First Class First Year

[mk9750]

I've been refraining from posting in recent months for two very basic reasons: First, I began to fell as if my input was getting less and less valuable (What used to be a strong Troop with which I am associated has been struggling recently), and second, I tired of the bickering. But I still monitor some of the threads, and this one has brought me back, at least temporarily.

 

When I first started working as the Advancement Chair for my Troop, I was probably very close to what Bob criticizes most here - I knew of First Class Emphasis (and I did confuse it with FCFY), but did not understand it. In addition, our SM is a man of very strong personality, and he had already established a system that basically had almost all Scouts staying in the program, and taking 1 1/2 - 3 1/2 years to get to First Class. Almost every boy who joined the Troop stayed until he was 18, and almost 100% of those who stayed made Eagle.

 

As I learned more about the program, including much of my information from here, and especially Bob, And as I began to be able to influence our SM more, I have been able to "train" him. He no longer teaches and tests Merit Badges based on what HE thinks boys should know. There is no longer an artificial timeline for a boy's advancement. He rarely reverts back to his style of Boy run, which is to present two possiblities to the SPL in a manner that syas "well, you can do it THAT way, and be (or look, or act) really stupid, or, you could do it my (the right) way".

 

I've been very proud of the transformation I have been able to engineer in our Scoutmaster. 10 years ago, we had a program that retained 80% of the boys who crossed, and over 80% of those made Eagle. We were the talk of the Council. Everyone said if you want to see how to run a Troop, look at Troop XX. They're great!" Now, since my efforts at transforming the SM to look more like the Boy Scout Program, let's see where we are now.

 

At our zenith, we had 48 boys and a discussion about whether we should cap membership. Now, with our 7 new boys fresh from Cub Scouts, we have 19 boys. In the last 4 years, about 35% of the guys who cross have stayed with the Troop. For the first time in the ten years I've been with the Troop, 2004 brought zero Eagle Scouts, but 6 guys who aged out and didn't really care if they made Eagle or not. Parents are complaining that their little Joeys and Johnnys are being pushed to complete stuff just because it's on the schedule.

 

Our PLC is given some very basic expectations when they prepare the annual plan. One of them to to assure that the program includes the opportunity to learn and practice all of the Scout skill rank requirments during the yearly program. And frankly, they do a wonderful job. About half of our new Scouts do earn First Class between crossing in about May, and the summer camp the NEXT year (about 15 months). The rest don't attend enough meetings and events to get the opportunity, and don't have the motivation to pursue the requirement on their own.

 

By now, I'm sure everyone is figuring that I blame FCFY (or more accurately, FCE) for our downward spiral. Well, it might suprise you to hear I am not. there are a number of things that have contributed to our problems: A cyclic downturn in the quality of the 4 Pack programs that feed our Troop; A unusual rash of disconnected parents; a group of middle to older guys, including my youngest (16) son who all seem to thing they've gotten what they needed out of the program, and that we have been unable to convince that the last part of what they should get out of Scouting is giving back what they've learned; and a Scoutmast, and ASM, and an Advancement Chair who have impressed the Council and District enough in the past that we are now being asked to do so many things outside our Troop that we have allowed ourselves to get pulled away from our real responsiblity and passion - our own guys.

 

So why did I write this? I hope everyone sees that for at leat one Troop, FCFY and FCE DID NOT have the effect that the BSA intended. On the other hand, I don't think it is to blame, either.

 

It is a sorry person who identifies a problem without offering a solution. So here is mine, offered humbly, as I'm not so sure my Troop's recent history affords me the stature necesary to make bold proclaimations:

 

The universe for any one particular Troop is made of of a collection of components unlike any other Troop in the country. You have motivated boys, he doesn't. Her Troop likes camping and nature, mine would rather do high venture. His Troop feels that a thorough knowledge of a requirement is vital to a Scout's enjoymnet of the program, the other guy thinks that we should just hand badges to every boy. None are right - for everybody - and none are completely wrong. The BSA gives us this prize, the BSA program, and asks us to use it to make good people out of as many boys as we can influence.Well meaning adults develop "best practices" that might tinker with the tried and true and improve upon them. Don't crucify someone when they do something that works. And don't try to change them. Don't be like me. don't stumble into a good thing and try to force it to be what someone else says it should be. Good people, with the right motives, can and are doing unbelievable good with our youth. If you are one of them, thank you. If you are one who can only find fault, shame on you. Shame on me. I meddled in a good thing, and good young men have suffered for it.

