What is the future of Training?

[LeCastor]

Might you permit me to resurrect this topic?

Training is very near and dear to my heart, as I believe it helps Scouts and Scouters stay on the trail, as it were. However, I have seen a steady decline in the number of Scouters showing up for training despite the plethora of opportunities on the Council and District calendars. Locally, we have so many in-person training opportunities that it tends to confuse people to the point of paralysis and, in the end, no one registers for the classes and, as a consequence, the training opportunities are cancelled. 

I often hear folks say adults and youth are busier today than they used to be. That might be true but I don't think to the extent we make it out to be. We are just so accustomed to the speed of Amazon Prime and similar online things that we expect training to be pre-packaged and one size fits all. Scouters today don't seem to see the value in spending multiple hours in a classroom at the local church basement to receive "training." And I have to admit that even typing the world "value" here makes me shiver because I believe continuous training, or continuing education, should be a given in our avocation of Scouting Service.

Lately, I've been trying to think of ways to revive the desire to go to training opportunities. Our local University of Scouting is always well-attended and that is six full hours of learning. But what I think UofS sells is an "experience" rather than "training." I believe that the words we use are important and it might be that we should be re-wording our learning opportunities and moving away from "training." It appears to me that new Scouters are scared away by the concept of training and that's likely because there seems to be a you-will-do-this mandate from somewhere (National? Local Council?). Youth Protection Training is a given but I think we could do a better job selling "the Why" of training.

If we could make position-specific/outdoor training more of an "experience" than a class...we just might get more people there. As I said in another thread on training recently, it's all in the approach. 

Maybe we could revisit this question. What is the future of experiential learning for Scouters?

[cocomax]

I have been with a troop for 9 years and a pack for 6, I have sat around countless camp fires talking to old time scouters about how to scout and I read every book about scouting I can get my hands on.  I am always learning, I always want to know more, I want to know how to do things better.  Every problem that comes up is a chance to learn something. 

[cocomax]

I think the best scouter training I have ever had has been the weeks that I spent at summer camp.  I also had the chance at camp to sometimes be the wise old scouter and pass on many of the interesting things I have learned about the game of scouting to scouters of all ages and experience levels.  

My goal is to know the current BSA rules and guidelines and then at the same time follow the lead of Green Bar Bill as much as possible and keep the game of scouting as fun as possible for both the boys and scouters around me.

The training classes are a good introduction to scouting, but they are only the beginning of the journey.

[LeCastor]

12 minutes ago, cocomax said:

The training classes are a good introduction to scouting, but they are only the beginning of the journey.

Yes, I completely agree. There's never going to be one class that makes you an expert, and I really don't think anyone could expect that as an outcome. But the issue I see is that Scouters aren't going to the introductory training "classes." As a result, we don't have youth-facing adults with the base knowledge they should have to effectively deliver the promise of Scouting. The point I'm trying to make is that the introductory training courses could be approached from a more experiential method of teaching as opposed to PowerPoints and videos. 

The fact that you, @cocomax, seek further knowledge and enjoy gathering knowledge around the campfire makes my heart sing. That you appreciate the GBB, too, makes me happy. When I teach Scouters I almost always include a reading by Bill and try to keep his wisdom alive and well. 

So, I think events like University of Scouting, where in-person continuing education is available for all who wish to learn, are invaluable to the formation of a Scouter. But getting people to invest the time for the introductory courses is becoming more and more difficult. How do we change that?

[Oldscout448]

1 hour ago, cocomax said:

I think the best scouter training I have ever had has been the weeks that I spent at summer camp.  I also had the chance at camp to sometimes be the wise old scouter and pass on many of the interesting things I have learned about the game of scouting to scouters of all ages and experience levels.  

My goal is to know the current BSA rules and guidelines and then at the same time follow the lead of Green Bar Bill as much as possible and keep the game of scouting as fun as possible for both the boys and scouters around me.

The training classes are a good introduction to scouting, but they are only the beginning of the journey.

Amen!!   This cannot  be said to often

[Eagle94-A1]

Sadly I am seeing too many folks with the attitude, " I don't need training because....." and then give their excuses. I admit, I didn't learn much at the SM Fundamentals Course I took except the paperwork side. But meeting new folks, and modeling the behavior not only helped the other new Scouters, but also gave me a baseline to interact with other adults. 

On the opposite side of the coin, I have people go through training, then don't have the patience to follow through with it. I have been told " Scouting needs to change with the times," and "it won't work with this group." In both cases, I've shaken the dust off my boots and continued on my trail.

As others have mentioned, learning from other expereinced Scouters' stories around the campfire drinking coffee or hot cocoa have provided some of the best lessons on how to be a Scouter.

[desertrat77]

One of the biggest challenges to getting people trained is the quality of the training itself. 

Training courses tend to be staffed by people that thrive while on district/council cadres, but they are not necessarily "doers" at the unit level.   A new scouter can pick that up.

Word spreads quickly.

[RememberSchiff]

28 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

As others have mentioned, learning from other expereinced Scouters' stories around the campfire drinking coffee or hot cocoa have provided some of the best lessons on how to be a Scouter.

Back in the day, camporee Cracker Barrels were noted for poker and fellowship (I guess it is called networking today). Most were WW2 or  Korea veterans who understood "we're in this together..."  Problems were discussed , resources accessed, and cooperative solutions developed outside of the camporee schedule. The next day, scouts or scouters from another troop might magically appear bearing skills and knowledge we were lacking like patrol method, Morse code or lashing.  Imagine the PL of the patrol who won the camporee competition stopping by to teach our scouts.  

