Citizenship in Society "Soft Release"; Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Repackaged?

[HelpfulTracks]

14 minutes ago, yknot said:

My feeling is that if you feel like you have to defend teasing, it is probably best not done. Kids are always in a subordinate position to adults and it's hard to get a true read of what they really think even when you think you do.

That's a nice circular argument. So if you say something I disagree with, by posting a rebuttal I prove you correct? 

16 minutes ago, yknot said:

Kid on kid teasing is even worse. Kids today have a very strange social and cultural lanscape to navigate. Their counterparts in the 1960s may have had to worry about physical landmines; kids today have to be vigilant about not putting a foot wrong and hitting a social landmine. Say the wrong word or post the wrong thing on social media, and your life can be blown up. Kids are very unsure about where the lines are drawn. 

Here in lies the problem, youth have always had problems to deal with, they may be different problems, but that have always had issues starring them in the face. Do you think it was easier on the youth of the 1920's and 30's who lived through a depression, where the very existence of food and shelter was a daily question? What about the 1930's and 40's. where climate change was so bad parts of 3 states where just blown away by the wind, the constant thread of war. The 1950's and 60's where they were living with learning to hide under their desk in case of nuclear attack. What about the war, social upheaval and racial strife of the 60's and 70's, and inflation so bad mom and dad were sure they could put food on the table. 

No, we do not need to teach youth that having problems makes them unique. Yes, their generations problems may be unique, but having problems is not. And just like those previous generations, we will find a way to deal with their problems. Imagine how horrifying it must be when people keep telling our youth that their problems are so much greater than anyone before them have faced. Imagine how comforting it would be to hear, yes, you are facing problems, but other before you have faced problems to an over come them. 

21 minutes ago, yknot said:

Bullying today is decided by the recipient, not the deliverer. 

This is singularly one of the most damaging concept of the age. Bullying needs to be held to an objective standard not a subjective one. If everyone gets to determine what they think bullying is, then anything and everything can be called bullying. 

If you are going to substitute the subjective for the objective you end up the this absurdly plausible scenario. 

The "recipient" decides he is being bullied and reports it. The "deliverer" says they are not bullying at all. That in fact, the "recipient" is bullying him by merely accusing him of bullying.

The "recipient" may not like how the "deliverer" treats them, but that does not make the treatment bullying simply because he declares it so.

[yknot]

3 hours ago, HelpfulTracks said:

That's a nice circular argument. So if you say something I disagree with, by posting a rebuttal I prove you correct? 

It's not circular to me. If I feel like I have to explain or defend what I said to a kid, I probably shouldn't have said it in the first place. 

3 hours ago, HelpfulTracks said:

Here in lies the problem, youth have always had problems to deal with, they may be different problems, but that have always had issues starring them in the face. Do you think it was easier on the youth of the 1920's and 30's who lived through a depression, where the very existence of food and shelter was a daily question? What about the 1930's and 40's. where climate change was so bad parts of 3 states where just blown away by the wind, the constant thread of war. The 1950's and 60's where they were living with learning to hide under their desk in case of nuclear attack. What about the war, social upheaval and racial strife of the 60's and 70's, and inflation so bad mom and dad were sure they could put food on the table. 

That's why kids are different. That's my point. BSA's own membership numbers show that it has been struggling to connect with kids in recent decades. It's not just me saying kids are different. Other youth organizations seem to be doing a better job of adapting to this. A lot of organizations saw declining membership as the numbers of school age kids dropped, but none so precipitous as BSA. And many other new youth organizations have sprung up to meet some of these changing needs and interests. 

3 hours ago, HelpfulTracks said:

No, we do not need to teach youth that having problems makes them unique. Yes, their generations problems may be unique, but having problems is not. And just like those previous generations, we will find a way to deal with their problems. Imagine how horrifying it must be when people keep telling our youth that their problems are so much greater than anyone before them have faced. Imagine how comforting it would be to hear, yes, you are facing problems, but other before you have faced problems to an over come them. 

Again, I disagree. Not acknowledging that kids have different worries and stressors today isn't helpful. 

