re-inventing Boy Scouts

[Hal_Crawford]

SA:

I think the answer will have to be somewhere in the middle. The market for the scouting organization that we experienced as youths has dwindled. Times change and the needs and wants of people (both youth and parents) change. The question is how to remain true to our core values while still attracting new members. The change in the seventies was flawed because it moved away from being an outdoor program.

 

IMHO the greatest contribution scouting makes is getting kids out in the woods. This is heresy but duty to God and country, the scout oath and the scout law are not what attracts boys to scouting or keeps them involved. They sure don't come for the nifty uniforms. Some of these latter things appeal to parents and chartering organizations but outings are what keep the boys engaged.

 

A major challenge will be to attract boys who's parents have no background in scouting and are uncomfortable with their boys sleeping away from home. If the BSA solves this problem by de-emphasizing camping then they are going down the wrong path. If they help boys and their parents overcome their concerns and work their way into camping and other outdoors experiences then that is great.

 

Have you seen anything about the program that combines cub scouting and soccer? http://www.soccerandscouting.org There are few things with stronger appeal in the Latino community than soccer.

This could be great if it is more than soccer and it introduces the boys to camping and other outdoor activities. If it ends up being just another soccer league then what's the point?

 

Hal

 

 

 

[BadenP]

I think most of you missed the point about the new Hispanic cub program. In hispanic families who have migrated here mainly from Mexico almost all recreational activities are organized around the family not the individual, that is their culture. That is one reason why the BSA really has failed to make much of an inroad with Hispanics in scouting. This program to involve the entire family may or may not work depending how well National has it organized and promoted in the field. The program is indeed very different and is not a standard scouting program, most of you remember the cub soccer program for Hispanic youth that has turned out to be a marketing fiasco for National.

 

Why is National trying to reach out to Hispanics, because in the next 10 years they will be 60% of the population in the USA. So this is an attempt by National to remain viable into the 21st century. The BSA in the past has allowed certain religious groups to reformat/alter the scouting program to suit the needs of their youth, this isn't much different but it is the first attempt to go after a particular ethnic group.

 

Personally I think creating seperate scouting programs for ethnic groups is a Pandora's box and could be the beginning of the end of the BSA as it exsists today. What National sees as a possible solution for dropping numbers and contributions could seriously backfire on them, time will tell.

[Eagledad]

>>"I personally think that the Tiger program added in the early 80s is the single biggest contributor to the loss of boys in the cub program today.

 

Why?"

[Hal_Crawford]

BP:

In our area the majority of the immigrants are from Salvador and Bolivia with some Peruvians and Columbians. As with the Mexicans, recreation is centered around the family which poses a challenge for the scouting program.

 

Another huge problem is qualified leaders. There isn't a lot of scouting background in these communities so it is difficult to find anyone with the experience to lead a troop. An Anglo Scoutmaster isn't the answer as there are just too many cultural issues. I suspect that Latino units will have to have some leeway in how they implement the program in order to make it work with their culture. Cub Scouting already has a lot of family involvement and I would think that in Latino units there would be more than with other units. I see this as a matter of degrees and I doubt that it will be the end of scouting. The challenge will be to ween the Boy Scout program away from the family. There comes a point where you can't have mom and dad and your little sister coming along.

 

I also wonder if the "Duty to Country" part of scouting poses a problem for people who do not necessarily think of the US as their country. This could be divisive in families where the scout was born here and thinks of himself as an American but the parents still think of themselves as Salvadorian and dream of returning to their home country.

 

This is a tough nut to crack but numbers and donations do matter and to do nothing may also spell an end to scouting as we know it. I just hope no one thinks the solution lies in red berets.

 

Hal

[Eagledad]

>>I just hope no one thinks the solution lies in red berets.

[Hal_Crawford]

That was one of the changes implemented in the 1970s to make the Boy Scouts more hip and urban. Red Berets were one of four approved forms of head gear. They didn't look hip or urban... they looked dorky.

 

I found an old Bicycling merit badge book that showed a scout cycling in uniform with his beret on. To me it just highlighted the changes in 30 years... today he wear a helmet.

Hal

[diogenes]

I think the reference is to when red berets were available as a headgear option for BSA uniforms. Apparently it didn't go over so well from what I hear.

