Learning from the Past

[evmori]

When were we tricked? I musta missed that! Oh well!

 

We don't use knots & lashings as much now as we did. But I still feel it is a skill worth learning. You never know when they might come in handy!

 

I think learning from the past is a good thing.

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[OldGreyEagle]

I thought surely by now someone would have pointed out that it's pretty tough to learn from the future.

[Bob White]

I had debated on that but thought from you or Eamonn it would be witty and from me it would be mistaken as condescending. It's a tough crowd.

[Beavah]

oops sorry I forgot you don't see scouting as educational.

 

dig, dig, dig...

 

Nah, I see scouting as very educational, if by that we mean kids as self-directed learners. I don't think scouting should be formal education, like school. Leastways, not until scouters get enough trainin' to hold teaching licenses that show they're qualified to make good lesson plans and learnin' sets, eh?

 

Beavah

 

[OldGreyEagle]

Gee, I thought everybody knew when you teach something you need to make sure your objectives cover the Cognitive range,

 

Knowledge

Comprehension

Application

Analysis

Synthesis

Evaluation

 

Then of course in the Psychomotor domain you have the challenge of the physical skills requires to tie a knot, open a jack knife, etc.

 

Then for the Affective domain you have the values of the Oath and Law. Oddly enough, you can test for the Cognitive and Psychology quite readily, the Affective is much harder to measure and takes a period of time in a variety of situations to understand what the student learned (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

[Bob White]

As I look back, no one has written that scouting should be like school, or run as a traditional classroom, but you keep suggesting that someone wrote it and supports it. Perhaps you would share where that was ever said.

 

Adults cannot teach youth unless they are licensed? That's gonna throw a monkey wrench into merit badge counceling "Eh!".

 

You might ask Kudu how far back in scouting the "Outdoor Classoom" moedel goes.

 

 

[FireKat]

Learning is for life and living is the best teacher.

The more you learn, the more you realize you don't know.

[Kudu]

In the world of Scouting, the most committed "learners from the past" are those who play the Game of Scouting the way it was played during Baden-Powell's time. Sometimes called "Traditional Scouting" or "Baden-Powell Scouting," it has similarities to "Vintage Base Ball" (that's three words if you Google it).

 

The basic idea is to pick an arbitrary date (for instance 1938, the date of the last revision of the rules of Scouting edited by Baden-Powell) and play the game of Scouting according to the rules of the time. In vintage Scouting these chosen traditional rules are altered only for advances in 1) Health & Safety, 2) Environmental Concerns, and 3) Lightweight Camping Equipment.

 

These are working Scout associations not "reenactors" because they actually play the game of Scouting all year rather than performing a historically correct demonstration for an audience.

 

For the great majority of Scouters who look to the history of Scouting not to immerse their Troop in such a vintage program but as a source for activities or insight into the current BSA program, these three qualifications can serve as a guide to separate the timeless practices and principles of Scouting from the things ridiculed by modernists (such as trenching around tents, sleeping in large canvas tents, or hiking with heavy wooden backpack frames).

 

Kudu

 

 

 

[Bob White]

What if we pick 1907?

 

Whose up for giving the youth rubdowns after a day at camp? That's what B-P did at Brownsea isn't it Kudu?

 

How abpout 1938, did't they treat burns with butter? but we know now that butter actually seals the heat in and drives the burn deeper.

 

Maybe we should go to the 50's and use tourniquets to stop severe bleeding instead of direct pressure? Of course a lot of injured people will lose limbs needlessly but what a great ol' skill?

 

How about a return to semaphore? It will come in handy if you ever are on a hilttop and need to send a message to someone else on a hiltop who happens to be there right when we are and also happens to know semaphore. I'll bet that happens a lot.

 

And don't forget to trench your tents in case it rains, sure it trashes the grounds ecosystem and creates erosion damage, but its fun to scout like in the 'good ol days'.

 

No more lightweight packs of cource. You need to take sticks and lash a frame together. No more mummy bags either. We'll make bedrolss from blankets and blanket pins. Okay sure thet're not as warm and they absorb water and they are a lot heavier but hey, things were better back then weren't they?

 

And who wants to backpack with nylon tents with rain flys when you can use shelter halves or canvas voyagers.

 

Scouting was, what it was, based on the technology and society of the day. Just as it is today.

 

The funny thing is that most people who would want to live scouting as it was in 1907 or even 1938, never lived scouting in those days, they have only day dreamed about what it would be like or played like it was in the old days. But unless you live the program in the day it was actually set it is just roleplaying. They scouted the way they did because that was the world they lived in, the resources they had, the knowledge they had. Scouting from "the good old days" is no more appropriate for youth today than scouting today would be for youth of those days.

 

You cannot drive forward very far while only looking in your rearview mirror without having an accident.

