Following the Program

[CNYScouter]

I dont know if what I was trying to ask was answered in the last thread so to put this in a different way is that I find that many of the issues and problems that troops are having can be solved by finding the correct BSA publication and following the program.

 

I recently went shopping for a new troop and visited quite a few troops before making a decision. I saw many examples where a troop was struggling in an area and I could see that the cause was that they were not following the program.

 

For example, in one of the Troops I ruled out there were about 15 scouts at the meeting I visited. When I asked the SM how many kids they had he told me that this was about half, as they had trouble getting the older scouts to attend troop meetings. Yet, I saw an adult teaching the tenderfoot scouts (actually the UC), the rest of the troop sitting around reading their book or working on a merit badge. The CC was off setting up the activity of the night. They only did outings every other month. I could see that they were an adult run troop and offered nothing for older boys. If they had opened the SM handbook, they would have seen there is a whole chapter on dealing with older scouts and found ways to solve this problem.

 

Almost every troop I visited complained about declining enrollment. Yet none followed the Troop meeting-planning outline and none did any type of patrol competitions. The one Troop I did visit (too far away to us to join) that did these things had boys begging to join the troop.

 

I see that following the program works. I have to think that after being developed for 95+ years the BSA has a pretty good idea of what works.

 

In the Troop we ended up joining we are having our yearly planning session in a couple of weeks. I was just handed the minutes from last years meeting. In this, the committee had identified a list of areas in the troop that needed improvement. A lot of these are centered on working with patrols and behavioral issues.

The committee then spent the next 4 or 5 hours brainstorming ideas on ways to fix or improve these in areas.

In reading down the list, all of these problem areas are covered in the Scoutmasters Handbook and to solve these issues all they had to do was open the book.

 

I would like to not do this again this year.

Any suggestions on how to get the other leaders to just open the book and follow the program?

I dont want to come off as the Scouting know-it-all but it looks like I am the only one who has taken the time to read the SM Handbook.

 

[Bob White]

BLESS YOU CNYScouter!

 

Good luck getting many positive answers. I can tell you that you have my fullest support and gratitute, and I can think of perhaps a half dozen active poters (at best) who share both your view and your frustration.

 

The scouting program works, and it works better than anything that any individual tweaker might try to do, let a unit full of tweakers.

 

As some of us have tried to point out for a few years here, the solution to most the problems we see, hear, and experience, will come from learning to follow the BSA program better.. not from trying to change a program they have yet to use.

 

I have become convinced largely due to the threads on this forum that the only way to see that your son (and others) will get to experience the scouting program as it is promised in the handbook is to find (or be) the leader who is willing to read, learn, and then follow the program.

 

You are on the right path. Stick with it, become a powerful, knowledgable, force in your sons scouting and in scouting in your community.

 

Remember "We're pullin" for Ya!"

Happy Scouting!!!

BW

 

[SemperParatus]

Agree wholeheartedly...

 

A unit that can adhere to the BSA program has a much better chance for successful outcomes.

 

All scouters should contantly seek to expand and refresh their knowledge of the scouting program so that they can deliver the promise, improve their units, and best serve their scouts.

[NIscouter]

CNYscouter - I feel your pain! My troop currently has a SM who is not interested in following the BSA program or learning anything more on the methods of scouting. I hear complaints from the SM, ASMs and MCs about how the boys don't do this or that, and as you relate, I wish (and sometimes comment) they would use the SM handbook or try applying the methods of scouting. I think BW has it right, you (and I) need to continue to learn about program/methods, be ready to support our troop as needed, and continue to champion the use of the scouting program/methods to address the problems that crop up. Now how do do this on my alloted one hour a week?? :>>

[Eagledad]

>>I dont want to come off as the Scouting know-it-all but it looks like I am the only one who has taken the time to read the SM Handbook.

[bbng]

I've been there, though with Cubs, and here's what I did. I listened very carefully to the leaders, particularly the den leaders, and asked questions to get a feel for what the concerns were. Then, at home, after each meeting, I took out several BSA books, looking up the subject of concern in each one. I simply copied those items, sent them to the CM, and after he and I spoke, then forwarded it to the rest of the unit leadership with encouragement to "let's try this next month". Not ONCE did following what was in the BSA books fail the unit. Was it a headache to read the books? For me, no, but as Barry notes, there sure is a resistance to reading. Therefore, I gave bits and pieces at a time--I guess you could say spoon fed the program to others You sound like the person who could do this, and I wish you well. Not only that, but I know you will be glad you've done this, for you will see the boys become more active and happier with Scouting, though one word of caution: don't expect huge changes overnight. Maybe that will happen, it sure can happen, but the news will travel. Oh, and I never said, "I think we should do this this way..." but instead would take the approach of saying, "you know, this looks like the answer to some of what we've been discussing recently - what do you think of giving it a try?" It takes away that know-it-all edge and creates an atmosphere of learning and trying new things together.

