Scouting as School...or a Game

[Bob White]

Pappy

"Back to the Games thread - Yes - it wasn't the scouts's fault that he was poorly formed.

 

I have no idea what that means.

 

I do not believe I used a school model other than to say that specific skills cannot be expected to be learned by happenstance. Good leaders have plans, and that in Scouting outdoors is the classroom (not my original thought by any means this was introduced by Baden-Powell).

 

None of my posts have ever supported tradition style classroom teaching, like the troops that do merit badge classes in troop meetings.

 

I truly believe that some are so intent on not liking what the scouting program is that they do not actually take the time to read posts that support the program methods.

[Eagledad]

>>You format your post using the "Format this post" link below the Your Message on the left side of the message input screen. <<

WOW! That is really cool. Thanks John.

Barry

[Hiromi]

Hey fellas,

 

I remember one time at a Pack meeting I stood up and asked the scouts why they thought being a scout is a good thing. The Cub master's son answered it. He said that it will be good for his career when trying to get a job. That was actually the most articulate answer I got from the group.

 

IT got me thinking about our values as a society. I have met parents who call teachers and in threatening terms pressure them into raising their childs grade. I have met many parents who do their childrens assignments for them. I meet parents who coach to insure that their kid will play and in the plum position.

 

I guess Gold Winger is right- it is a sign of the times. But I see a pretty uncharitable trend in both parenting and in schooling where its me or you.

 

Schools, scouting, sports, the competition has gotten to be not necessarily about merit, but about credentials, not about quality,, but about brand name recognition..

 

This is why a lot of people are confused by scouting.. They look at it as an experience that their child can get from an amalgam of other activities like 4-H, family camping, and school.

 

I think by making a really terrific recruiting and training video might go along ways to aiding scouters and scouts and generating FOS.

 

It might also show scouts in action learning the great stuff in the great way that is uniquely scouting.

 

 

Pappy

 

[Bob White]

Pappy

In your opinion what would do more to enhance the BSAs Brand recognition and quality? A video from national showing the BSA program, or having more local units that followed the BSA program?

[Eagledad]

>>I truly believe that some are so intent on not liking what the scouting program is that they do not actually take the time to read posts that support the program methods.

[OldGreyEagle]

Pappy, I have have thought what you propose. A great recruiting video, we get Eagle Scout Steven Spielberg to produce and he convicnes John Williams to compose a soul stirring theme song. We get the adolescent movie stars of the day to appear and say how much they love scouting or wish they had had scouting (might work with Lindsay and Britney).

 

The question is, when the video is over and the charged up youth go clamoring to the units in their community, what will they find? Will they find the program that was extolled in the video or will they find a variant of it? Will the leaders of those units (29% trained nationally) be able to deliver the promise of the video?

[Hiromi]

Bob WHite wrote --"Pappy, In your opinion what would do more to enhance the BSAs Brand recognition and quality? A video from national showing the BSA program, or having more local units that followed the BSA program?"

 

And Pappy responds- "Well both of course, Bob. But I am not convinced that simply following the BSA program is any guarantee of quality or generating buzz, brand naming, or FOS.( We have been down that road before).

What I was saying- National- or a group of scouters, would do well by scouting by producing a series of high quality videos that show scouting in action. Thats all. And then these videos could be disseminated to the district level for viewing either via DVD or podcast.

 

I discussed this on the other thread about two suggestions about improving scouting- I think it was my 56th or 57th suggestion that we think about a scout web cast or tv network run by scouts and scouters.

 

But yes- am ministry of propaganda I think is definitely a good thing.

 

Pappy

 

[Bob White]

So EagleDad am I understanding your post correctly?

 

Some posters misrepresent what I post because "they like it so much that they want to express their take on it."???

 

I am sorry but that makes no sense at all to me. For what reason can they not share their opinion, without being untruthful about what I posted?

 

You need to explain that a little more in depth for me because I don't get it.

 

 

[Beavah]

 

Folks, we don't further our purposes here in the forums by poking at others or picking apart their postings and publicly chastising them for their views or the manner in which they communicate. We're seeing a lot of that lately and it really doesn't make the forums a fun place to visit. Not to pick particularly on Beavah, or Bob, or anyone else in particular, but you all know in your heart if you're participating in this practice of belittling fellow Scouters. Before you hit the submit button, please take a moment before to look over your posts to see if there's anything there that others might regard as not friendly or not courteous, or otherwise not aligned with the Scout Law. -FScouter

 

------

 

Yah, I'll add my two shillings, eh? I'm delighted to see a more proactive moderator response to posts that try to get in digs at fellow Scouters, imply they are frauds, or untruthful, or not BSA Program supporters and all that. To my mind, that sort of bullyin' does have no place, whether it comes from me, or BobWhite, or FScouter's recent posts.

 

I'd be delighted to seem 'em all change.

 

Beavah

 

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[Nessmuk]

"CONCENTRATION in education can only be obtained when the work to be done is suited to the tastes and abilities of the learner.