 

I don't know how long it may be before my next post, but thanks for reading this one.

 

Mark

[Eagledad]

>>The purpose for First Class Emphasis is to focus leaders in the right place.>That is what the New Scout Patrol does and yet some leaders refuse to do that either.

[ManassasEagle]

Bob, you stated...

 

"The purpose of First Class Emphasis is to give the troop's adult leadership the resources and direction to have a planned, focused, program that will allow a new scout to learn, practice, and apply the skills needed to become a First Class Scout within the first 12 to 14 months of his membership in the troop."

 

...and then asked...

 

"Considering only the points I have just shared can anyone tell us what possible negative attributes there are to this program planning method?"

 

I've got two minor nits and one major. First, your statement says "the troop's adult leadership". Where's the boy-run or boy-led in this? Second, your statement says "will allow" which, while it is exactly the right sentiment, is not how it is usually interpreted. "Will allow" is correct in that the opportunities need to be there but, and here's where most problems come in, it has to be up to the boy to decide to take advantage of the opportunity. Instead, FCFY/FCE gets interpreted as "we need to get everyone to First Class in the first year" which leads to pushing the boys to advance (advancement mills, etc.).

 

The major problem I have with it is that it places too much emphasis on one of the eight Methods at the expense of the others. Advancement is only one of and not the only (or even most important) Method.

[EagleInKY]

Manassas - You clarified the point very well regarding "allowing" or "providing" vs. "requiring" or "forcing". We have a program that allows a reasonably active and motivated scout to obtain the rank in approximately 12 months. Scouts who are not active or are not motivated will likely not complete it in that timeframe.

 

Interesting how you tied that to advancement mill troops. I had a scout who was reasonably active but not motiviated at all to advance. He could really care less, he was just there to hang out, since his parents pretty much forced him to be a scout. After a number of issues, we ended up having to ask this scout to leave (totally different topic). I expected him to drop out completely, but instead they joined an advancement mill down the road. In a little over a month, this kid who didn't have the desire to complete first class in two years suddenly made it. But I know it's because the troop made it easy on him. I'm happy he's still in scouts and wish him success, but I really don't like the approach some of these troops are taking to implement the advancement program. It's obvious that they are putting it above all other methods.

[FScouter]

Congratulations MK9750 on the progress you've made.

[Eamonn]

Welcome back Mark, you were missed.

I do think that we have to do what works and at times go with the flow.

Last year the Troop that OJ, is a member of had a entire herd of Lads cross over I think there were about 16. This year they only got two. Of course two Scouts are not enough to form a NSP.

I know that I belong to the cuckoo patrol, but I don't think that I live in cuckoo land!! While I haven't served as a Scoutmaster for sometime, I really don't see any real need to make an issue of Scouts becoming or reaching the rank of First Class in a reasonable amount of time. I don't need National or anyone telling me that if there are a lot of Scouts that have been in the Troop for eons and have not reached First Class that something isn't working.

Maybe we need in this thread to take a look at what might not be working?

I sure as heck don't have all the answers, but a few ideas I have are:

 

Attendance.

Seems to me that if Scouts are not attending meetings and not doing activities that no one is going any place let alone getting there is a reasonable amount of time.

Maybe we need to take a long hard look at our meetings and see what we can do to make them better. Sure we can blame other activities as being the reason why little Timmy isn't attending meetings, but who is really checking? Is the SPL, the PL and if need be the SM calling to see why? And ensuring that Timmy knows that when whatever he is doing is done that he will be welcomed back.

 

In House Skills.

