Is it really all that bad to be different?

[Cubmaster Jerry]

Whew! Still catching my breath after having just returned from National Camp School. A whirlwind weekend of about 35 hours of class time certainly provided me with the information and energy to run a great Day Camp this summer.

 

However, after sitting back and reflecting on the weekend, probably the biggest question I still have is just where does the effort to run a standardized program break down? Why are councils and units run so differently when the BSA sings the same tune to everyone? Admittedly I am kind of hung up on following standards. Whether it is in scouts, work, or elsewhere, I am comfortable with the idea that if there are standards set, then, in most cases, someone who has much more knowledge and experience than I has determined that is the best way to do it. (that is not saying that I agree with everything though)

 

Many of you have been to - and even ran - far more training sessions and schools than I have yet had the chance to go to. You've no doubt noticed that the recurring atmosphere at these is driven by preparation and excitement. One of the most anticipated things for me when I attend any training is seeing what the facilitators will come up with as a means to present their material. Skits, songs, props (I could go on and on about props), and even the people themselves are all carefully selected to get the information across in an interesting way. And all of the information they present, no matter what level of training it is, all comes from BSA standards

 

But, when speaking to many scouting peers and reading many posts in here, I find those standards are sometimes disregarded and replaced by the "what works best for me" philosophy. And I am not necessarily speaking just to the Unit level. Nor am I speaking of the need to have authorized skit lists, standard summer camp programs or other things that would limit creativity and excitement. I am speaking of regulation-type items. Quite often the NCS staff's responses to Am I allowed to-type questions this past weekend were "It depends on your Council." But shouldn't every Council and every Unit look to the BSA as to what it should do?

 

But regardless of the answer to that last question, I in turn ask does it really matter? At the basic foundation of scouting are the 12 Core Values. Should it matter how I, you, or anyone else gets across the message of the Core Values to the boys?

 

The answer is yes. It does matter. And it goes back to what has been determined to work best for all. It goes back to following standards.

 

Is it really all that bad to be different? Only when different equals wrong.

 

YIS,

CMJ

 

[Beavah]

Bah, humbug.

 

Standards would work if people were widgets. People ain't widgets. And personally, I think it's insultin' to people and mean to kids to treat them as though they were a standardized widget that can be reached with one-size-fits-all programming.

 

If standards really worked, you'd see only one type of successful business or one type of successful school. Thing is, you see all kinds of successful businesses and schools, and they're DIFFERENT. And when businesses and schools try to standardize on the people-side, far more often then not they become WORSE.

 

Plus, I know some of da people who write the standardized programs you want to embrace. As often as not, they don't know that much more than any other experienced practitioner, and a fair bit of the work is done by their "staff" who actually know less.

 

Forget da widgets. Courtesy demands treatin' people like people.

 

[Loping Okie]

People start talking about Standards and I get nervous. (Must be the Engineer in me) In my view of the world there are Standards and there are Guidelines. Standards are rules than need to be followed to the letter because of there importance. Youth Protection and GSS should be standards we all live by. Many other aspects of Scouting Wisdom from on high should be a Guideline. Guidelines are good practice that show the best way to do something. If a program plan is laid out for 20 adult leaders with an unlimited budget to execute and all you can get is 5 leaders and your budget is severely limited, you may have to pick and choose what you take from that plan.

 

BSA does not, in my opinion, always do a good job of drawing a line between the two.

[Beavah]

Yah, yah, whatever. He's not talkin' about dat, eh? He's talking about the equivalent of federalizing everything. One standard way of doing things across the nation. For schools, a national standardized test, a national curriculum, no more local school boards who can make adaptations for urban, or rural, or transient kids, or listening to da kids parents.

 

And every business has to look like WalMart.

 

BAH. Humbug. Ain't good for schools, ain't good for businesses, ain't good for scoutin'.

 

Give me liberty, or give me death.

 

[OneHour]

There are standards already ...

 

1) The Scout Oath

2) The Scout Law

3) The Scout Motto

4) The Scout Slogan

5) The Outdoor Code

 

To complete the list, we also have G2SS as the BSA guidelines and the rules and if one wants more along the line of spiritual guidelines and standards, look into one's own religious teachings. Let's toss the Pledge of Allegiance in for good measure.

 

How these points are delivered is really up to the program.

