New girls in Scouting

[Eagledad]

3 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.

Well, I'm not sure what we are disagreeing about. You set a trap to hold me accountable to my opinion. But it was an impossible trap because I was presenting acquired knowledge, not some quick argumentative theory. Acquired knowledge is very powerful and hard to counter without comparative knowledge.  

And maybe I have an unfair advantage, my profession involves acquiring experimental data for public safety. So, I know the difference. 

I've said before, I learned early in life that one has to balance education with life experiences to value both education and life experiences. How does one model moral principles without proving those principles in the experiences of real life? 

I guided our scouts in the same lesson application simply by pushing them into outdoor adventures while balancing their decisions with the Scout Law and Oath.

Sounds simplistic, I know. But life is a mirror that exposes our true nature of character (or lack of it). Once we see who we are, and we learn who we want to be, we have a simple guideline to change. The character habits the scouts developed from those experiences are very real.

Barry

[Eagle94-A1]

1 hour ago, packsaddle said:

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

 

Standard searches I do for my medical and hospital staff goes back 5 years, although on occasion I will search for articles older if requested and/or the older article is the "gold standard" that current research compares to. So how far back do you want me to go?

Also how technical do you want it? Some of the articles I have pulled up have given me a headache trying to understand them. And in all honesty some of the articles may be only understood by a neurologist or neurosurgeon.

Right now I am looking at comparing male and female adolescents and their behaviors and development using research within the past 5 years. Do I need to modify this any?

 

 

[ianwilkins]

13 hours ago, Eagledad said:

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

I believe you. But it doesn't matter really. I just treat all my Explorer Scouts as individuals, and I seem to get by with that, so the more mature get treated in a more mature way, and those that haven't matured yet don't. I treat the exuberant ones different to the quiet ones, etc etc. Much as I assume most of you do with your boys at the moment.

[packsaddle]

Eagle94-A1, 

I wouldn't know the answer to your question as it is not my field. I looked at that paper through the eyes of a journal editor, not as a neurophysiologist. Sorry, wish I could help more. 

The one thing I feel safe in saying is that in another 5 years, things will likely have changed greatly. What we have done in the recent past may look primitive in comparison.

[walk in the woods]

2 hours ago, packsaddle said:

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'. 

If you look closely, you'll see the Journal date is 2015 but the published date is 2013.  Not uncommon for a journal article to publish online long before it makes a print edition.  the title given in the Telegraph article is exactly the same, with the same authors, of the second link I provided.  

Quote

Cerebral Cortex, Volume 25, Issue 6, 1 June 2015, Pages 1477–1489,https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bht333

Published: 15 December 2013

I suppose the authors could be biased, along with the folks who did the peer review, and the editors/reviewers at the journal (published by OUP).  It happens to the best journals.  This particular article has been cited over 20 times according to NIH (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4428296/citedby/). 

So, the argument made was there is no difference in the development of boys and girls.  A scholarly article, published in a peer reviewed journal, and cited over 20 times, suggests that's not the case.  It's now the person who made the original claim to do the research to refute my response, you know, with actual data and studies and such.

[Tired_Eagle_Feathers]

I've been reading up on this "Family Scouting" stuff.
https://i9peu1ikn3a16vg4e45rqi17-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Family-Scouting_Infographic_v10-1.pdf

I think it's pretty clear that the primary driving force here is decades of declining membership.  But the infographic states that the rationale is that families are so busy that they would prefer a "one stop solution" for Scouting.  As the father of a son and daughter, and my wife is the troop leader for her Girl Scout troop and my son is in Cub Scouts, I agree, it would be great to have just one activity to juggle in the schedule!

But it does not look to me like BSA Family Scouting achieves that at all.  If your children are still in separate Dens or Troops, then what schedule consolidation has happened?  Where is the convenience over just staying in BSA/GSA?

 

[Jameson76]

28 minutes ago, Tired_Eagle_Feathers said:

I've been reading up on this "Family Scouting" stuff.
https://i9peu1ikn3a16vg4e45rqi17-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Family-Scouting_Infographic_v10-1.pdf

I think it's pretty clear that the primary driving force here is decades of declining membership.  But the infographic states that the rationale is that families are so busy that they would prefer a "one stop solution" for Scouting.  As the father of a son and daughter, and my wife is the troop leader for her Girl Scout troop and my son is in Cub Scouts, I agree, it would be great to have just one activity to juggle in the schedule!

But it does not look to me like BSA Family Scouting achieves that at all.  If your children are still in separate Dens or Troops, then what schedule consolidation has happened?  Where is the convenience over just staying in BSA/GSA?

 

Note the wording on the infographic:

• are interested in a program like Cub Scouts for their daughters
• are interested in a program like Boy Scouts® for their daughters

They do not say they are specifically interested in CUBS or SCOUTS...just a program LIKE Scouts.  So who knows what sort of program that may be.