 

The natural instinct of the infant is to develop itself by exercise which we call " Play." It has an inherent desire to accomplish ; the young child wants to do things and to overcome difficulties to its own satisfaction. (Dr. Montessori has proved that by encouraging a child in its natural desires, instead of instructing it in what you think it ought to do, you can educate it on a much more solid and far-reaching basis. It is only tradition and custom that ordain that education should be a labor, and that as such it is good training for the child in discipline and application.

 

One of the original objects of Scouting for Boys was to break through this tradition and to show that, by giving attractive pursuits to the young, one could lead them to develop for themselves the essentials of character, health, and handiness.

 

It is maintained by many interested in education that concentration on the part of the child is most essential to its successful education, but is most difficult to obtain in school.

 

I don't know what happens in school, but I know that it is most easy to get concentration outside the school if you only give a child its own task to do in its own way.

The thing is to study the child and see what interests it. Look at a youngster making sand castles on the beach, how he will go at it hour after hour until he overcomes his difficulties and builds up his castle to his satisfaction. He concentrates the whole of his thought and the whole of his physical energy upon it. If you adapt such whole-hearted keenness to educational ends, there is no difficulty about obtaining the concentration desired.

 

This is exactly what happens in the Scout Movement on a step higher than the castles in the sandbut the success in results is entirely the outcome of study of the child, and of utilising his bentwhatever it may befor his own development.

 

Does the school teacher get his certificate for knowledge of the child or for knowledge of the three R's ?

 

The main step to success is to develop, not to repress, the child's character, and at the same time, above all, not to nurse him. He wants to be doing things, therefore encourage him to do them in the right direction, and let him do them in his own way. Let him make his mistakes ; it is by these that he learns experience.

 

Education must be positive, not negativeactive, not passive. For example, the Scout Law in each of its details says : " A Scout does "this, that, or the other.

 

Authorities have come along to improve the Scout Law, and not recognising the active side of it, have changed it to the reversea series of " Don'ts." " Don't," of course, is the distinguishing feature and motto of the old-fashioned system of repression, and is a red rag to a boy. It is a challenge to him to do wrong.

 

Sought knowledge lasts, unsought does not. Every boy is different in ability, temperament, and mind, and yet we try to teach them all in a heap the same things. One will come out top of his class because a subject happens to suit him, but he does not necessarily afterwards come out at the top in life.

 

We have been criticised in the Scout Movement for offering such a large number of badges for proficiency in so many different lines. The object of this was, not that each boy should try to win all these badges, but to try to meet the enormous variety of characters among boys, and to give each one his chance by selecting his own subject. We do not perpetuate the school custom, whereby abilities may be equally good but unfortunately not in one of the subjects which come into the school curriculum.

 

The aim of the Proficiency Badge is to encourage self-education on the part of the boy in a subject which interests him."

 

January 1916 - None other than 'BP'

[Stosh]

My two denari...

 

I teach boys to teach.

 

One of the things I have learned over the years is that if one teaches, they really have to know their material in order to do so. Is this expecting more than the requirements of BSA direct? Nope. If the boy only demonstrates he can do something, it doesn't necessarily mean he knows anything about it. One must understand the requirement, not just demonstrate once that for the next 5 minutes and remember enough to get credit for it to pass rank. Can the boy take what he has demonstrated and apply it to other situations other than a scout meeting? Can he translate that double half hitch to a grommet in a dining fly? Can he teach the next scout how to do it?

 

Sometimes this is a great thing, sometimes it's a total embarrassment. With my Venturing crew, I can hand a boy a Civil War canteen and he can give me a 10-15 minute talk about it. These boys regularly do in-school presentations and once a year teach a whole day in one our local schools. Most of these boys acquire these skills long before they turn 16 and can drive themselves to these school presentations on their own.

 

I also tried working with boys on the Webelos level that were totally unaware that they were indeed even learning let alone teach. It wasn't a game, it was just opportunities for the boys to satisfy their curiosity and given a responsibility they took seriously. The CM of the Webelos boys I had once asked one of the boys during the pack award presentation what he had done to earn the Readyman pin. He had no idea and was embarrassed in front of everyone. I simply asked him if he had his first aid kit with him. He pulled it from his pocket. I asked him if he knew how to use it he said sure he did. I said, why don't you show the CM all the neat stuff you have in there. He then went on for the next few minutes, teaching the CM about all the neat things he had in his kit.

 

If these boys can teach, they know their stuff and I have the potential for a great PL, TG or Instructor.

 

Stosh

[Kudu]

 

Accounts of the "Unknown Scout" who refused money for helping William Boyce navigate through the London fog sometimes mention that Boyce left for America with a trunk full of Scouting materials from Baden-Powell's headquarters.

 

I often wonder what happened to Boyce's trunk full of materials because after the YMCA took over from Boyce, the BSA seriously missed the mark on the game nature of Scouting (just as they had absolutely no understanding of the Patrol System).

 

This is still reflected in the BSA's misunderstanding of terms such as "Rank" and "Court of Honor."