3 hours ago, HelpfulTracks said:

This is singularly one of the most damaging concept of the age. Bullying needs to be held to an objective standard not a subjective one. If everyone gets to determine what they think bullying is, then anything and everything can be called bullying. 

If you are going to substitute the subjective for the objective you end up the this absurdly plausible scenario. 

The "recipient" decides he is being bullied and reports it. The "deliverer" says they are not bullying at all. That in fact, the "recipient" is bullying him by merely accusing him of bullying.

The "recipient" may not like how the "deliverer" treats them, but that does not make the treatment bullying simply because he declares it so.

I don't know if you have school age children or not but you must not have encountered HIB laws in your state. In the school system at least, bullying is not held to an objective standard. Pretty much anything and everything IS called bullying today, and kids have to navigate that. BSA needs to align with their reality,. I think it does on paper, but in practice in units where old attitudes hold sway, it can still be very mixed messaging and there are problematic experiences for some scouts. Don't get me started on the tea pot song. 

[HelpfulTracks]

29 minutes ago, yknot said:

It's not circular to me. If I feel like I have to explain or defend what I said to a kid, I probably shouldn't have said it in the first place. 

yknot, I don't know what to tell you, it's a classic example of circular argument. 

Here, I will use your logic. I made a statement that you made a circular argument. You replied to explain/defend that it is not a circular argument. You doing so only proves you are wrong. 

That is a logical fallacy and a circular argument. 

But that is fine, we will just have to agree to disagree.

29 minutes ago, yknot said:

That's why kids are different. That's my point. BSA's own membership numbers show that it has been struggling to connect with kids in recent decades. It's not just me saying kids are different. Other youth organizations seem to be doing a better job of adapting to this. A lot of organizations saw declining membership as the numbers of school age kids dropped, but none so precipitous as BSA. And many other new youth organizations have sprung up to meet some of these changing needs and interests. 

Yes, the numbers have dropped. There are numerous reason that have been enumerated on this site and others.  More dual income homes, more sports options, increased time spent in sports, more club options, changes in the BSA program, the internet, 157 TV channels, video games, etc.

29 minutes ago, yknot said:

Again, I disagree. Not acknowledging that kids have different worries and stressors today isn't helpful. 

Again, as I stated, their problems are different, even unique, but they are not unique because they have problems. 

29 minutes ago, yknot said:

I don't know if you have school age children or not but you must not have encountered HIB laws in your state. In the school system at least, bullying is not held to an objective standard. Pretty much anything and everything IS called bullying today, and kids have to navigate that. BSA needs to align with their reality,. I think it does on paper, but in practice in units where old attitudes hold sway, it can still be very mixed messaging and there are problematic experiences for some scouts. Don't get me started on the tea pot song. 

Yes, I do have school age children.

And yes, you make my point. If, as you say, the "recipient" determines what bulling is, then "Pretty much anything and everything IS called bullying."

Here is the problem with your argument when it goes to court , the "recipient"  is no longer determining what is and is not bullying, a judge or jury is. Furthermore, if someone is convicted of said crime, another courts is likely going to be asked if the standard used to convict was objective or subject (with allowances for some subjectivity). That court is likely to toss a conviction if there is not a sufficiently narrowly defined objective standard . 

So, as I stated, an individual does not get to determine what constitutes bullying, at least not from the perspective of curtailing bullying. 

[yknot]

 

1 hour ago, HelpfulTracks said:

Yes, I do have school age children.

And yes, you make my point. If, as you say, the "recipient" determines what bulling is, then "Pretty much anything and everything IS called bullying."

Here is the problem with your argument when it goes to court , the "recipient"  is no longer determining what is and is not bullying, a judge or jury is. Furthermore, if someone is convicted of said crime, another courts is likely going to be asked if the standard used to convict was objective or subject (with allowances for some subjectivity). That court is likely to toss a conviction if there is not a sufficiently narrowly defined objective standard . 

So, as I stated, an individual does not get to determine what constitutes bullying, at least not from the perspective of curtailing bullying. 

Where are you getting this information?