 

p.s. In less than one school year's worth of doing this, most of the leaders had purchased their own copies of these books and even asked for more training. They just needed to know (a) that the stuff was there, (b) that someone was willing to read it to them (insert big grin here), and © give it a shot and see that YES it does work.

 

p.p.s. Just an FYI, but when I first began to do this, it was a parent, not a registered leader. I wanted to understand the program our kids were part of and eventually became part of it myself. So, don't underestimate position either; just be kind and helpful but keep referencing those BSA materials.(This message has been edited by bbng)

[Kahuna]

I think the hard thing about following the Scouting program is that it goes against everything they have learned in other youth activities. Letting boys run activities is apparently a heart stopping thought for many adults. Figuring out how to actually help them plan program without taking over is a difficult thing. That's why the best Scout Troops are run by guys who were in good troops when they were kids.

 

The Scouting program also runs counter to most adults experience where the adults feel compelled to plan and lead "busy work" activities.

 

That's where training comes in, but even there a lot of people just don't believe it when they hear it.

 

It ain't easy, but the payoff is enormous when you see a really great troop at work.

[ScoutNut]

"Maybe the question is how to get adults to read."

 

 

ROFL! Barry, I think you have hit on one of the main problems in our world today.

 

The other main problem in the Scouting community is leaders who refuse to aknowledge that BSA has changed in the last 85 years. The terms "But It's Always Been Done This Way" & "It's A Tradition" drive me crazy!

 

Course, maybe that's why they don't read. They don't WANT to find out what they should really be doing!.

[OldGreyEagle]

I have mentioned this before, but that wont keep me from rementioning.

 

The Council in which I serve has a mandatory training rule for Cubmasters, Scoutmasters and Crew Advisors, and Sea Scout Skippers if we had a ship.

 

For 2006, to renew a charter, the Committee Chair has to be trained as well.

 

If the unit leader/advisor and committee chair is not trained then the unit will not renew its charter for 2006.

 

How can an organization possibly deliver on a promise if the people charged with delivering the promise dont know what that promise is?

[Eamonn]

I see part of the problem as being that there are a lot of people who never get the opportunity to follow the program. They join a Troop as a Scout, which isn't following the program work their way through the what they see as the program and years later become the leader of this Troop that never has followed the program.

I hate the "We don't do it that way" group as much as anyone, but the real truth is that they never seen it done right.

Training should be the answer, but again we find people who want to present training's by the seat of their pants.

I had the very sad job of telling a Wood Badge staff member that his services were not required because what he was presenting wasn't the syllabus. A super nice fellow and when I explained what he wasn't doing right, he said "I'm more of a seat of my pants sort trainer." The sad thing was that the guy had been in charge of presenting the Scoutmaster and Assistant Scoutmaster Outdoor Skills course in the District that he served. He has been around for a very long time and is liked and respected by the people in the District.

I know that when I became a Scoutmaster of the Troop that I had been a Scout in, I found myself doing what my Scoutmaster had done. I'm not sure what my thinking was? I do think I thought this must have worked and I'm proof that it does work. There was also a part of me that seen changing things as being somehow disrespectful.

Eamonn.

[CNYScouter]

I have to agree with a lot I am reading on these posts. I have seen that leaders that came from a good program as a youth run a better program as an adult.

 

Since becoming a leader myself, I have gained a great deal of respect for the leaders I had as a youth and feel lucky that I was in a good program.

 

I am not sure that just training is always the answer. Almost every leader in our Troop has attended training and yet there are still areas where the program is not being followed.

I was surprised to find that at our committee meeting last week out of the 9 in attendance 6 were Eagles. What I found more surprising was that 2 of these non-eagles were the SM and CC (and one Mom). They had never been in Scouts, not even a Cub.

 

Much of what I see is that no one is willing to put in the effort to run the program as written. I also have seen the seat of my pants or Ill just wing it style of leading. No advance planning, just make it up as you go along. It takes time and effort to plan and run a good program and I havent meet many leaders willing to put the time in to make it happen. I have found there are many people out there who want to be known as a Scout leader but do not want to put any effort in to being one.

 

Our council is also starting to require mandatory training for its leaders.