 

Let's look at something that is on the similar idea. Let's take the Universities and Colleges for example. Each has its own program of getting a student to a bachelor, masters, or PhD degree. Some are better than others; however, all have to follow a set of accreditation requirements to get accredited. A student with a bachelor degree in EE, for example, from Harvard should have all the fundamental EE knowledge as a student from USC, UT, TU, UAB, UH, TAMU(debatable on the quality ), etc ... The fundamental differences are the students and the teachers (the EE program is about the same). My 2 cents.

 

1Hour

[Lisabob]

Jerry, what sorts of things were you told differed from one council to the next? Perhaps with some solid examples of the types of things you are talking about, we can have a better discussion.

 

Lisa'bob

[CNYScouter]

Beavah says

 

If standards really worked, you'd see only one type of successful business or one type of successful school. Thing is, you see all kinds of successful businesses and schools, and they're DIFFERENT. And when businesses and schools try to standardize on the people-side, far more often then not they become WORSE.

 

One of the most successful businesses today works by applying standards. McDonalds (or any franchise). When you enter a McDonalds in Maine or California you know whats on the menu and what the food is going to be like. There maybe some regional menu selections, but a Big Mac is a Big Mac anywhere in the USA. They are basically selling the same products no matter where you are in the US.

Is standards dont work why do franchises work?

When you visit a BSA Troop shouldnt it be basically the same with only minor differences?

 

Isnt the BSA a franchise? It sure looks like one to me.

If McDonalds can be successful selling the same food across the USA why cant the exact same BSA program work across the BSA?

 

What I am not seeing with Scout Troops is a consistent program like this. Every Troop seems to have its own program. This Troop does Merit badges at every meeting, the next closest one doesnt allow MBs at meetings, the next one has a separate meeting for MBs and the one down the street does MBs only once a month.

 

My sons Troop has an adult arrange MBs for the Scouts. The leader calls the MB Councilor and arranges them to come to a Troop meeting to teach a group of scouts.

 

Does it work, you bet. Ive been told that thats what the PLC wants, so the Troop Leaders are doing it. The boys like it and the adults find it much easier.

Sorry, thats not the BSA program in my book

 

 

[SemperParatus]

The difference between the Troop that I work with and McDonalds is that we are not in business to sell a product that has been turned into a homogenous unit. We are there to serve each individual boy as best as we can. The majority of time, that means that the BSA standards, guidelines, rules, regulations, procedures, model, programs, policies, whatever you want to call it, are employed and with great success. Sometimes a tweak is made with even greater success. Sometimes a tweak falls on its face. Sometimes complete ignorance of the BSA model is found and that needs to be corrected immediately. But to lump all nonconformity to the printed perfection of the BSA as 'bad' and 'wrong' is a slap in the face of every dedicated scouter that is doing his best to follow the program, while keeping his eye out for any chance to capture a boy's interest and develop his character using some hook that may not be printed in the thousands of pages of BSA literature. We are not paid to flip kids like hamburgers, we are devoted to working with young men to develop character. The BSA does not have all the answers to that quest and never will. Granted, the BSA program has been very successful for nearly a century in this country, but lets credit that success to where it comes from - the thousands of dedicated volunteers that have committed their time, talent and energy to find a way to make scouting real, rather than just pages in a book.

 

Dats my two cents.

[CA_Scouter]

The reason MickeyD's works is because you are a paid employee, and if you don't use their cookie cutter approach, you are fired.

 

BSA works with volunteers, and they are smart enough to know that they will walk away should you force them into a program that is too rigid.

 

As OneHour points out, there are some standards that BSA has, and the rest are guidelines. I think that is wise of the BSA, to set some hard and fast rules for the really, really important stuff, and some excellent guidelines and training for the rest.

 

I'm with Beavuh. Your city troop and my rural troop are the same but they are completely different, if you know what I mean!

 

This isn't the armed forces, its not 'I, Robot', and its not 'Attack of the Clones'. In my opinion, BSA wants us to be similar, not exact copies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[OldGreyEagle]

Alright, lets role up the shirt sleeves and see where another discussion on tweaks go.

 

First the ground rules, I think. We have the BSA MIssion statement

 

The mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.

 

The we have the Aims of Scouting

 

The aims of the Boy Scouts of America are to build character, develop citizenship, and foster personal fitness.

 

And finally the methods:

 

ideals

the patrol method

the outdoors

advancement

association with adults

personal growth

leadership development

uniform

 

I hope no one thinks the above are suggestions, althought there may be at least one poster.

 

The eight methods are used to deliver the program. Now some consistency is needed. 21 merit badges to reach Eagle. The required badges, the Eagle leadrship project. The competent serving in a position of responsibilty. I see the above as absolutes, then again others may not and I would like to know what people think are tweaks and what are considered out and out going off the program.