Looking at the adults in OJ's Troop and there is a lot of them, very few have the skills needed to be able to show the Scouts or demonstrate the skill to a Scout. The older Scouts don't have the skills. So who is going to teach the Scout? Worse still is the fact that having no one in house who has these basic skills means that these skills are never part of the program, so even if the Lad does learn them some place else, he is never going to use them and when the time comes to really put them to use the Lad hangs back, at times the map and compass becomes a hot potato. I like the new Outdoor skills Training but you can only learn or teach so much in a weekend.

 

Imagination.

I was a little surprised when someone posted that the adults in the troop were playing Boy Scout. We never had that problem. The adults were far too busy thinking up "Problems" that when presented to the Scouts involved saving the world, nuclear bombs, swamps filled with man eating crocodiles, water fights, flour bombs, home-made cannons, monkey bridges, and that sort of good stuff. I don't have any problem with the trips to amusement parks, or miniature golf outings, but I still think we need to do the good old traditional scout stuff.

A lot of other things do come into play things like recognition, Patrol Leader training,equipment and the care of it. I have to marvel at the Troops that spend time presenting merit badge classes, I just don't know where they find the time?

Eamonn.

 

 

[SR540Beaver]

Eamonn: In House Skills.

Looking at the adults in OJ's Troop and there is a lot of them, very few have the skills needed to be able to show the Scouts or demonstrate the skill to a Scout. The older Scouts don't have the skills. So who is going to teach the Scout? Worse still is the fact that having no one in house who has these basic skills means that these skills are never part of the program, so even if the Lad does learn them some place else, he is never going to use them and when the time comes to really put them to use the Lad hangs back, at times the map and compass becomes a hot potato. I like the new Outdoor skills Training but you can only learn or teach so much in a weekend.

 

Scout skills...who uses them? Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favor of eliminating them. We just did our Jambo shakedown this weekend. Our council goes the traditional route and uses the canvas dining fly and BSA canvas wall tent. We have 108 boys from between 12 and 17 from 1st Class thru Eagle. How many of them do you think knew how to pitch a wall tent or erect a dining fly and knew how to tie the knots needed? Very few. They all learned and were tested on these knots for rank earlier in their scouting career. Why were they lacking? Those items are traditional gear while most Troops have embraced newer technology. Most modern tents are light wieght waterproof fabric with poles that slip into a grommet and the tent body clips to the pole or runs thru a sleeve. Even the guy lines for the rain fly have the little metal or plastic slide in place of a taut line hitch. Even the dining fly is replaced with an EZ-up that takes less than 30 seconds to erect. Unless you force the issue, there just is very little need for some of these skills. For rank, the boys have to learn lashings and make a useful camp gadget. Most of them make it and never look back. We take materials on every campout and remind the boys that they can make camp gadgets for our review anytime they want to. No one does. It is work and they are there for fun. Besides, they have a table to use and don't need a gadget. Modern gear was designed for light weight and ease of use. If you don't use these skills, you lose them....as evidenced by myself having to relearn knots for the shakedown. I sit at a desk 8 hours a day, five days a week. I'm a city boy. I camp once a month with modern equipment. I like knots, I just don't need them much. Neither do the scouts, except to get to 1st Class. Fire building is much the same. I can't count the number of scouters I've seen who pull out the old fireplace lighter to start a fire or use some sort of commercial fire starter brick or log to get a fire going. It is just easier and less time consuming. Heck, we have scouts who will purposely skip camp outs if all we are doing is day hiking. They like their comfort and don't want to be challenged. Some do take an interest in the skills and learn them. Many learn them long enough to get that 1st class rank in the first year and promptly forget them. One answer is to add them to your program. Make them use them. But like I said, too many boys find it difficult, lame, boring, etc. and just won't participate. While the scouting skills can actually be life savers, do we place too much emphasis on these skills in today's environment. One of the complaints we get from some of the boys in our troop is that the meetings are too repetitious. They don't want to spend an hour working or teaching skills or planning outings. They want to play. Again, I'm not advocating the position of doing away with traditional skills. I just wanted to throw some comments out there for discussion.