[Treflienne]

34 minutes ago, Tired_Eagle_Feathers said:

If your children are still in separate Dens or Troops, then what schedule consolidation has happened?  Where is the convenience over just staying in BSA/GSA?

I see that there is a certain amount of consolidation, especially for kids who are close enough in age to be in cubs at the same time.  

 The kids will occasionally do things together:  both dens at the same pack meetings and whole-pack activities,  rather than the boy cub den doing pack-wide activities with the pack and the girl Brownie Troop doing service-unit-wide activites with the girl scout service unit.

The adults only need to learn one set of program materials,  one set of safety standards, do  only need one registration,  and one background check,  and somewhat overlapping trainings,  to help with more than one kid.   

(By the way, the camp director of our local Girl Scout camp,  who was a trainer of archery instructors (USA Archery),  used to complain that she could not help her sons' boy scout troop with archery unless she did more training, because she had not completed the BSA archery training.)

[Tired_Eagle_Feathers]

3 minutes ago, Treflienne said:

I see that there is a certain amount of consolidation, especially for kids who are close enough in age to be in cubs at the same time.  

 The kids will occasionally do things together:  both dens at the same pack meetings and whole-pack activities,  rather than the boy cub den doing pack-wide activities with the pack and the girl Brownie Troop doing service-unit-wide activites with the girl scout service unit.

The adults only need to learn one set of program materials,  one set of safety standards, do  only need one registration,  and one background check,  and somewhat overlapping trainings,  to help with more than one kid.   

(By the way, the camp director of our local Girl Scout camp,  who was a trainer of archery instructors (USA Archery),  used to complain that she could not help her sons' boy scout troop with archery unless she did more training, because she had not completed the BSA archery training.)

Yeah, I considered some of the consolidation, but it seems to me that there isn't enough to make it worthwhile.  Basically the pack meeting and the annual pack campout. 

My wife's big complaint (and mine too) is that as a Girl Scout Troop they were very gung-ho about getting certified trained people since my daughter started around kindergarten and they do way more stuff than Cub Scouts even dream about.  My wife was so annoyed when she thumbed through the Weblos book and got so excited when she saw the pictures of kids in canoes only to discover that Cub Scouts can't actually use canoes like the Girl Scouts do.  We've gotten to the point where we refer to Cub Scouts as Can't Scouts.

[Eagle94-A1]

6 minutes ago, Treflienne said:

(By the way, the camp director of our local Girl Scout camp,  who was a trainer of archery instructors (USA Archery),  used to complain that she could not help her sons' boy scout troop with archery unless she did more training, because she had not completed the BSA archery training.)

Whomever told her that was grossly misinformed. USA Archery Certifications are valid with the BSA. I know the 2015 Shooting Sports Guide specifically mentions them, and as far back as at least 2010 that was the case.

[Ranman328]

14 hours ago, packsaddle said:

Riding a hatchet? Ouch! 😂

might be funny to watch

[Treflienne]

7 hours ago, Tired_Eagle_Feathers said:

Yeah, I considered some of the consolidation, but it seems to me that there isn't enough to make it worthwhile.  Basically the pack meeting and the annual pack campout. 

My wife's big complaint (and mine too) is that as a Girl Scout Troop they were very gung-ho about getting certified trained people since my daughter started around kindergarten and they do way more stuff than Cub Scouts even dream about.  My wife was so annoyed when she thumbed through the Weblos book and got so excited when she saw the pictures of kids in canoes only to discover that Cub Scouts can't actually use canoes like the Girl Scouts do.  We've gotten to the point where we refer to Cub Scouts as Can't Scouts.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

It sounds like your daughter has a great (girl) scout troop.    Sounds like something to stick with.    With a core group on enthusiastic girls and adults they can stick with traditional outdoor-oriented girl scouting,  and simply ignore any of the new program materials they don't like.

Unfortunately highly active outdoor-focussed girl scout troops are uncommon in my area. 

[Eagle94-A1]

18 minutes ago, Treflienne said:

Unfortunately highly active outdoor-focussed girl scout troops are uncommon in my area. 

i do not think outdoor focused GSUSA troops are common at all. Otherwise BSA would not have gone coed.

[Tired_Eagle_Feathers]

23 minutes ago, Treflienne said:

It sounds like your daughter has a great (girl) scout troop.    Sounds like something to stick with.   

Oh there's no fear on that account.  My wife basically pilfered all my old scouting handbooks to use for her Girl Scout troop.  She is very hard core.  The funny thing is (well, not so funny) that we do more activities when we go on Girl Scout trips (my son and myself also) than when we go on most Cub Scout activities.

I'm kind of just marking time until we move up to Boy Scouts next year.

Steve

[Chadamus]

2 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

i do not think outdoor focused GSUSA troops are common at all. Otherwise BSA would not have gone coed opened the program to girls.

Slight correction for those just tuning in. 😉