 

Its the program to have the Senior Patrol Leader elected and he selects his ASPL and "cabinet" not doing so, is that a tweak or a major divergence

 

A Board of Review and Scoutmaster Conference is not to be a restest, but a discussion of goals and what comes next for the scout, is turning these events into retests a tweak or a major divergence

 

Shuffling patrols for Camporees to have 2 or 3 patrols of 8 each or having 5 patrols with 3-4 in each. Is this a tweak or a variance

 

Why is it important? When I am traveling I take some comfort that all medical dotors passed the same test so I dont have to worry if I am in an inferiorly tested surgical state, or at least not as well tested as others

 

Yeah troops will be different, troops along the Cheasapeake may be much more apt to fish and sail while Troops in the rockies may be more apt to back pack and mountain climb. Established troops may be much more boy lead in the true sense while a troop in its 18th month may have to rely heavily on adults. One of the so far endearing "facts" that the public knows is that an Eagle scout is something. Its not that Eagle scouts of the Mid West are superior to those of the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest ones are wussies.

 

I guess just what is a tweak ? What is an acceptable difference

 

(This message has been edited by OldGreyEagle)

[CA_Scouter]

I dunno, do we really need to rehash the TWEAK thread again? We did this not too long ago and I, for one, did not learn anything useful.

 

I don't think a new discussion on the same topic will result in any new insights. That's just my $0.02 worth.

 

Just re-read Semper's post. I am in complete agreement.

 

If BSA had wanted cookie-cutter programs and cloned scouts, they would have written it into their policy, provided the means to determine when a troop was in violation, developed remedies to expel non-compliant troops and would vigorously and agressivly enforce it. That's another two cents, so now you have four!

 

:-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Eamonn]

 

Is it really all that bad to be different?

No.

I lost count of how many Scouts, Cub Scouts and leaders I have known and everyone of them was different.

I'm not going to return to tweaks.

It might be worth remembering that each Council has along the way been influenced by individuals.

I look at the Council next door and I see that they serve 47,000 youth and have almost as many adult volunteers as we have youth in our traditional programs and LFL.

I have friends in that Council who just love being part of something that big, I also have friends who would love to be part of a smaller Council. Will they do things a little different than we do?

Having staffed NCS, trying not to give the wrong answer is hard. Trying not to give the according to Eamonn answer is really hard!!

Sure we all follow the good books??? But different Councils have different things set up differently. When it comes to camps insurance and how each Council has covered the campers can be a real nightmare.

Of course we can look at things that we think every young Lad will enjoy. We can cover the National Standards.

Still at the end of the day there are different courses for different horses.

Eamonn.

[le Voyageur]

The problem with standards are that they are written in stone, but delivered in real time to real people who are not standardized to the same tune.

 

Sometimes a jig, other times a reel, but the dance should include all. Keeping it in the ballroom only for the same old waltz will have folks stepping on toes....

[Cubmaster Jerry]

I am not saying that all units should be the same nor am I suggesting that the BSA tweak or rewrite its books at all. However, there is a right and a wrong way to do things buried amongst the tremendous amount of flexability that we as scout leaders have.

 

If council is given the same level of flexability as units are then I can certainly understand that. But, is my council exercising their flexability when they tweak the books so that my unit can be awarded Quality Unit when we didn't earn it? Are Troops that don't employ the Patrol method exercising their flexability in how they run their program? Are units that condone the wear of Class Bs instead of Class As to Pack/Troop meetings exercising their flexability? No, but it happens. That is when being different is wrong.

 

When you go in to McDonals, you expect the same quality hamburger regardless of where you are at. It may be served by different people, in a different building and a different atmosphere but it is made from the same instruction chart as everyone else. There is nothing wrong with that. And, for the most part, I believe that the BSA, its council, and its units are following that same successful formula.

 

But when councils and units don't follow the BSA formula, they die or at the very least present something other than what the BSA intends. And at that point boys and adults who would otherwise benefit from scouting aren't.

[le Voyageur]

The amount of flexabilty in your program will come directly from you. It will be you who will be setting the standards for your staff to follow and implement in thier program areas. Thus, the amount of flexabilty in your program will depend on how much you can, or can not trust your staff. As a past Program Director, flexabilty ment knowing my staff, and trusting thier judgement. Use your staff training sessions to set the standards by being the example you would want your staff to follow, especially with the junior staff who are just starting out....