REBUILD, REBOUND, RECOVER

[SiouxRanger]

I have long believed that Scouting was in the "entertainment" business.

Firebuilding (probably no. 1), knives, campfires, swimming, canoeing, camping (and the sheltered independence of being away from home), having fun learning new skills...

"You can earn rank, patches...advance, build self-esteem...by earning rank..."

And along with the entertainment, us adults have presented it all in the framework structured to foster a sense of leadership, character building, responsibility.

These things are not learned by a scout as "THIS is a leadership learning moment-Ah Ha."

They are learned, by some scouts (who are paying attention), individually, "We need to eat at 6 pm to make the campfire by 8, and so, considering clean-up time, the fire needs to be started at 5:30. Where is everybody? I need to get them on-board."

Some scouts get it and other not quite just yet, or never.

Us adult leaders may never see that process work out in the mind of a scout who is responding to the situation in a leadership role, and the Scout will not likely understand it either, yet, the Scout acts in a leadership role and gets the job done.

I failed many times as a senior scout, but I never learned from successes.  Only failure teaches if one can bear the hurt to learn from it. And one must "bear up" to grow.

These things are subtle.  

[fred8033]

1 hour ago, SiouxRanger said:

These things are not learned by a scout as "THIS is a leadership learning moment-Ah Ha."

Well said earlier.  This statement is extremely poignant.   Some of scouting's worst moments and when we try to force the learning.  

[vol_scouter]

2 hours ago, SiouxRanger said:

I failed many times as a senior scout, but I never learned from successes.  Only failure teaches if one can bear the hurt to learn from it. And one must "bear up" to grow.

This so very true and it is why one of the 'Big Three' of Positive Youth Development (PYD) is providing youth leadership opportunities where they are allowed to fail and that there are consequences to the failure.  The consequences do not have to be dire, could only be that the other youth make fun of the leader (in a good natured way).  We often forget about the need for consequences, but it is often implied in what we all say.  If a patrol leader forgot the patrol food for a meal, making the patrol wait to eat can be a negative consequence.  No one is harmed, only hungry stomachs might have to wait while the adults eat first only to 'miraculously' find that they have enough for the hungry boys too.  The patrol leader will get teased, and she or he will not forget that lesson.  If they get immediate relief, the lesson may not be taught.

[SiouxRanger]

Well, get the "math" of a "no. 10 can" (quantity), and a "no. 101 can" into your youth head. Maybe a no. 101 can is larger in volume than a no. 10. can-101 is larger than 10.  Still not sure I have it right. (101 Is greater than 1, yet the 101 can is smaller...)

Well, I have made many failures, but I learned from them, and it made me a better person.

Scouting let me fail, yet learn from my failures, in Scouting one can fail without horrific consequences. Just with some measure of youthful embarrassment.

Failure is a bit of a "comeuppance" giving notice to those who are paying attention, that one need to take serious attention. 

Learning by experience, the Scouting method, is something of an iterative process.  Advance a few steps, get kicked back a few, resolve to move forward, and a gain a few steps, etc.

[Eagledad]

Wow, great discussion. I call the scouting world in this discussion real life at a boy's (youth's) size. Scouting is assumed safe because the program is presented so that scouts are physically safe. But, I taught in the adult classes that scouting is safe because a scout is safe to make wrong decisions without judgement forcing correction. Watching a scout learn from their decisions without the reaction of judging and correcting is the most challenging part of the adult leaders responsibilities. I admit that I did it wrong more often than I did it right.

Barry

[Armymutt]

23 hours ago, vol_scouter said:

@HashTagScouts  Even if the is not a new Scout Patrol, the older girl or boy will be learning skills with younger youth while their friends are doing more advanced activities.  To adults, the distinctions are small but for youth, they can be substantial.  I have seen this many times, but others may have seen such situations evolve differently.  

Why would they be learning the skills with younger Scouts?  That sounds like a new scout patrol.  My troop had two patrols, mostly because we had two lines of tables in the chapel hall.  As new Scouts came into the troop they could pick which side of the room to sit on, and that was their patrol.  We had everything from Life Scouts to new Scouts in the same patrol.  It was the job of the older Scouts to teach the younger ones in the patrol.  We operated similarly to the description in the 5th edition of the Scoutmasters Handbook, though with less formality, as it was the early 90s.  The PLs evaluated the skills of their patrol and focused on ensuring everyone was up-to-snuff.  

