What is the most dated scouting skill requirement?

[Frank17]

I was looking through an updated Boy Scout Handbook and noticing the newer requirements that have been introduced since I became a Scoutmaster (invite a friend to join, personal safety, and internet safety) and was thinking about how the program has changed over thge years. At the same time, a lot of the requirements that I did as a boy (30+ years ago) are still there. I wondered about scouter's opinions on requirements that may have become dated over the years (after all, some of the early MBs have been discontinued). In my tenure as SM, I have only seen requirements added, never deleted.

 

IMHO, I feel like most of the knotting skills are of limited use in present day scouting and camping. When I was a boy, the tents, tarps, backpacks, etc. all required the use of numerous knotting skills to set-up, maintain, and transport them. Now, most of our Troop's camping gear is velcro, bungee cords, or carabineers. I realize that some knots are still used for other common purposes (tying one's shoes), but I am not sure that it is a "life-skill" that should be left in the scouting program. I believe this is also part of the problem with our scouts remembering how to tie knots: they simply do not get enough practice after they have learned the knot. I contrast this with a skill like cooking, where even untrained scouts that recently learned can remember how to cook, as we use cooking skills everytime we have an outing.

 

What does everyone else like / dislike as skills?

 

[Gold Winger]

Knots are pretty simple things to learn, pretty simple to remember if you learn them well. When do you use knots? If you're climbing, fishing, sailing. What about tying a mattress to the roof of your car. Also, knowing and being able to tie knots gives a person a sense of accomplishment IF IT IS DONE RIGHT.

 

What if you don't have velcro when you need to tie something to your pack? What knot can you use?

 

I read a little story by a soldier who said that when is unit deployed the little do-dads to adjust the tent ropes had disappeared. Being a Scouter, he taught his troops to tie the tautline hitch. Irrelevant? Dated? Not anymore than holding the door for someone.

 

Lots of things have disappeared from the requirements. Signalling. Not vital but fun and useful when your FRS radio dies.

 

Tracking? Fun and useful.

 

Fire building isn't relevant because we cook on stoves but know how to light a fire can save a date or even your life.

 

Dislike? I dislike the watering down of things to the point that they are meaningless.

[shortridge]

In present-day camping, very few of the traditional Scouting skills are used on a day-to-day basis.

 

Wilderness survival? Got a cell phone and personal locator beacon.

Map and compass? Got a GPS.

Boiling water? Carrying canteens? Heck, you can get a filtration system hooked up to your Camelbak, and you don't even have to take off your pack to drink.

Carving a Scout stave? Got a pair of trekking poles.

 

To me, it's those traditional skills that are the most important to pass on, lest they fall by the wayside completely. You never know when they'll be useful, and that really is the crux of the issue, as GW's story showed. I never learned tracking, trailing, stalking or signalling, but I sure wish I had, and am trying to teach myself nowadays.

 

(Re: Campfire cooking - for that matter, what happens when your high-tech stove breaks down, you can't fix it, and most of your food requires cooking?)

[AK-Eagle]

On my list to go away.

 

Swimming merit badge #4 clothes inflation.

Don't know about you folks but removing clothing in water around here will hurry up hypothermia.

 

Just my .02

 

AK

[Gold Winger]

That's just around there. Last I checked it was a standard skill for sailors. If we go with local requirements, for your state you need moose defense.

[IM_Kathy]

the only thing I would want removed is the swimming requirements for 1st and 2nd class. While I'll agree that this is a very important skill to learn, but not everyone can do it. And while you can get a medical pass if it's because of a medical problem... what about the scout that's parents couldn't afford swimming lessons? or what about the scout that nearly drowned when he was 3 and has been afraid of the water sense then? I'm all for these requirements for the swimming merit badge obviously. And I'm alright with teaching the reach and throwing rescues as part of rank... just don't like them required to swim just for those ranks.

 

oh, and those 2 examples I gave I've dealt with... my son was the one that nearly drowned and it took until he was a webelos before swimming without a float. He's now 13 and finally completed these requirements. The other boy I took the the local Y as I was a member and he would come along with my son and I worked with him until he could do it... took about 5 months, but he finally got it. Not sure what would've happened had someone not stepped up and found out the reason he had not gone up rank.

 

all the other things I don't want to see touched... although I'd love to add things. Along with learning the compass I think they should require learning to use a GPS. I think they should include making a signal fire as well as the cook fires. I also think they should focus on the knots even more including learning to tie the bowline with one hand (and if you have 2 arms learn to tie with each of them).

