A real answer requires more than 8th grade literacy ?

[Eamonn]

Much as I hate to admit it, much as I enjoyed the opening ceremonies for the Olympics in China particularly the precision of having so many people moving in time and doing what they were supposed to be doing. After a while I went into "Cultural-Overload". - The fact that the Steelers were on another channel, may have played a part in some of this.

I was also tired and fell asleep.

I missed most of the parade of the nations flags.

 

I'm always a little worried that the stories that are just a little too cute, might not be 100% true.

Still it was nice to see Chinese team basketball idol Yao Ming, accompanied by 9-year-old schoolboy Lin Hao, a survivor of May's devastating earthquake in Sichuan province.

Lin Hoa is reported to have saved two of his classmates by returning into the elementary school

and digging them out of the collapsed school.

When asked why he did it?

He answered that he was the Hall Monitor and it was his job.

I think if this is true that it's a great answer.

 

Then again there is the question.

Yesterday I happened to overhear an inmate ask a staff member a question. The inmate wasn't overjoyed with the answer he was given. So he came and asked me the very same question.

As it happened the answer he had been given was one that I thought was right and supported.

I'm now left wondering what I would have done if it hadn't been?

As it was I gave the inmate a hard time for not following the staff members instructions.

I did this to show my faith and my support in the Staff member.

A few weeks back I took the quiz that was posted here in the forum.

I don't keep a pile of Scouting books on my desk, I would but Her Who Must Be Obeyed doesn't like the clutter! I didn't get all the answers correct.

When the answers were posted, I took the word of the person who posted them.

This doesn't mean that I agree with the answer, it just means that I believe them to be the right answer and I have faith in the guy who posted the answers.

Maybe like 9-year-old Lin Hao, I should just move on and do my job?

Eamonn.

 

[Stosh]

And then, of course, there's the times when decisions are made that are difficult to support but one does it anyway.

 

I'm not always thrilled by the decisions of the boys, but if my program is going to be boy-led, it has to be boy-led and I need to stand back and let things take their course, good or bad. It's really difficult to stand by and watch a train wreck. Of course, one offers suggestions and helps, but the final decisions is not mine to make.

 

Or when another adult digs themselves into a bad hole with a poor choice, one still has to back them. There are a lot of things one does for the betterment of the whole that makes them a good citizen, team player, or leader. I don't hold the ultimate answer for every situation and there are times when one has to step back and allow another to step up to the plate.

 

As a scout leader, we instill the best into the boys and then we have to let them run with it. Being an SPL and doing the SPL job are two entirely different animals and allowing the boy to actually do the job is for me at least the ultimate goal. Wouldn't it be great to have all our boys take seriously the patch on their sleeve the way Lin Hao took seriously his role as Hall Monitor. Those dynamics are not something one learns out of a book.

 

Stosh