[InquisitiveScouter]

3 minutes ago, Armymutt said:

Why would they be learning the skills with younger Scouts?  That sounds like a new scout patrol.  My troop had two patrols, mostly because we had two lines of tables in the chapel hall.  As new Scouts came into the troop they could pick which side of the room to sit on, and that was their patrol.  We had everything from Life Scouts to new Scouts in the same patrol.  It was the job of the older Scouts to teach the younger ones in the patrol.  We operated similarly to the description in the 5th edition of the Scoutmasters Handbook, though with less formality, as it was the early 90s.  The PLs evaluated the skills of their patrol and focused on ensuring everyone was up-to-snuff.  

The gold standard 😛

[vol_scouter]

23 hours ago, Armymutt said:

Why would they be learning the skills with younger Scouts?  That sounds like a new scout patrol.  My troop had two patrols, mostly because we had two lines of tables in the chapel hall.  As new Scouts came into the troop they could pick which side of the room to sit on, and that was their patrol.  We had everything from Life Scouts to new Scouts in the same patrol.  It was the job of the older Scouts to teach the younger ones in the patrol.  We operated similarly to the description in the 5th edition of the Scoutmasters Handbook, though with less formality, as it was the early 90s.  The PLs evaluated the skills of their patrol and focused on ensuring everyone was up-to-snuff.  

If a girl or boy joins a Troop at the age of say 15, they must start learning the skills required for Tenderfoot, Second Class, and First Class that their friends learned years before and are now working on Merit Badges for Star, Life, and Eagle.  Who else are working on those same skills?  The eleven and twelve year olds.  This is what I have seen and discussed with volunteers from across the nation.  Even if they are separated from the younger Scouts, they still are going to require some time to catch up to their age matched friends.

[Armymutt]

14 minutes ago, vol_scouter said:

If a girl or boy joins a Troop at the age of say 15, they must start learning the skills required for Tenderfoot, Second Class, and First Class that their friends learned years before and are now working on Merit Badges for Star, Life, and Eagle.  Who else are working on those same skills?  The eleven and twelve year olds.  This is what I have seen and discussed with volunteers from across the nation.  Even if they are separated from the younger Scouts, they still are going to require some time to catch up to their age matched friends.

Working on those ranks within their patrols is completely different from working on them with younger Scouts.  In fact, that's desirable.  The more senior Scouts get a good refresher on those basic skills.  That reinforcement strengthens their grasp of the concepts and helps with retention for life.  Makes better Eagle Scouts!

[Ojoman]

5 hours ago, Armymutt said:

If a girl or boy joins a Troop at the age of say 15, they must start learning the skills required for Tenderfoot, Second Class, and First Class that their friends learned years before and are now working on Merit Badges for Star, Life, and Eagle.  Who else are working on those same skills?  The eleven and twelve year olds.  This is what I have seen and discussed with volunteers from across the nation.  Even if they are separated from the younger Scouts, they still are going to require some time to catch up to their age matched friends.

Most troops today are small. Few have more than 2 patrols. Packs often only cross over a couple of AOL's, having lost most of the others that originally joined, during the 5 1/2 year long program. Since there is not time/tenure requirement from Tenderfoot to first class and older youth joining can 'catch up' within the first 5 or 6 months. An older youth can also work on merit badges with his/her friends as they work towards their higher ranks. The only thing that will hold the new youth back would be tenure requirements and leadership requirements. If we impress on our older scouts, grade 8 and up, of the type of resume they are building through leadership training and offices held along with badges and ranks earned, perhaps the word would get out and more of their peers would join at those higher ages. 

[MisterH]

On 9/20/2022 at 6:11 AM, SiouxRanger said:

Us adult leaders may never see that process work out in the mind of a scout who is responding to the situation in a leadership role, and the Scout will not likely understand it either, yet, the Scout acts in a leadership role and gets the job done.

I failed many times as a senior scout, but I never learned from successes.  Only failure teaches if one can bear the hurt to learn from it. And one must "bear up" to grow.

These things are subtle.  

