Woodbadge for Me

[ParkMan]

It's time for the BSA to stop referring to moms or dads or male Scouters or female Scouters.  It's just Scouters.  You want to have the BSA change the conversation, this is one way.

Almost never does gender matter in these discussions.  The only time you should ever need to refer to gender is to point to the facilities - other than that, gender should never be referenced.

Why?  The core issues we are discussing - inexperience among adults, youth experience in the program, hovering parents, really have nothing to do with gender - those problems are generic.  When we start adding gender in, we start becoming divisive. The conversation quickly gets distracted from the main issue - dealing with the behavior patterns we are trying to describe.  I think we'd be better off the BSA simply stopped the practice of using gender labels in conversation altogether.

Edited October 19, 2020 by ParkMan
typos

[Eagledad]

10 minutes ago, yknot said:

I understand your point to some degree but it doesn't take much browsing on this forum to find comments from posters who take issue with the inclusion of women and later girls to the program.

I look forward to you new thread. But, it wasn't about physical skills or different experience as you imply, it was about how the natural youth brain learns from what it observes. The discussion was more about quality of growth, not about levels of quality sexism.

For a discussion to be productive, both sides have to be open minded, and in my opinion, this discussion has proven that not all participants are willing to be open minded. 

Barry

[yknot]

2 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

I look forward to you new thread. But, it wasn't about physical skills or different experience as you imply, it was about how the natural youth brain learns from what it observes. The discussion was more about quality of growth, not about levels of quality sexism.

For a discussion to be productive, both sides have to be open minded, and in my opinion, this discussion has proven that not all participants are willing to be open minded. 

Barry

Boy, Eagle Dad, once again you've stopped me in my tracks. I literally do not know how to take your comments. When you combine the words you just did in a single paragraph, it is inherently sexist.  How does quality of growth not implicate sexism when you are talking about natural youth brains? I think you may have misspoke. Or at least I hope you did. 

[Eagle94-A1]

55 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

It has also been discussed that with admittance of gays and girls, a lot of experienced scouters would leave the program, leading to a larger percentage of inexperienced parents in the program.

At least in my neck of the woods, sad, but true. We lost a lot of experienced Scouters, and have not recovered yet.

One challenge the remaining experienced Scouters are having is that the inexperienced folks want things their way. No matter what type of training you do for them, counselling or discussion you have with them, they will tell you Scouting needs to change with the times and their way is better, ignore you, or become downright nasty with you. I have had inexperienced adults threaten to leave if they didn't get their way, thus stranding Scouts and ruining program. I have been yelled that I don't know what I am doing when i have tried to talk to some folks.

[ParkMan]

8 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

At least in my neck of the woods, sad, but true. We lost a lot of experienced Scouters, and have not recovered yet.

One challenge the remaining experienced Scouters are having is that the inexperienced folks want things their way. No matter what type of training you do for them, counselling or discussion you have with them, they will tell you Scouting needs to change with the times and their way is better, ignore you, or become downright nasty with you. I have had inexperienced adults threaten to leave if they didn't get their way, thus stranding Scouts and ruining program. I have been yelled that I don't know what I am doing when i have tried to talk to some folks.

Ahh - I find it an interesting challenge in the context of a topic that started about Wood Badge.  In fact, this is one of those things that the current version tries to prepare leaders for.  

[BlueandSilverBear]

1 hour ago, Eagledad said:

Yes, there has always been unexperienced dads joining the program, it just wasn't an issue until moms scouters increased the size of the resource pool. And, we predicted here on this forum that more unexperienced dads would join the program once their daughters were allowed. Which is ironic because the GSUSA has a reputation of not being welcoming to dads.  

I would love to actually see the data on the youth experience of dads who join with daughters.  By default, moms who joined with sons have zero youth pack or troop BSA experience.  Its a non-zero percentage for dads of daughters.  I would also expect some selection bias as far as girls who join BSA programs, in that their families were already exposed to scouting through either a dad's or brother's involvement.

[yknot]

1 minute ago, BlueandSilverBear said:

I would love to actually see the data on the youth experience of dads who join with daughters.  By default, moms who joined with sons have zero youth pack or troop BSA experience.  Its a non-zero percentage for dads of daughters.  I would also expect some selection bias as far as girls who join BSA programs, in that their families were already exposed to scouting through either a dad's or brother's involvement.

Careful there. Some of us were tagalongs or grew up in families with scouting dads, brothers, cousins, etc. The full experience? No. Exposure to components and the process and some experiences? Yes. 

[yknot]

2 minutes ago, yknot said:

Careful there. Some of us were tagalongs or grew up in families with scouting dads, brothers, cousins, etc. The full experience? No. Exposure to components and the process and some experiences? Yes. 

To elaborate on this, I learned archery, and many other things, with scouts. That was back in the day when the local troop did archery in the local park. My love for scouting is based on how kind and patient my older neighbors were in letting me tagalong and do what they did. 