[BadenP]

Hal

 

That is my point, as far as weening the hispanic boy away from the family is not going to be easy as it is ingrained into the culture the family is the center of everything and that concept is alien to American culture of today and the BSA program. Only after generations of living in this country do you even see a slight change in this idea in all Hispanic cultures.

 

My other point is that if indeed the BSA starts to design programs around different ethnic groups cultural needs such as Asian immigrants, African immigrants, or Middle East immigrants it defeats the foundation of the program and creates a hodgepodge of weaker programs. A case in point LDS scouting, while it uses the basic concepts of the BSA their focus/program is different from non LDS units, their units are much smaller in size and the boys are registered by the church even though many do not attend meetings, the leaders are appointed, not volunteers, by church leaders for a one year committment and as a result many do not get properly trained. While they do use the BSA program the main focus is to prepare the boys to go on missions and to become church leaders.

 

Is this truly what scouting is all about? I don't think so. National needs to seriously re-evaluate what they are trying to achieve with this new program.

[shortridge]

If I can channel another poster here.... the Scouting program belongs to the chartered organizations to help achieve their youth program goals.

 

We all know that doesn't always work out perfectly. But that does bring up a valid point: If that's the BSA model, it seems to me that any Hispanic/Latino outreach effort will have to focus on building relationships with organizations first and finding out what they want, rather than trying to dictate a top-down program. If the churches and community centers aren't interested, it's impossible to force it on them. And without a CO, you can't have Scouting.

 

You also have to consider that "Hispanic" or "Latino" is not a universal group. There are wildly varying differences between people of Puerto Rican, Mexican and Cuban descent, from culture to language - and yet they're all placed under the umbrella of "Hispanic." Any national initiative will have to be sensitive to these differences.

 

There's also going to have to be a significant amount of attention paid to cultural and language awareness among Anglo Scouts and Scouters, if there's going to be any real attempt to bring the two groups together. In my area, there's a substantial amount of anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic sentiment among many white residents. I can imagine that playing out in a very un-Scoutlike manner at a camporee or summer camp, to the detriment of all sides. Even well-intentioned, welcoming people can commit a major faux pas by not speaking proper Spanish.

[Hal_Crawford]

I agree with much of what shortridge says. The key component is the chartering organization as church is very important in hispanic culture. Latino/hispanic is not one culture but they are more unified than the Asian community and they are closer to each other than they are to us.

 

Trying to reach the Asian community is even harder as the various groups do not like each other. The Vietnamese have a strong scouting heritage and have active units with there own structure and a strong cultural component and family involvement. I have not seen anything similar from the other asian communities in our area. It is also hard to get enough of a critical mass in most of these insular communities start an active scout program. Maybe we should look at how Vietnamese-American units work for clues to reaching other family-centric ethnic groups

 

I also think that the BSA may have made too many concessions with LDS scouting but I don't know. It seems to work for them and I don't see how it has lessened the experience for non-LDS scouts. Our council has certainly benefited from LDS membership and donations (Marriott Scout Service Center, Camp Marriott to name two high profile council facilities). There is pressure to get their scouts to Eagle by 14 but a strong DAC can maintain quality control if they have a mind to.

 

How will an influx of Latino scouts play out at a camporee or summer camp? Will the anti-immigrant sentiment boil over into incidents of "unscoutlike" behavior... lets call it what it is... racism? This very well may be a problem but if the Unit, District and Council leaders do not deal with it then we are not living the scout law. I am sure that the same arguments were used when councils began to put blacks and whites together in camporees and summer camps. I'm also sure there were regrettable incidents. It may also be a reason that BSA's attempts to raise the level of African-American participation have produced less than overwhelming results. We need to do better this time. We need to expect better from our scouts and scouters alike. We need to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

 

What are the stakes here? If 60% of Americans will be of Hispanic descent (I question that figure but White Anglo-European is certainly becoming a minority) and scouts do not embrace them then the BSA will become increasingly irrelevant. Today's youth are far more likely to be friends with kids of other ethnic groups than those of previous generations. If the BSA continues to be perceived to be a white middle-class organization then even white kids won't want to join because their black, latino and asian friends will think it is uncool. Then we will be left with our memories of what once was. Maybe it is inevitable... I hope not.

 

Hal

 

 

 

[shortridge]

I was trying to avoid the R-word, but yeah, that's what I was talking about.