 

I also wish they'd focus more on cooking over fire than with camp stoves. we had a campout that was a small group going and we didn't need the trailor, well someone forgot to put the propane tank pole on the list and it didn't get put into the back of the pickup. Of the 5 boys there only 2 had a lot of experience with cooking over actual fire - luckily 1 of those was already the cook... but the other 3 and even the SM got to see how good the boys could adapt and how well those 2 had learned that skill and how important it is.

 

If you're wondering where those 2 learned to cook over fire - those 2 (1 was my son) use to be in another troop that hardly ever camped out and so me and the other one's parent would take them out camping and that's all they ever did. It's also all my girl scouts ever do unless it's raining - then they are allowed to use the campstove under the dining fly.

[gwd-scouter]

"I also wish they'd focus more on cooking over fire than with camp stoves."

 

Certainly a useful skill, but because of the severe drought in many parts of the Southeast we have fire bans almost year-round and are limited in cooking over an open fire.

 

The adults were talking about this very topic the other day. Knots seemed to be highest on the list of things Scouts learn and almost never use. That is, like many of the other skills they need to learn for advancement, the Scouts will never use them if not given the opportunity to do so. To me what is important is the mastery of the skill, not whether knowing that skill will ever be useful later in life. The skills are building blocks. Scout learns to tie a knot. Perhaps he struggles with it. Finally gets it on the first try. Big smile appears. That Scout then teaches a younger Scout to tie the knot. Younger Scout struggles with it but finally gets it. Big smile on both - younger Scout for the accomplishment, older Scout for the feeling of pride in helping another.

 

I see that happen over and over again in our Troop. Last month we had a new Scout camping for the first time. He shared a tent with another relatively new Scout - a Scout that always seems to disappear when work is to be done. I watched as the Tenderfoot Scout helped new Scout learn a few things. Walked up when they were rolling their tent to put away. Older Scout was beaming as he told me he was teaching new Scout how to do it.

 

Dated requirements? Depends on how you look at it. One way to view the requirements is that they are a skill set to build a super "technical" Scout. The other is using them to build a super young man.

[scoutldr]

Absent a physical disability like paralysis, I can teach anyone to swim if they're willing to try. Some just take longer than others. I have a scout who is ready to make Eagle...he didn't make 1st class until he was 14 because of the swimming. But he tried every year, and when he finally made it, it was one of the happiest occasions of his life. He's still not a "water person", ... but he's a "swimmer".

[JAYMEDINC]

I'd like to re-iterate the fact that using your clothes as a floatation device is tought (and often used) as a lifesving method in the Navy.

 

However, I am not sure what relevance it has in Boy Scouts. Do Boy Scouts go out in the open water, and have the possibility of falling overboard without being noticed? Maybe Sea Scouts? (I'm not familiar with Sea Scouts) But swimming in a pool or lake, you sure don't need to take your pants off to help float and wait for rescue.

 

Oh yeah, I don't think keeping your soaking wet clothes on or taking them off, while in the water, has any bearing on hypothermia.

 

I do agree that a few of my son's cub scout requirements/electives are old fashioned. How about the marbles belt loop? Who plays that any more? Sure, we can keep it to try to keep the game alive. But to have a belt loop for it. That is silly in my opinion.

[GaHillBilly]

I couldn't help but note that knowing knots was sorta #1 on the list of useless skills . . . because the lack of knot knowledge has been a pet peeve of mine for years and years, long before I entered Scouting with my son 2 years ago.

 

I learned a few odd-ball knots, working around farms as a boy. I mastered some more basic knots years ago, climbing and camping in high school -- bowline, prusik, sheet bend, clove hitch, water knot, Swiss seat -- and have used them ever since. When doing plumbing work, I can remember repeatedly having to re-tie pipes my partner couldn't tie to the truck rack. More times than I care to remember, I've had to retie other people's gear in the back of trucks and trailers, because I could and they couldn't. I've had to cut painters off canoes and boats because most adults (including quite a few SCOUTERS) know nothing but repeated half hitches and granny knots. I've had to retie canoes and kayaks because those in them didn't know how.

 

Packages, truckloads from Lowes, boats, canoes, kayaks, bundles of paddles or sticks or poles, ladders, extension cords, tree houses, and more are likely to be part of many adults lives . . . and good knot skills are helpful in each and everyone of those.

 

Since becoming a Scouter, I've learned a few more really good knots: round turn w/ 2 half hitches, taut-line hitch (or the midshipman's variant), trucker's hitch, versatackle, icicle hitch, and plank hitch . . . and I've used every single one in non-Scouting activities.

