....what do we know as a result of all that, that we didn't already 'know' and use in educational practice? 

My answer to that last question is: not much, if anything. It basically confirms what we already think is there, provides virtually no predictive capacity that we don't already have, and is likely (the absence of pagination suggests an online journal format) to be quickly forgotten as (hopefully) we progress, some day in the future, to a level of real understanding of 'what makes us tick'. This paper makes me think that perhaps we actually haven't progressed all that farther along from employing concepts like 'humors' to explain things. 

But thanks for the link. At least it's nice to see what passes as 'state of the art'. 

Edited October 16, 2018 by packsaddle
typo