So What Do You Do To make The Patrol Method Work?

[AnneinMpls]

We're implementing the patrol system to counteract defects in our adult leadership

My assistant leader (we're GS's btw) tends to be very "top-down" and adult-directed. Now that we have functioning patrols, whenever she wants to tell girls what to do, I tell her to tell it only to the patrol leaders It's tiny, but it's a step in the right direction! And she's been able to learn to interact with the patrol leaders instead of getting on every single girls' case - that extra step of remembering who's patrol, and who's the patrol leader also gives her time to think through and calm down so that by the time the words are coming out of her mouth they are less directive and more suggestive.

We're a pretty young troop as yet - 4th and 5th graders - more like Webelos to you - I've had to let our patrol leaders know that they can refer behavior issues to me if a friendly reminder doesn't work - but the "work" of the patrol has gone smoothly.

I was surprised at how a little tiny bit of "drill" helped to further the idea of patrol spirit - the simple idea of falling in by patrols - they like it!

One patrol chose to enter the camp cook-off - they won a silk-screened dishtowel for their patrol box (see the "sweet potato pie" thread for the recipe!). Next time we might have more patrols choose to enter...

Anne in Mpls