In 2006 for a Unit to recharter, all leaders will be required to have taken Fast Start, NLE and have YPT up to date

In 2007, the above plus all CM, SM, Crew Advisors and CCs to be fully trained for their positions

In 2008, all leaders with over 1 year of service must be fully trained for their position.

 

I think this is being done because we cant get our leaders to take training. Our District has dropped all training at Roundtable as no one was taking it. Our council has canceled BALOO training the last 3 years and WEBELOS Outdoor Skills for 2 years as no one signed up. I asked about taking the Trainer Development course but was told I would have to go out of council to get it as there hasnt been any interest in it for the last 3 or 4 years.

 

[SR540Beaver]

Barry: "Maybe the question is how to get adults to read."

 

I know I'm showing my age here, but who remembers the educational cartoons that Disney used to put out decades ago. The were highly educational, explained the subject extremely well and were highly entertaining. Perhaps BSA needs to contract with Disney to have Scoutmaster Mickey and ASM's Goofy and Donald teach SM Specific for the reading impaired adults!!!

[SemperParatus]

I'll admit that I read just about every piece of scouting literature I get my hands on, and return to reread parts all the time. I'm a reading nut and a scouting junkie.

 

But, I would venture to say that most scouting volunteers are neither. They are just trying to do some good and will easily find other ways to spend their leisure time than curling up with the Scoutmaster Handbook. I must say that most scouting publications are too verbose for the average scouter - training sessions enable them to at least hear or experience the basics without taking the extra time required of reading and studying. That's a good thing.

 

 

[dkurtenbach]

What we really need, for the benefit of our youth, is a system-wide, permanent leap in program knowledge on the part of our Scouters. But how do you attain that in an organization with huge, complex programs and tons of literature, when the average volunteer tenure is just two or three years, and ordinary human nature and the busyness of life create real, practical barriers to self-study, group training, and remaining current in the program?

 

While there is no single solution, it seems to me that the depth and breadth of the problem -- Scouters simply not knowing the program -- indicates that we aren't putting the program information out in formats that are comfortable and convenient for most Scouters to use. For example, while the Scoutmaster Handbook is great, it is essentially a big textbook -- you really have to be dedicated to crack open that sucker, much less *buy* it. (I think the Boy Scout Handbook has the same problem, which is why the only part that really gets used by boys is the requirements sign-off section in the back -- but that's a different discussion.) I think BSA's publications and materials are created on the faulty assumption that Scouters will *want* to look at them and use them, when in fact most folks only resort to the books when they *have* to. So, we can beat our heads against the wall trying to get people to read the books, or we can present the program in other ways. Notice that even many of the suggestions in this thread _don't_ involve trying to get people to read the books.

 

In addition to the other obstacles mentioned above, I think a big problem we have is the general view that Scouting is very flexible, and there's more than one way to skin a cat. So, since we don't have to follow the BSA program to the letter, and since we don't even know for sure what BSA recommends, we can do Scouting pretty much any way we want to.

 

To address both the problem of a convenient, familiar format and the misguided notion that Scouting is a flexible, "seat-of-the-pants" operation, I would create a pocket-size (3 1/2 x 5 1/2, max 80 pages) Scouter's Rulebook (one for Cub Scouting, one for Boy Scouting). It would take the program operation information from various hefty publications and condense it into a set of "rules" that cover most common issues. The format would be small enough to make good bus or bathroom reading, and they'd be given out like candy at every opportunity. We'd even have a PDA version. Although the material would be no more mandatory than it is now, even things like suggestions and best practices would be written as "rules" in order to discourage deviation, as well as give the best answers the program has without hedging.

 

A kinder, gentler version would be a similarly-sized pamphlet of "Scouter's FAQs." Again, I would give it the tone of definitive, do-it-this-way answers, rather than suggestions: "A troop meeting is organized as follows . . ." rather than "Each troop meeting should include . . ."

 

Each pamphlet would be bundled with the Fast Start CD for that program. Also bundled with it would be a 100 question open-book test. The Scouter could take the test, turn it in, and (with a score of 90% or better), get 1/2 of a "Trained" patch, good for one year. (The other 1/2 of the Trained patch comes with passing the exam on the pocket-sized Guide to Safe Scouting.)

 

Dan K

[SemperParatus]

An 80 page rulebook? Hope it has lots of pictures.

 

How about Scout TV! National produces a cable program that has 24 hour programming with training sessions, event promotions, highlights on unit activities, DIY pinewood workshop with Norm Abrams, etc....Everbody watches TV and it would be hard to come up with excuses for not having access.