 

Please note that the only argument I'm making is in favor of openness and tolerance, definitely NOT for exclusion. I was just trying to point out the many steps that will need to be taken to accomplish what National seems to be aiming for, without suffering a racist backlash.

 

I really do hope the initiative succeeds. It can only strengthen Scouting.

[Hal_Crawford]

Agreed.

[diogenes]

"A case in point LDS scouting, while it uses the basic concepts of the BSA their focus/program is different from non LDS units, their units are much smaller in size and the boys are registered by the church even though many do not attend meetings, the leaders are appointed, not volunteers, by church leaders for a one year committment and as a result many do not get properly trained. While they do use the BSA program the main focus is to prepare the boys to go on missions and to become church leaders."

 

Not to sidetrack the thread too far, but just to clarify that LDS Scout leaders aren't appointed for "one year tours". We have had some problems in the past of leadership getting changed out fairly quick as they get moved to new callings, but this issue is being addressed. The current instructions are that Scout leaders are to be left in their callings (appointments) unless specifically needed elsewhere. It was explained to us in our training from the Young Men's General President that we should think of tenure for Scout leaders as "10 years, in other words, leave them there for at least 10 years. Don't move them unless you are absolutely certain that they are needed elsewhere and they are the only ones that can fill the new need."

 

Now to weave back on subject, I do agree to an extent with the point that "demographic focused" units could start a trend of balkanization of Scouting. Then again, we already have this of sorts based on how units are chartered. In my area, very few units are chartered by any organizations other than churches, so they are already "demographic focussed" to an extent.

 

Could Hispanic focused units hurt Scouting? I think it could go both ways. Large areas could probably support it without too much trouble. Sparse areas such as mine could either collapse from balkanization, or swell due to the sudden influx of previously unreached people. I could see some people in my area resorting to anti-immigrant bias, but if we can't teach these people about Scout spirit, we don't need them anyway.

[Eagle92]

Diogenes,

Hope you're right and that LDS units will leave the folks in place for a while. The LDS unit in my district seems to change leadership every year, or sooner, and trying to contact them about district functions like the camporee, roundtables, etc is a giant game of phone tag.

 

[Eamonn]

Not sure if this is going to come over as I want.

 

It seems to me (And what do I know??)

That a good many people seem to be a little afraid that Scouts and Scouting as we know it will no longer continue to remain relevant in the days to come.

Just about everyone I know still thinks that the values that we have and pass on are good and worth safeguarding.

So if there is a problem? And I'm not really sure that there is! The problem lies in the delivery of the program and the program itself.

Back when I was a Scout in the UK. Scouting was not very "Parent Friendly". Family involvement was never really pushed or encouraged. While a few females were involved with Cub Scouting, for the most part Scouting was a male environment where boys did "Boy type activities" many of which were a mystery as far as parents were concerned and everyone seemed happy for them to remain that way.

When I made the move across the pond and became involved with the BSA, one thing that really struck me was the number of adults involved, far more than back in the UK.

Over the past 25 years I have seen more and more parents become involved with the activities that their kids are into.

Some of this might of course be due to the fact that I live out in the sticks and parents need to drive their children to where they need to be?

I just had my sister and her two children visit for the holiday. They live in Hong Kong and she is happy for her children to take taxis to arrive and return from their after school activities (Mainly cricket for the boy!)

Where I live the local taxi service seems to cater to elderly people who have medical appointments and it shuts up shop at 1600 everyday.

Again in the area where I live we don't have much diversity.

There are no Hispanic students in our local schools.

We do however seem to have a lot of Hispanic inmates in the jail. I have to admit to not knowing that we had such a large Hispanic population here in PA.

Most seem to be from Puerto Rico. Living in the area around Lancaster / Reading PA.

I don't in any way claim to be any sort of an expert on the guys! But from my conversations with them they do seem to have very strong family ties and family does seem to be very important to them.

While I'm not happy to make generalizations, the guys I have met do seem to be hard workers and nearly all of them are quick to show me photos of their kids.

There are six gangs identified by the department I work for. Of which three are Hispanic. The Latin Kings being on of the biggest. These gangs are very well organized and have a strong foundation and organizational structure. (Far more so than the white gang.)

Even some of these not so nice guys do have strong religious ties to the Catholic Church. I would think if the BSA and the church were to work hand in hand on working with the youth we could do a great job of bringing more of these youth into the program

Eamonn