[Eagledad]

Really good post Beav. I think there are two equal causes to the problem of practicing skills. One is that many of the skills learned arent used in our bungee-cord duct-tape culture just as you explained. The other is the creation of the NSP we have been talking about. Now please dont get wrong and think that I believe all scoutings problems are caused by the NSP. I personally believe we need the NSP in todays program, so Im not anti NSP, I just dont like some of the ways they are presented in the manuals.

 

NSPs were created to help new scouts get more comfortable in the new troop so they would not quit in the first year. One of the ways National attack the problem of losing scouts was to change from scouts joining after their birthday to joining with the whole Webelos Den after they earn the AOL. The idea being that it is easier to stay in the program if your friends are with you. But that change forced troops to change their year-round skills program to a scheduled 12 month program repeated every year.

 

See when a troop receives one or two scouts every month, then it naturally teaches all the skills all the time to help the newer scouts learn their skills and advance. Its a year round program of always using and teaching skills. You just get use to the idea that there will be some patrol time to learning the same skills each month or so. I dont remember that it was ever boring, maybe because everyone in the Patrols were involved. Once the program shifted to crossing large groups of new scouts the same month of the year, troops naturally shifted to a 12 month schedule program for the new scouts.

 

Spring is basically the Tenderfoot and Second Class skills months. Summer is Second Class and First Class skills. And Fall is First Class skills. Winter is the season for the next batch of new scouts and starting all over. Even when you know this to be the problem, the troop is still kind of stuck. We learned it our second year in the troop and tried different ideas, but in the end, we basically a annual skills program.

 

Ive gone long, but I think this is also the reason why Camporees arent as popular with scouts today as they use to be. Learning skills is boring when you have to relearn them over and over. Boys naturally would rather do something else.

 

Good discussion.

 

Barry

 

[SR540Beaver]

Barry,

 

Speaking of camporees, I don't know how your district differs from ours. Our camporee has turned into a giant Webelos recruiting tool. Every troop that attends brings one or two Webelos dens with them. Even Bears are beginning to show up at camporees. Our district finally made some changes this year. They provided the same, but seperate activites. The same activity was done in the same area, but there was a section for Webelos and a section for scouts. That was a step in the right direction at least. Since we do provide a Webelos Woods in the fall, I'd prefer that the Camporee in the Spring return to just Scouts. Another change our district needs to make is to plan further in advance and announce what the events are. Skills need to be practiced, especially if you are going to compete in the skills. It is kind of hard to compete when you have no idea what you are competing in. It is kind of like bringing a knife to hunt ducks. Although, I did have a professor in college who would never review us before a test. When asked what we needed to study before an exam, she would tell us everything taught since the last exam.....and they were all essay tests. But I digress! If the boys know 3 or 4 months in advance that the theme for camporee is First Aid or Wilderness Survival, they can practice those skills. If they know what the individual competitions are, they can fine tune their practice even more. This gives them a purpose to practice the skills.

[Eagledad]

I've never been much in favor of bringing Webelos to Camporees. It takes away from Webelos Woods and the Camporee for Troops. I was always out voted on that discussion.

 

As far as knowing what the Camporee Events or Theme is going to be a head of time, our District has never been that organized. Which is probably one reason why it is not that well atttended.

 

The best Camporee I've seen, other than our Night Trooporee, was a Backpacking Camporee. All the scouts had to break camp on Saturday Morning and hike five miles to their next camp. They had to stop at Skills Event stations along they way. The District Chairman of that District said scouts talked of that Camporee for years.

 

I often thought of doing that in our town. Have all the Troops break camp from their CO and hike to our main park in the center of town stopping to do about six our eight skills events along the way. HAve the adults compete and cook that nights supper. A big bonfire in the football stadium along with a band for the Campfire program where everyone in town is invited to attend. All of Edmond would see scouting at it's best and the scouts would have a blast.

 

Oneday maybe.

 

Barry

[SR540Beaver]

Come on Barry, move south about 20 to 25 miles and join the best district in the council!