They don't "convict" school age children of bullying. Generally cases of harassment, intimidation, and bullying are handled within the district and disciplined with detention or suspension and/or referred for counseling. The only time it would go to court is if a parent sues.

The issue for today's kids, though, as I have been commenting about so frequently to you that it does feel like I am on a replay loop, is that almost anything can be interpreted as bullying or microaggression. The recipient definitely controls what is perceived as bullying because all they have to do is report it and it instantly triggers a process.  It is therefore very confusing for a kid to be given a pass by adults to tease in scouting when the same behavior in school would result in discipline. On the flip side, a kid on the receiving end of teasing in scouting can be disoriented when adults seem to turn a blind eye. There are a lot of kids for whom those situations don't help build character, they just quit, which brings me to membership. 

As far as membership,  every other youth organization has faced the same pressures scouting has and yet so many of them are faring better.  4-H for example still has 4 million kids or thereabouts. 4-H, despite waning agricultural roots, has done a really good job of navigating changing times and still staying relevant to present day youth. 

Kids do think their problems are more insurmountable today despite what you believe and the statistics on youth depression and suicide bear that out.  It's a whole other discussion as to why and whether it actually is true, but that is their reality. 

[MikeS72]

4 hours ago, yknot said:

I don't know if you have school age children or not but you must not have encountered HIB laws in your state. In the school system at least, bullying is not held to an objective standard. Pretty much anything and everything IS called bullying today, and kids have to navigate that.

Not sure what state you live in, but here our local schools require bullying training for all staff and students.  As a part of that training, there are several things that must be present for behavior to be classified as bullying.  

1.  The behavior must be unwanted or unwelcome.  2.  There must be a real or perceived imbalance of power.  3.  The behavior either is, or has the potential to be, repeated over time.

On that 3rd point, the repeated behaviors do not have to be leveled at the same student every time it occurs.  For example, if we have an older student who makes it a habit to knock the books out of a much younger student's hands, it does not matter whether they do it to the same student 20 times or to 20 different students.  The behavior is still repeated.

I worked in education in multiple states for 45 years, and never worked in a school that did not have objective standards for defining and dealing with bullying behavior.

[yknot]

14 hours ago, MikeS72 said:

Not sure what state you live in, but here our local schools require bullying training for all staff and students.  As a part of that training, there are several things that must be present for behavior to be classified as bullying.  

1.  The behavior must be unwanted or unwelcome.  2.  There must be a real or perceived imbalance of power.  3.  The behavior either is, or has the potential to be, repeated over time.

On that 3rd point, the repeated behaviors do not have to be leveled at the same student every time it occurs.  For example, if we have an older student who makes it a habit to knock the books out of a much younger student's hands, it does not matter whether they do it to the same student 20 times or to 20 different students.  The behavior is still repeated.

I worked in education in multiple states for 45 years, and never worked in a school that did not have objective standards for defining and dealing with bullying behavior.

Yes, there is significant training and each district must have a HIB specialist on staff.  There is a matrix and an escalation in my state too, but in daily practice in real life it basically turns into virtually anything can be interpreted as a HIB infraction and once reported it requires a mandatory investigation. It might ultimately not be ruled that way when the investigation is concluded, but the students and the families are still required to go through the process which can be intimidating. One interesting phenomenon is how easily the system and the process can be subverted by an actual bully who claims that the object of his or her attention is the aggressor.  Another phenomenon is how, especially in recent years, very innocuous comments or behaviors have met the so-called objective threshhold. 

[elitts]

On 9/21/2021 at 4:20 PM, yknot said:

It's not circular to me. If I feel like I have to explain or defend what I said to a kid, I probably shouldn't have said it in the first place. 

That's why kids are different. That's my point. BSA's own membership numbers show that it has been struggling to connect with kids in recent decades. It's not just me saying kids are different. Other youth organizations seem to be doing a better job of adapting to this. A lot of organizations saw declining membership as the numbers of school age kids dropped, but none so precipitous as BSA. And many other new youth organizations have sprung up to meet some of these changing needs and interests. 

Again, I disagree. Not acknowledging that kids have different worries and stressors today isn't helpful. 

