Whittling chip policy - dealing with infractions

[malraux]

I’ll be teaching my bear den (and some new arrival webelos) the whittling chip next week. As preparation for that I wanted to give a brief summary for the adult leaders about best practice for handling a perceived infraction. Looking online, the main guidance appears to be 1: can’t cut corners off anymore. and 2: for serious infractions you require a scout to retake the course. Are there any rules about how a leader should handle the immediate situation of a scout being unsafe? My proposed rule is a leader should take the knife and scout to a parent, den leader, cubmaster and explain what you saw so the direct chain leader can take action, but I can’t find documentation. Is there an official policy or do packs have free reign here?

[Saltface]

Feel free to read all nine pages:

 

[FireStone]

I'm glad the clipping corners thing is gone. I never liked that a mistake was permanently marked on something that a Scout should be proud to have earned. We don't permanently mark anything else in the scouting world because of a mistake, even a safety mistake, so I never understood the need to do so with these cards. 

I wouldn't hesitate to take a knife from a scout if a major safety violation is witnessed. I don't care what the official policy is on that, I think safety supersedes all else and until the issue can be adequately dealt with by whoever needs to deal with it (probably DL first), the situation needs to be made safe for all. 

 

[walk in the woods]

17 hours ago, malraux said:

Are there any rules about how a leader should handle the immediate situation of a scout being unsafe?

Don't ask for rules please!  It's a judgement call on whether the scout is doing something intentionally or simply making a mistake.  In the old days, a leader would have stopped the behavior, then treated the situation as an opportunity to talk with and mentor the scout on how to make better decisions.  With that discussion the leader could make a better determination about intent and determining a course of action.  Of course that's way more difficult than just making a zero tolerance rule and taking away the scouts knife.

[malraux]

10 minutes ago, walk in the woods said:

Don't ask for rules please!  It's a judgement call on whether the scout is doing something intentionally or simply making a mistake.  In the old days, a leader would have stopped the behavior, then treated the situation as an opportunity to talk with and mentor the scout on how to make better decisions.  With that discussion the leader could make a better determination about intent and determining a course of action.  Of course that's way more difficult than just making a zero tolerance rule and taking away the scouts knife.

I probably mean guidelines anyway. I agree with the idea of more guidelines and fewer rules.

[Terasec]

while this is a bit old and concerning totin chip

i would say same principle applies to whittling chip

if bsa doesn't mention rules for revoking whittling chip I would leave it up to leaders discretion

https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2013/08/13/ask-the-expert-is-cutting-corners-off-the-totin-chip-allowed/

 

[perdidochas]

18 hours ago, malraux said:

I’ll be teaching my bear den (and some new arrival webelos) the whittling chip next week. As preparation for that I wanted to give a brief summary for the adult leaders about best practice for handling a perceived infraction. Looking online, the main guidance appears to be 1: can’t cut corners off anymore. and 2: for serious infractions you require a scout to retake the course. Are there any rules about how a leader should handle the immediate situation of a scout being unsafe? My proposed rule is a leader should take the knife and scout to a parent, den leader, cubmaster and explain what you saw so the direct chain leader can take action, but I can’t find documentation. Is there an official policy or do packs have free reign here?

It's up to the pack to decide about cutting corners off the Whitlin' chip, per the Link to Scouting magazine.  I think it's a good practice. 

[malraux]

Just now, perdidochas said:

It's up to the pack to decide about cutting corners off the Whitlin' chip, per the Link to Scouting magazine.  I think it's a good practice. 

The newer baloo training specifically says you cannot cut corners. I might disagree with that rule, but it is written down somewhere. (insert complaint about rules being spread across a zillion different documents)

[Eagle94-A1]

19 minutes ago, malraux said:

The newer baloo training specifically says you cannot cut corners. I might disagree with that rule, but it is written down somewhere. (insert complaint about rules being spread across a zillion different documents)

Yes, national policy is that cutting corners on the Whittling Chip  is now prohibited, but no mention of cutting corners on a Totin Chip being prohibited. Currently troops can decide how to deal with Totin Chip.

 

Don't know why that is, but I assume it's because the PLC, which is comprised of Scouts, should be makign that policy as ooposed to adults on the Cub Scout level.

Never heard of it being considerd hazing until the rule came out last year. 

[Treflienne]

1 hour ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Whittling Chip requirements. It specifically states "Pocketknife," not "plastic cutlery knife" not "imitation wooden knife", and not "popsicle sticks."

 

1 hour ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

On a side note, I am also culpable in changing the requirement. I had folks at day camp teaching Whittling Chip with wood carving knives from Paul's Supplies https://pauls-supplies.myshopify.com/collections/knives/products/carving-knife which is technically a fixed blade, not a pocket knife. But at least it was a real knife.

Looks like a nice tool.  

But the kids also need to learn how to open and close a pocket knife without cutting their fingers.   At least my Brownies and Juniors took some practise to be able to do it safely.

And don't knock popsicle sticks as a possible learning tool to be used for a few minutes very early in the learning process.    My girls had to demonstrate that they could listen, pay attention, and  follow directions well enough in opening and closing a fake popsicle-stick mock-knife,  before I handed them a real pocket knife.   This allowed me to identify which kids were going to need more focussed one-on-one supervision as they started using the real knives.

Also:  don't assume that the addition of girls is going to water-down the interest in knives and other traditional scout stuff.   You may find instead that cub scouts and scouts BSA attracts the kind of girls that want to do the things that BSA does.

[qwazse]

@Eagle94-A1, do you have a reference?

I've never dealt with Whittling Chip ... never had one as a bear while whittling my PWD block ... don't think my sons had one. So I never gave much thought as to how it would be used.

[malraux]

2 minutes ago, qwazse said:

@Eagle94-A1, do you have a reference?

I've never dealt with Whittling Chip ... never had one as a bear while whittling my PWD block ... don't think my sons had one. So I never gave much thought as to how it would be used.

https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/training/pdf/510-033(17)baloo.pdf page 72

“ There is no such thing as “cutting a corner off” for infractions. The rules are followed at all times. The Whittling Chip card stays as a complete unit.”

[Thunderbird]

And on page 69:

"Describe how the Whittling Chip, if revoked, must be re-earned as a complete unit in order to again carry and use a pocketknife. The corners cannot be cut off from the Whittling Chip for infractions—the certificate must be treated as a single entity."

[Saltface]

What used to require four perceived infractions in the eyes of an overzealous power-tripping camp counselor can now be accomplished in one perceived infraction. Progress! 

[Eagledad]

12 minutes ago, Saltface said:

What used to require four perceived infractions in the eyes of an overzealous power-tripping camp counselor can now be accomplished in one perceived infraction. Progress! 

Yep, but it's not hazing.

Barry