 

But if you can get a teenager to show up once a week and a weekend a month to pretend like it's 1938 but stay within the advancement, safety, uniform, and membership policies of today's Scouting then more power to ya.

 

BW

 

[Kudu]

BobWhite,

 

All of your objections fit into the three categories outlined in my post, don't they?

 

Self-styled "defenders of the 21st century" seek to make the important principles and practices of Baden-Powell's program that have been gutted from the BSA (for the sake of a less challenging Outdoor Method for indoor boys and pop business manager theory "Leadership Development") seem trivial by equating them to practices that have changed due to legitimate advances in:

 

1) Health & Safety,

 

2) Environmental Concerns,

 

3) Lightweight Camping Equipment.

 

"Scouting was, what it was, based on the technology and society of the day."

 

Baden-Powell's Scouting was never based on the "technology and society of the day." It was a strategic retreat from the industrial revolution (and society of declining character and physical health) to what a boy could do with his own hands in the environment in which his species evolved: Simple Scoutcraft Patrols in which Scout Law is practical not moralistic.

 

Kudu

 

[Gold Winger]

Bob, Kudu said "except for health and safety" but you really need to read the old handbooks or maybe you like making things up.

 

From my 1934 handbook

 

Small, mild burns may be treated with any good burn ointment . . . but 2nd and third degree burnds . . . Greasy burn ointments should not be used.

 

Compare that to the medical advice at http://www.pedisurg.com/PtEduc/Minor_Burn_Treatment.htm

 

Hmmmmm . . .

[Bob White]

Actually Kudu my post is based on one point alone.

Today ain't yesterday and never will be, And you are trying to live in a day that you have only read about.

 

I think playing like its another time is fun for youth, what kid hasn't played Cowboys and Indians. But you can only play at it. You can be a civil war reenactor but you can't actually go be in the civil war, its over. But there are real adventures you can do with scouts today and you don't have to pretend that you live in 1938 to do it.

 

Lots of Scouts are able to where todays uniforms, use today's advancement, follow todays rules and still introduce the skills of yester year, why is that not sufficient to satiate your longing for the times you never lived in?

 

I checked with my my mom, 1938 wasn't that great a time to live in. I though that you might want to know.

[Stosh]

Sometimes reliving the past isn't such a bad exercise for the boys. My Venturing crew does use wool blankets and occasionally a canvas tent. They cook in a canteen half and live the life of a soldier of the 1860's. Sometimes in the interest of developing program that presses a boy into challenges that wouldn't come his way naturally, they realize knowledge and strength that can't be picked up elsewhere.

 

They march miles in terrible leather shoes and wear wool in the middle of summer. They carry everything they need for the whole weekend or go without. Do they do it to gain any sort of expertise or do they do it because they know very few people ever get the chance to experience these events?

 

Dan Beard talked about putting up log cabins, my boys have done it, in the rain! They still keep coming back and they bring their friends. Seasoned veterans of the hobby have indicated to me that if the lead boy of my crew were to take over as commissioned officer of the company, they wouldn't have a problem falling in under his command. That's about the highest compliment anyone could give another in the hobby.

 

These are serious, recognized accomplishments in a world very foreign and strange to these boys when they first come into the hobby, but they have stepped up and learned modern lessons from historical contexts that will enable these boys to do exceptional things. Why? Because they are already doing them.

 

Next time you cook in your Dutch oven, remmber that piece of hardware was around for a long time before Scouting came along. Why would anyone ever think to use such archain cookware when we have propane stoves and teflon frypans? Just because we have newer technology doesn't mean it automatically surpasses the old standby's.

 

Stosh

[Bob White]

An excellent point jblake and one that was raised se veral posts ago that there are still several skills and elements of scouting left from the past. My gosh, many knots go back to the ancient mariners.

The mountains that were climbed by the scouts in the early 1900s are still there, as are the lakes and rivers.

 

So to suggest that we have forsaken the past simply isn't true, we just learned a few better methods and grew up a little.

 

But much of what was a part of scouting from Baden-Powell's philosophies to the gear we cook in has changed very little.

 

 

 

 

[Kudu]

Bob White writes:

 

"Actually Kudu my post is based on one point alone."

 

But it is a very trivial point based not on what I wrote but on a hostile need to belittle anyone who makes a distinction between the true nature of "Scouting" and the BSA's corporate version of Scouting.

 

However, my post was written for those who follow the BSA's current program and wish to profit from the insight of those who use Baden-Powell's program every week.

 

As I made clear in my first post, this is not reenactment.

 

When updated only for advances 1) Health & Safety, 2) Environmental Concerns, and 3) Lightweight Camping Equipment, Baden-Powell's program is just as practical, fresh, and full of adventure for boys as it was in 1938.

 

How would a Scout born in 1997 even know that a program was written in 1938?

 

Kudu