I don't know if you have school age children or not but you must not have encountered HIB laws in your state. In the school system at least, bullying is not held to an objective standard. Pretty much anything and everything IS called bullying today, and kids have to navigate that. BSA needs to align with their reality,. I think it does on paper, but in practice in units where old attitudes hold sway, it can still be very mixed messaging and there are problematic experiences for some scouts. Don't get me started on the tea pot song. 

So your response to the fact that many schools have a crazy and impossible to manage definition of bullying is to expand that definition to Scouts too?  There's a twisted sort of logic in there, but man... That's like arguing that kids with mandatory school uniforms should have to wear a uniform all the time because we don't want them to be stressed out by having to switch between school clothes and home clothes.

On 9/21/2021 at 9:12 PM, MikeS72 said:

I worked in education in multiple states for 45 years, and never worked in a school that did not have objective standards for defining and dealing with bullying behavior.

My experience with my son is that while the official "rules" do have objective standards for bullying, there is a solid contingent of folks who will bend the definitions into pretzels out of their desperate concern that someone might feel bad.  (I assume it's the same group that thinks participation trophies are a good idea)  My son's school had a poster on the wall that said "Bullying is any unkind word, gesture or look".  All I could do was marvel at the stupidity of the concept of making every person who had a bad day a "bully". 

My son actually ended up in something of a mess in middle school because there was a kid whose parents complained my son's group of friends (3 boys) was "bullying him" because they wouldn't play with him.  They weren't lobbying against him with others or badmouthing him, they just wouldn't play with him anymore.  The reason was that the kid would throw a temper tantrum whenever he didn't get his way on game choice or if he started losing a game.  But it's hard to tell a parent the problem is that they raised a spoiled little brat.

[yknot]

35 minutes ago, elitts said:

So your response to the fact that many schools have a crazy and impossible to manage definition of bullying is to expand that definition to Scouts too?  There's a twisted sort of logic in there, but man... That's like arguing that kids with mandatory school uniforms should have to wear a uniform all the time because we don't want them to be stressed out by having to switch between school clothes and home clothes.

My experience with my son is that while the official "rules" do have objective standards for bullying, there is a solid contingent of folks who will bend the definitions into pretzels out of their desperate concern that someone might feel bad.  (I assume it's the same group that thinks participation trophies are a good idea)  My son's school had a poster on the wall that said "Bullying is any unkind word, gesture or look".  All I could do was marvel at the stupidity of the concept of making every person who had a bad day a "bully". 

My son actually ended up in something of a mess in middle school because there was a kid whose parents complained my son's group of friends (3 boys) was "bullying him" because they wouldn't play with him.  They weren't lobbying against him with others or badmouthing him, they just wouldn't play with him anymore.  The reason was that the kid would throw a temper tantrum whenever he didn't get his way on game choice or if he started losing a game.  But it's hard to tell a parent the problem is that they raised a spoiled little brat.

It was one aspect of a longer conversation where my point is that life is very confusing for kids today. They are very different than kids in the past and their stressors, pressures, and challenges are different. The fact that they are having more difficulty coping with modern life is borne out by statistics that show ever increasing rates of depression and suicide that are showing up at younger and younger ages. They are also starting puberty much earlier, with all those hormones and stresses as well.  The 10 year old you dealt with 20 or 30 or 40 years ago is different than the same aged kid today. In some ways, vastly more mature and worldly, in other ways terribly unprepared for life challenges. I read here and quite often see in the units around me an attitude that how we handled kids decades ago is acceptable today and it is generally not. For the specific area of teasing and bullying, there are adult and peer to peer behaviors that are tolerated in scouting today that border on bullying in most other aspects of a kid's life. I don't think it's part of our job to confuse them or continue such behaviors because it's thought of as an amusing tradition by adults.  

 

Edit: I forgot to respond to the last part of your post. That's what I'm talking about when I say the recipient gets to determine what bullying is. Sometimes it's a good thing because kids (and adults) don't realize the impact their words and actions can have, but it's often over done. But that is the reality kids have to navigate. And if you are meeting on school grounds or using school facilities, then yes you do need to "wear the uniform" when on premises or if you have children who attend that school in your unit.  