 

The "Court of Honor" in Baden-Powell's program is a committee of Patrol Leaders with the power to oversee everything from the Troop's financial matters to Scoutcraft training.

 

The BSA's version of the "Court of Honor" was a centralized committee of adults at the local Council that administered a battery of written examinations plus oral and practical tests for every requirement of every rank for every Scout: "...the candidate must qualify in all of the tests at the time set for the examination. This latter policy, it would seem, would be productive of best results and better order in systematic Scout work, unless a complex system of records, exact in all details, is made use of. Certain definite dates should be determined upon for examinations. More interest should be aroused thereby, and the number of participants would most likely be increased. In any event such a course should prove of advantage in helping to standardize examinations and Scout records" The Scout Masters' Handbook, First Edition, BSA.

 

The BSA now talks a good game about advancement requirements being met through the natural activities of a Troop, but the early anti-Scouting legacy of schoolwork still rules the world of BSA Merit Badges. This is why our attempts to make a game out of the more boring Merit Badges seem so hopelessly lame.

 

This is in sharp contrast to Baden-Powell's program in which Scouting is a game of Scoutcraft and Public Service. B-P's Merit Badges (called "Proficiency Badges") which make up the pool of the required badges are centered on 1) Scoutcraft Skills (Explorer, Stalker, Tracker, Forester, Naturalist, Pioneer, Weatherman) and 2) Public Service (Ambulance Man, Handyman, Pathfinder, Public Health Man, Rescuer).

 

There is a spiritual aspect to this part of Scouting, Scoutcraft skills (worn on the right side of the Uniform) lead to close contact with nature and what Baden-Powell called the "religion of the deep woods." Public Service badges (worn on the left side of the Scout Uniform) represent current proficiency in skills that lead to the service to others -- what he referred to in Christian circles as "Practical Christianity"

 

Unlike Baden-Powell's Scoutcraft and Public Service Proficiency Badges, the required BSA Merit Badges that red-blooded American boys so rightfully despise are the

 

1) "schoolcraft" badges and

 

2) shortcuts to the Aims and Methods of Scouting.

 

These include Citizenship, Communications, Environmental Science, Family Life, Personal Fitness, and Personal Management.

 

American Scouters should grow some spine and demand an end to the requirement of these anti-Game of Scouting Merit Badges.

 

The core Tenderfoot through First Class requirements certainly have been dumbed-down for the convenience of parents who want their indoor boys to add Eagle Scout to their resumes. But compared to the BSA Merit Badges, the core skills that do remain are relatively free of schoolcraft requirements and shortcuts to the Aims & Methods. These are limited to physical fitness, service projects, drug awareness, constitutional rights, and Scout Spirit.

 

Therefore it is not only the "git 'er done" mentality of FCFY that looks to school classrooms for the most efficient way to cram three years of experience into the first year of Scouting.

 

It is also the schoolcraft nature of most Merit Badges that has transformed summer camp into summer school complete with class schedules and cafeteria food. Given the classroom nature of summer camp, it is only natural that FCFY would become the middle school to Merit Badge high school.

 

The same year that the YMCA began the systematic deconstruction of pre-BSA American Scoutcraft, Baden-Powell wrote the following essay about "giving them a curriculum which appeals to them"

 

Our Aim

 

In the Army we have certain points to aim for in training our men; but in the long course of years the steps in training have become so absorbing and important that in many cases the aim has come to be lost sight of.

 

Take, for instance, the sword exercise. Here a number of recruits are instructed in the use of the sword in order to become expert fighters with it. They are put into a squad and drilled to stand in certain positions and to deliver certain cuts, thrusts, and guards on a certain approved plan. So soon as they can do this accurately and together like one man -- and it is the work of months to effect this -- they are passed as efficient swordsmen, but they can no more fight an enemy than can my boot. The aim of their instruction has been overlooked in the development of the steps to it.

 

I hope the same mistake is never likely to occur with us in the Boy Scouts. We must keep the great aim ever before us and make our steps lead to it all the time.

 

This aim is to make our race a nation of energetic, capable workers, good citizens, whether for life in Britain or overseas.

 

The best principle to this end is to get the boys to learn for themselves by giving them a curriculum which appeals to them, rather than by hammering it into them in some form of dry-bones instruction. We have to remember that the mass of the boys are already tired with hours of school or workshop, and our training should, therefore, be in the form of recreation, and this should be out of doors as much as possible.

 

That is the object of our badges and games, our examples and standards.

 

If you would read through your Scouting for Boys once more, with the Great Aim always before you, you will see its meaning the more clearly.

 

And the Great Aim means not only the practice of give-and-take with your own officers, but also with other organisations working to the same end.

 

In a big movement for a big object there is no room for little personal efforts; we have to sink minor ideas and link arms in a big "combine" to deal effectively with the whole.

 

We in the Boy Scouts are players in the same team with the Boys' Brigade, Church Lads, Y.M.C.A., and Education Department, and others. Co-operation is the only way if we mean to win success.

 

BP's Outlook, May, 1910.