Thirteen years of teaching middle school and high school has taught me that the lessons students remember best are the ones they figure out for and teach themselves. It then becomes my job to gently nudge them in the direction of figuring out the correct answer so they'll think they did it all by themselves when they find it.

[fred8033]

On 9/21/2022 at 4:09 PM, Ojoman said:

If we impress on our older scouts, grade 8 and up, of the type of resume they are building through leadership training and offices held along with badges and ranks earned, perhaps the word would get out and more of their peers would join at those higher ages. 

14/15 year olds just don't care much about resume building. 
 

Give them adventure, friendships and fun.  They will come.  The rest is just decoration.

[vol_scouter]

On 9/19/2022 at 10:11 PM, Ojoman said:

All anyone needs to do is to look at the Council membership reports by grade for Cub Scouts and you will see that most packs lose 60% or more of their Lions/Tigers by the Webelos years and many Webelos drop out prior to graduating into troops. Most packs are built like a pyramid with a large base at gr k & 1 and a small group at the top. The reality is that if they are offering a solid program that meets the needs and interests at the various 'ages and stages' of the kids that the Pack would be larger at the top than the bottom as kids would be attracted and join their friends in the later years as they hear about/learn about the great experiences their buddies are having. 

So the question then is would it have been worse if Lions and Tigers did not exist.  One would have to compare demographically similar areas some with and some without Lions and Tigers.  Making assumptions, even well reasoned ones, has marked many BSA decisions that have not turned out well.

[skeptic]

This just out on frin On Scouting.  It seems to me that this is what we need to see happening nationwide to resurrect Real Scouting, and place before the communities.  We will never get above the negative media portrayals that focus on the small anomalous things if we do not counter with the overwhelmingly positive realities.  Just my view.  

 

[dk516]

I think that BSA is not the only one struggling with membership numbers but there are also some clear heavy hitters when it comes to membership growth and maybe we should seriously consider what they are doing different:

Organization                      School Age Population                   Members                            Percent

BSA                                      50.7M                                                900’000                              1.8%

Scouts UK                           9M                                                      420’000                              4.7% (5.7% incl. waitlist)

Scouts Canada                  6.193M                                              22’237                                 0.36%

Swiss Scouts                      1.128M                                              50’500                                 4.5%

I think we (BSA) are notoriously bad at marketing ourselves compared to some other organizations. When have we heard last about BSA in the national news (except for the bankruptcy)? The short bleep this year about the Scouts helping rescuing people at the train derailment this summer briefly made the national news. When did the last president or any other highly visible public figure portrait Scouts? 

Every fall and spring it is recruiting season. Every fall and spring our Council is MIA short of a newsletter or two (that only Scouters read because they signed up) or a couple unit requested Facebook geofencing popups. Crickets. Our District tries hard but it is pushing all recruiting down to the units that obviously, and by nature, recruit for their own unit in their own local area. When did our Council last highlight Scouts achievement on a State or County level (our Council stretches the better of 3 states). I have never seen Council or District even suggesting, let alone organizing, presence on a state or county fair or have a Council wide recruiting booth at larger scale events short of a parade here or there staffed by local units. 

Look at the two countries running high membership numbers above: both recently rebounded in almost 2-digit percentage numbers after years of losses. Scouts UK states "Our waiting list now sits at 90,000 young people". When have we heard about a waiting list for finding BSA units the last time? 

Switzerland just had its national Jamboree this summer after 14 years of absence. They managed to motivate 60% of their members to attend. Leading up to the event was a National Scouts campaign for 2 weeks spotlighting Swiss Scouts during national TV prime time every evening (not shiny marketing but real participants and volunteers over 3 generations). National media had their own onsite production outlet during the Jamboree with daily coverage. I think up to now I have heard about the 2023 Jamboree in national prime time TV once, and again in negative or political context rather than positive values.

Rebuild/Rebound/Recover can happen but only with some serious marketing on all levels. And I think it has to be real marketing showing achievements, highlighting local community support, Eagle projects benefitting the community but also how Scouts benefit the community and how Scouts benefits the individual members being in the program. I don't think however this is achieved by shiny corporate slogans, studio marketing materials and shiny photos on popcorn bags. We need to go back to highlight the real achievements and benefits of the organization.