 

Edited September 23, 2021 by yknot

[DuctTape]

This poster hanging in a school is apropos for the discussion. As adults we could (and is likely it will happen in this thread) debate the language in the poster. But it does at a minimum help students make the distinction that not everything is bullying. 

[MattR]

I like the poster. Rude and mean are great opportunities for growth, so don't throw the baby out with the bath water. My experience with scouts is that rude and mean are often in context where there's conflict between scouts. Showing them how to deal with the conflict has been more productive than focusing on rude and mean.

I talked to a scout once about standing up to bullies and his response was enlightening.  He said that there was very little to no bullying at his school and there was a lot more fuss about it by the adults than warranted. This was a fairly shy scout in a large public high school. I'm not saying it's not worse elsewhere. I'm not even saying that students don't have their share of problems. But maybe it's not bullying. Maybe it's dysfunctional families and too little social development. Maybe youth need more opportunities to fail and learn how to interact with others and not less. Maybe they need something like scouting more than playing video games. I look at the growth and maturity of both scouts and others and one common situation is some people that spent a lot of time playing video games have really poor social skills,  so bad that they're struggling with careers and relationships.  I'm thankful there were no video games when I grew up. We sat around and had to figure it out. And more than one friend told me I was a dumb ass when I was. And it hurt, but I learned something. 

 

[Eagle1993]

6 minutes ago, MattR said:

I talked to a scout once about standing up to bullies and his response was enlightening.  He said that there was very little to no bullying at his school and there was a lot more fuss about it by the adults than warranted. 

 

It seems like we diverted the topic a bit, but figure I'll jump in. 

I've been happy that our schools crack down on bullying and they are also very clear that bullying is different than being rude/unkind/having conflicts.  Overall, schools are much more aware of actual bullying than they were when I was a kid. For many kids, our school systems have become much more safe than it was in the 1980s and prior.  I do agree that there are overreactions by parents ... but schools seem to have found a balance and have been pretty good (at least in my area).

What has gotten much, much worse  is the form harassment takes when it occurs.  Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.  In some ways, it is much worse now than we were kids (at least to me).  When someone was bullied at school in the 1980s/1990s it ended when they left school and went home.   There is no escaping the harassment today and it is public for all of your classmates to see 24/7.  I think more needs to be done to protect kids (and in some cases adults) in terms of social media postings.

[PeterHopkins]

On 9/20/2021 at 9:44 PM, HelpfulTracks said:

Even Eagle projects only became required in the 1950's or 60's. (I cannot remember exactly when without looking it up)

It was the mid-1960s. 

[CynicalScouter]

Starting to see more and more online references to this being field tested.

http://ponyexpressbsa.org/resources/diversity-equality-inclusion

https://www.troop97.net/bsaeagle.htm
 

Quote

Citizenship in Society (renamed "Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion" merit badge, to be released in November 2021 and added to the Eagle required list in July 2022)

https://www.minsitrails.org/advancement/news-wire/73118

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/citizenship-in-society-troop-662-5-and-1g-at-central-park-sunday-92621-tickets-177624177697?aff=ebdssbdestsearch#

https://stayhappening.com/e/citizenship-in-society-troop-662-5-and-1g-at-central-park-sunday-9-26-21-E3LUSQUCLG6C

http://troop5harlem.com/

https://www.troop75ma.org/

 

[Eagle94-A1]

My concern is the 7 month transition. It needs to be the standard year, if not longer.  ESPECIALLY if the rumors that council's have to formally approve the MBC are true. It will take time in some rural, geographically large councils yo get the approved MBCs in place.

Edited September 27, 2021 by Eagle94-A1

[CynicalScouter]

6 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

ESPECIALLY if the rumors that council's have to formally approve the MBC are true.

Rubber stamping only takes 30 seconds.

I see where this train is heading: the person who sticks his/her hand up to say "I want to teach it" will be insta-approved. No real vetting.

Edited September 27, 2021 by CynicalScouter