 

I think the reason Scouters find knots useless, is that most Scouters don't know the knots well enough to USE them appropriately. I've watched experienced Scouters struggle to apply basic knots successfully. That's just plain STUPID! No wonder the boys can't use knots properly and don't know them well. But, the problem is NOT the requirements, and it's NOT the boys.

 

The problem is that most Scouters can't teach the skills well, because they don't 'own' those skills in the first place.

 

There are, in my opinion, two reason for this.

 

First, Scout skills are taught as a rank check-off, rather than a skill a boy should master and use.

 

Second, the average adult's life no longer includes many of these skills, with the result that most Scouters will have to work long and hard to actually master these skills.

 

There may be some useless skills still taught in Scouting. Probably "lashing" falls into this category, since lashing as a camping skills is totally incompatible with LNT, and often incompatible with even more reasonable camping ethics.

 

But, most of these skills -- first aid, land nav, knots, fire building, cooking -- will be of use to American adults during their lifetime IF they actually learn the skills. And, if you want people to actually ENJOY nature, as opposed to enduring it as check-off, or exploiting it purely as a giant jungle gym, the nature knowledge is basic.

 

But, to teach these things well Scouters have to

1) Admit* to the BOYS what they suck at, but commit to getting better;

2) Deep six the show-boat approach to 'skills' as a parlor trick. If I see one more Scouter demonstrating their 'mastery' of some flavor of the 3 second one-hand bowline, I'll think I'll throw up! That is NOT a skill!

3) Master the 1st Class skills AS SKILLS, not tricks or check-offs;

4) Learn to USE the 1st Class skills themselves;

5) Interest themselves in the skills (which will usually result in a desire to learn and improve them), since it's almost impossible to teach well what bores you!

 

* When I was a teen, I hated phony adults with phony skills who insisted that pretend along with them that they knew something. What I've learned as an adult, is that many (maybe most) teens tolerate honest adults who teach what they can, admit what they can't, and work to get better and do better. This apparently creates a problem for many Scouters, especially ex-Eagles and District Committee members who seem to often have a big part of their self-image tied up in their 'success' as a Scouter, with the result that they can't admit to anyone, especially themselves, how poor their skills really are.

 

To be fair, if you don't have the right background, learning all these skills is HARD WORK, and BSA training doesn't seem to do much at all to help.

 

 

GaHillBilly

 

[Eagle92]

In reference to inflating clothing for swimming, YES scouts do have opportunities for open water boating activities, besides Sea Scouts. My first 50 miler was while I was a scout and involved canoeing in open water. Sea Base is available to scouts, and with council HA sea bases. like the Pamlico Sea base in NC, there are more open water activities where inflating clothes would be valuable skill you hope you won't have to use.

[JAYMEDINC]

I believe everyone should be aware that clothes can be used as a floatation device. But unless you are a sailor, actually practicing this isn't very practical. In the instances like you mention, where it is practical, maybe it should be practiced there.

[Gold Winger]

"However, I am not sure what relevance it has in Boy Scouts. Do Boy Scouts go out in the open water, and have the possibility of falling overboard without being noticed?"

 

Where is it written that Scouting skills should only be practical in a Scouting context? What if this Scout or former Scout falls off the Staten Island Ferry and no one notices? Or he falls off his grandfather's sail boat in the middle of the Atlantic? It's a handy skill and when you master it, you say, "Hey, I'm cool because I can make a life vest out of my pants."

 

If we take away the swimming requirement because of the few Scouts who are afraid of the water, why not get rid of camping because of the few Scouts who are afraid of tents? Get rid of hiking because some Scouts have a phobia of hiking?

 

My son suffers from asthma, maybe we should ban all outdoor activities.

[theysawyoucomin']

Marbles.

 

Silly?

 

 

Not when I had one of my parents come up to me and say, Who would have thought that he could play mables with his brother for over an hour.

 

There is a reason why they have been around since the Egyptians...they work.

[skeptic]

One of the things Scouting still does if kept in its purpose is to wean scouts from the over-protective mode too prevalent today. As GW points out, that includes numerous skills besides swimming. The apparent great interest by many youth, including non-scouts, in the recent book (the title escapes me; sorry)that challenges them to try things no longer normal to their generation certainly shows that they are still interested.

 

Signaling was a skill that required a lot of effort and time for many of us; but it taught more than the skill. The perseverance required was itself a learning tool.