My $0.02

[cocomax]

All scouters need to make sure they know the basics of scouting by heart, I am glad I took the UofS classes just to make sure I was not incorrect on some point or lacking on some other point.

All but one of the classes I took was taught by a new and nervous cub scout leader and consisted of her handing out copies of the class syllabus and then reading the syllabus point by point.  If anyone had a question they would have use reread the part of the syllabus that sort of covered that question or simply say "I don't know" or "that is not covered in this class".

We were told at the beginning of the classes that there was to be "no comments from the peanut gallery" because that would spread misinformation. 

I was fascinated by the whole thing,  watching the reaction of the students. I kept thinking, how did we get to this point in scouting, can this be made any more boring. 

On the bright, side I pretty much memorized the syllabus.

    

 

Edited November 11, 2018 by cocomax

[Eagledad]

1 hour ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Sadly I am seeing too many folks with the attitude, " I don't need training because....." and then give their excuses. I admit, I didn't learn much at the SM Fundamentals Course I took except the paperwork side. But meeting new folks, and modeling the behavior not only helped the other new Scouters, but also gave me a baseline to interact with other adults. 

On the opposite side of the coin, I have people go through training, then don't have the patience to follow through with it. I have been told " Scouting needs to change with the times," and "it won't work with this group." In both cases, I've shaken the dust off my boots and continued on my trail.

As others have mentioned, learning from other expereinced Scouters' stories around the campfire drinking coffee or hot cocoa have provided some of the best lessons on how to be a Scouter.

When the new Scoutmaster Fundamentals came out in 2000, all the district training chairs (and anyone willing) were asked to participate in the short 9 hour course presented by Council for evaluation. I chose to pass.😎The evaluations were that it was way too long and too boring. Ok, I knew the presenter. He once bragged about putting  a colony of ants to sleep reading “The Night Before Christmas”.  So I was skeptical on the boring part. But 9 hours of anything was not going to inspire busy adults to participate.

Our district approached the course by dividing the syllabus up into 3 parts over a Friday night and Saturday morning. We used 3 presenters who were experienced Scoutmasters and professional college level teachers. Well, 2 teachers and a colorful engineer. Then we brought lots of food and drinks and took lots of breaks. We broke up the horrible PowerPoint slides with a few pictures of our own experiences. We basically turned the course into as much of a campfire telling stories as we could. The reputation of the course carried far enough that scouters from other districts and councils participated. 

Barry

[LeCastor]

1 hour ago, Eagledad said:

We broke up the horrible PowerPoint slides with a few pictures of our own experiences. We basically turned the course into as much of a campfire telling stories as we could. The reputation of the course carried far enough that scouters from other districts and councils participated. 

 

I do this, too. So, I'm pretty sure the future of experiential training is, in essence, using the syllabus as a jumping off point and then making the experience unique to the presenters and learners. In my final Scoutmaster's minute on Gilwell Field I expressed to the Troop that our Wood Badge course will never happen again because the course was unique. Each staffer and each learner shaped our course and made it our own. @desertrat77 is absolutely correct that the presenters can make or break the training experience, so District Training Chairs must take this into account and make wise decisions.

[ParkMan]

35 minutes ago, LeCastor said:

I do this, too. So, I'm pretty sure the future of experiential training is, in essence, using the syllabus as a jumping off point and then making the experience unique to the presenters and learners. In my final Scoutmaster's minute on Gilwell Field I expressed to the Troop that our Wood Badge course will never happen again because the course was unique. Each staffer and each learner shaped our course and made it our own. @desertrat77 is absolutely correct that the presenters can make or break the training experience, so District Training Chairs must take this into account and make wise decisions.

I think this is the key.  The training syllabus is simply the starting point.  I've come to understand the best courses are those where the trainer takes the material and then adds their experience.  

It's all about quality in my mind.  An instructor needs to add value over taking it online or not at all.  The online courses add something over not taking it at all.  A live instructor has the potential to add much more - but it only happens when the instructor really invests them self in building a great course.

I remember one evening with some of the "senior staff" on one of our Wood Badge courses.  They were telling some stories about their earliest courses.  In those stories I realized that they, at one point in time, had really invested themselves in making our Wood Badge courses outstanding.  The energy, enthusiasm, and preparation they embodied was inspiring as a newer staff member.  I came back to one of our district courses and realized that this same desire to make it the "best course ever" was not present.  That's not a critique of our district courses - we've got good instructors.  It's just that this group of Wood Badge staff really strived to make it the best they could.  Participants - whether they liked the syllabus or not - knew that they staff was prepared.  They saw that every presentation had been prepared by hand, reviewed, and rehearsed multiple times.  As a staff it was more work - sure.  But it was fun too.  I'm not sure how to encourage this at the district level with basic training - but my sense is that this would help.  

[Eagledad]

56 minutes ago, ParkMan said:

As a staff it was more work - sure.  But it was fun too.  I'm not sure how to encourage this at the district level with basic training - but my sense is that this would help.  

You encourage it by starting with someone with the vision. Either that person develops the training committee, or recruits someone to develop the training committee to the vision. 

It has to start with the vision.

Barry

Edited November 11, 2018 by Eagledad

[LeCastor]

22 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

It has to start with the vision.

Now we're cooking with white gas!  Thanks, @Eagledad!