[Eagledad]

1 hour ago, yknot said:

Boy, Eagle Dad, once again you've stopped me in my tracks. I literally do not know how to take your comments. When you combine the words you just did in a single paragraph, it is inherently sexist.  How does quality of growth not implicate sexism when you are talking about natural youth brains? I think you may have misspoke. Or at least I hope you did. 

The question is does one gender of youth instinctively learn better from the same gender role model. Some experts say yes and that is where many of those discussions came from. Is bringing that point into the discussion sexist?

The reality is that quality of growth depending on the gender role model is secondary to an organization using both genders to influence growth.

Barry

[yknot]

3 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

The question is does one gender of youth instinctively learn better from the same gender role model. Some experts say yes and that is where many of those discussions came from. Is bringing that point into the discussion sexist?

The reality is that quality of growth depending on the gender role model is secondary to an organization using both genders to influence growth.

Barry

OK I think I get what you are saying. You are talking about some of the research that shows that boys learn better from male teachers?  As a parent of two boys I would agree there is something to that. However, there is also research showing that women are far less likely to abuse children and abuse has a tremendously negative effect on ability to learn in both genders. There is also the teacher gene at play. Some people are inherently good at teaching and managing children. Others, despite whatever degrees or training they have, are not. There are also teachers, male or female, who seem to be better at teaching either boys or girls and it doesn't track at all by gender. And I use teacher loosely here -- I mean anyone who takes on the responsibility to interact with children in an extramural role.  I think these kinds of studies are worth noting and keeping under the belt, but I think we have to be careful of lasering in too tightly on one consideration because producing decent young human beings is tremendously complex and what works or doesn't work is multifactorial. 

[TAHAWK]

5 hours ago, David CO said:

That may be true, but the bowling club, the tennis club, and the soccer team don't usually charter boy scout units.  Chartered Organizations charter boy scout units, and many of them are churches.  Religious and moral beliefs are a big deal to the churches.  

All of our sports teams begin each game with a public prayer.  This is very common in Catholic schools.  Our religion is a big part of every activity we do.  That includes sports and scouting.

These issues may not be a big deal for all of our kids.  They might not even be a big deal for all of our parents.  But they are definitely a big deal for many of the Chartered Organizations.

 

The VAST majority of units in this area are chartered to religious entities - well over 80%.  The percentage took a big jump up when public schools: a) decided they were legally barred from chartering BSA units; and b) "educators" became overwhelming hostile to BSA as described by BSA.  I was last allowed to recruit (pamphlet) on public school property in Cleveland Heights, Ohio in 1987.  

Edited October 19, 2020 by TAHAWK

[David CO]

1 hour ago, yknot said:

women are far less likely to abuse children 

The most likely abuser is not an adult, male or female.  The most likely abuser is another child.

 

[CynicalScouter]

11 minutes ago, David CO said:

The most likely abuser is not an adult, male or female.  The most likely abuser is another child.

Source?

EDIT: The data I saw was that AT MOST 40-43% of abusers were other children.

Quote

As many as 40% of children who are sexually abused are abused by older, or more powerful children. 12The younger the child victim, the more likely it is that the perpetrator is a juvenile. Juveniles are the offenders in 43% of assaults on children under age six. Of these offenders, 14% are under age 12.9

Finkelhor, D. (2012). Characteristics of crimes against juveniles. Durham, NH: Crimes against Children Research Center

Snyder, H. N. (2000). Sexual assault of young children as reported to law enforcement: Victim, incident, and offender characteristics. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved January 12, 2009 fromhttp://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/saycrle.pd

Edited October 19, 2020 by CynicalScouter

[yknot]

6 minutes ago, David CO said:

The most likely abuser is not an adult, male or female.  The most likely abuser is another child.

 

That's only true in about 40% of the cases and in those cases the abusers are predominately male. Additionally, most of those cases are connected to adolescent exploration of sexuality and there is not the same threat/power/victim factors involved. However you bring up a really good point because that is why BSA instituted the two year tent camping rule. Older children can victimize younger children. However, it still certainly occurs among children who are of the same calendar age but have developed and grown differently.  

[CynicalScouter]

5 hours ago, ParkMan said:

it's their youth program.

But that's the point I asked in another thread about following rules.

Quote

Mindset 1: You are an independent entity running YOUR youth program that happens to be using BSA's MATERIALS (including logos, images, names, and ranks).

Mindset 2: You are a unit leader/unit committee chair/chartered organization/registered adult leader that is running a BSA program.

It isn't the CO's "youth program". If the only limitation you want to impose is "don't meddle with advancement" then you don't have a cohesive organization or program. Unit A can decide it will do away with BSA's Youth Protection, Unit B can be limited to only white children, etc.

Then you don't have Boy Scouts of America. You've got an off the shelf, customizable mess in which anyone can slap the label on their program and call it "Boy Scouts" or "Scouts, BSA."

Edited October 20, 2020 by CynicalScouter