[SeattlePioneer]

Interesting thread. I liked Eagle Dad's comments about the backpacking Camporee.

 

Actually, we do that kind of thing on most hikes and camping trips. One of my theories is that Scouting isn't a walk in the park. Or at least not just a walk in the park.

 

When we do a hike, it's programmmed to have accidents, emergencies and situations that require a variety of different Scout skills to be used. Map and compass problems, finding addresses in the city, fixing a punctured bicycle tire, all are things that Scouts may encounter.

 

After dinner, a distressed mother may arrive to plead for help in locating two of her lost triplets. One may need to be searched for using a map, while another may have a GPS location the Scouts will need to find. The remaining triplet may be produced so the Scouts can recognize him when they find him. He'll probably look a lot like a bag of potato chips.

 

 

One of the skills of leadership is turning work into games and competitions. Surely we aren't losing those skills?

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

 

[Bob White]

"I've got two minor nits and one major. First, your statement says "the troop's adult leadership". Where's the boy-run or boy-led in this?"

 

You need patience, the boy run part is coming but these are brand New Scouts. You cannot expect new scoputs to just crossover from 4 years of cubbing and begin to self-govern themselves in a program they do not even know yet. That is why there is a New Scout Patrol. The NSP and the 1st Class Emphasis program work hand in glove to get the scouts the basic skills and to orient them into a boy run program the first year. We back off on the two adult den leaders and have one Assistant Scoutmaster, we take the Den Chief who worked with the adult Den leader and replace him with a Troop Guide who works with the Patrol Leader. We have each scout be Patrol leader for a month and attend a PLC with the Guide to learn how a troop government functions and so that when their first patrol election comes around they have had a chance to see each other in the role and actually have some information to base a leadership selection on.

 

Remeber youth leadership is an ongoing process and different scouts will be in different stages of development during any given time. This is a new scout's first year let's not expect them to be able to self-govern until after they have had a chance to learn how.

 

" Second, your statement says "will allow" which, while it is exactly the right sentiment, is not how it is usually interpreted."

 

The BSA can only control how the message is sent, do not expect them to be able to control how it is recieved or interpreted. There are far to many variables that come into play.

 

" "Will allow" is correct in that the opportunities need to be there but, and here's where most problems come in, it has to be up to the boy to decide to take advantage of the opportunity."

 

I whole heartedly disagree. It is up to the trained leader to present the program in a way that motivates the scout to participate and through participation fulfills advancement requirements.

 

"Instead, FCFY/FCE gets interpreted as "we need to get everyone to First Class in the first year" which leads to pushing the boys to advance (advancement mills, etc.).

 

Again do not assume that everyone misinterprets the information, manydo not. Some understand it and just choose to ignore it,. Some understand it but disagree and so they change it. Some do not understand it at so do not try to learn it. Not everyone who doesn't use the program incorrectly simply interpreted it wrong.

 

"The major problem I have with it is that it places too much emphasis on one of the eight Methods at the expense of the others. Advancement is only one of and not the only (or even most important) Method."

 

There is no one method that is more or less important than another. Consider a stool with three legs. Which leg is the most important one? No matter which leg you remove the stool will fall over. The methods of scouting are no different.

[evmori]

What's the rush? Why should Scouts earn 1st Class in 12-18 months? National states the ones who do stick with the program longer. Where's the proof? Are there any statistics to back up this claim? Or is this just another tool for leaders to use?

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[OldGreyEagle]

Ed, as far as I can tell, no one has said a scout "should" earn first class in 12-18 months. First Class emphasis is based on having a troop program that would allow an active scout to earn first class in 12-18 months. That means the opportunities exist within the structure of the troops program to have the scout advance. Nothing from national says the HAS to be First Class, they have to pass the skill requirements.

 

As far as proof, I dont know, I know an active troop is more likley to have advancement and retain scouts, but is it the activity of the troop that retains the scouts or the advancement, I leave that up to those more erudite than I. I just know that arguing against having a program that allows the scout to advance to first class in 12-18 months seems mighty silly