re-inventing Boy Scout leaders.

[Eamonn]

Please don't tell Kudu!

I do have to admit that my time as a Boy Scout and a Scout back in the dark ages in that far away land, were a little like what he describes.

While I'm by no means a great outdoors-man. (I hate the cold!!) I'm fairly well versed in what I still call Scout-Craft.

Not sure how many knots I can tie?

Can do a lot of different lashings.

Have done a lot of backpacking and hiking in my time.

Have become fairly good at sailing and am still working on becoming a better navigator.

I can cook just about anything, anywhere!!

Sadly I think I'm becoming a dinosaur!

Many of the new leaders I meet at training's look at many of the "Old" ?? Scout skills as being some sort of a novelty. Great things to have displayed or demonstrated, but not something that they want to learn or feel that they need.

Without going into which edition of the Boy Scout Handbook is better than any other one. The Scout Handbook is now seen as a check list of things that need to be done in order to advance. Not a book that opens the door to new adventures and challenges.

I don't like Larry The Cable Guy (if that's his name??) But it does seem we suffer from a "Get it done" mentality..

Maybe the idea of eating a half cooked pigeon cooked in newspaper and mud is a hard sell to the youth of today? Maybe the adults know the dangers involved? Maybe it's just a dumb thing to do? But boy oh boy did Scouts have fun doing it and at that time it tasted great!

I hope I'm still open minded enough to be aware that things are changing.

A quick trip into OJ's bedroom reminds me of how very different things are now as to the dark ages when I was a Lad. He has every high tech device known to modern man, I had a bed a bedside light and a book from the local library.

I might hate the cold, but he lacks any real love of the great outdoors.

Still having said that he is an Eagle Scout.

He has his heart in the right place, he likes to help other people and can be a good leader.

When I left for work today at 0400 his car wasn't in the garage, he was out putting out a fire, doing his part as a volunteer fireman. Using skills he did learn as a Scout.

I fell sure he is never going to enjoy just messing with a rope the way I did and still do, he will never take one extra step as long as there is a space at the parking lot by the fast food restaurant.

If he ever returns as an active leader, he is not going to have the same skills I have.

He will have his own skills, his own way of serving the youth in the community where he lives.

This by no means doesn't make him wrong and me right.

It just makes us different.

We can talk about "Scout-craft" until we are blue in the face, but isn't the real craft in Scouting living the Oath and Law?

Eamonn.

[Hal_Crawford]

I saw this in the morning paper and it seems appropriate:

 

http://news.yahoo.com/comics/brevity;_ylt=AtEZJsSfZnb6RM4bsaeWUrwDwLAF

 

YIS:

Hal

[Gunny2862]

Hal, that's awesome! ROTFL

My personal version is, "This is a plant, it might be a Tree, if it is, it's where wood comes from." "On the other hand, here's how you find out if you can eat it in a survival situation..."

 

Eamonn, Yes.

And maybe someday I'll get there. But I am trying.

 

I like tying knots - not that I know many more of them than are in the manual but I can whip out any of those.

[2eagles]

Knots, first aid, camping are like anything else you use it or loose it. I had to laugh at cooking the pigeon "showing your age" til I realized it was in my age too.lol The most fun I have seen boys have is being shown basic skills then letting them go and practice them. I think leaders need to let go. Will they make mistakes -- sure. The leaders job is to make sure the mistakes are not lifethreatening, emotionally damaging or costly (like a whole new tent). I agree with the get it done thing becoming too important. Most of the boys I have worked with did not realize they were completing anything til book signing time. They were just camping and having fun. I mean gee what boy doesn't want to work in an ax yard (especially if this is the wood for their fire or cook if they would rather not be hungry.

[gcnphkr]

"Maybe the idea of eating a half cooked pigeon cooked in newspaper and mud is a hard sell to the youth of today?"

 

 

I guess I'm not old enough. Even as a youth I thought of pigeons as flying rats. A half dozen quail or a rabbit on the other hand...

 

We are having a campout next week and having a bunch of Cub Scouts come along. We are going to have a chicken fry for dinner Saturday. One adult has a couple of chickens that have stopped laying. He asked if we wanted them for the scouts to catch and butcher. I'm good with it, so I asked the ASPL's that are planning then weekend. They said, "We thought about it but decided it would traumatize the younger scouts".

[shortridge]

jet,

 

Suggest that they re-think the plan. The Scouts would love it.

 

I wouldn't do that in front of my 4-year-old, but an 11-year-old ought to be able to handle it.(This message has been edited by shortridge)

[scoutingagain]

Where do they think Chicken McNuggets come from?

 

You can warn them before hand and only have those interested in the demonstration show up.

 

SA

[Kahuna]

I must confess to having mixed emotions about the leaders of today. I still maintain that it was a huge mistake to re-invent Woodbadge as an executive management course and let people do it on a series of weekends. I hope I'm not one of those "back in my day" guys, but when I took Woodbadge 40 years ago at Philmont, we didn't learn anything about executive management, cultural diversity, or sensitivity. What we did in those days was to spend a week camping out by patrols and imitating Boy Scouts. The end result was we were leaders who understood from personal experience what boy leaders and members of patrols should be doing. That doesn't appear to me to be the result of Woodbadge or any other leader training today.

 

Professional training was lot different then, too. I didn't go to NTS, thank God, but NEI at Schiff was very different from the training (which I'm not really sure what they get) of today.

 

 

[2eagles]

OH WOW!! The days of letting the chickens out of the box, chase them down for dinner. COOL. Well being odviously off kilter -- I did that with our original boys (we did warn-educate parents) the benefit was none of the boys were city kids. Moms were thrilled because the boys learned part of their jobs at home. We also added the if you kill it you eat it. That has worked very well.

[Hal_Crawford]

I saw this in the morning paper and it seems appropriate:

 

http://news.yahoo.com/comics/brevity;_ylt=AtEZJsSfZnb6RM4bsaeWUrwDwLAF

 

YIS:

Hal

[Hal_Crawford]

Apologies for double posting. I have no idea why my post from the this morning reappeared tonight.

[Hal_Crawford]

Apologies for double posting. I have no idea why my post from the this morning reappeared tonight.

[DeanRx]

Hal - looks like you have a chronic double post problem

 

Anyways - I agree with the statement, "I think leaders need to let go. Will they make mistakes -- sure. The leaders job is to make sure the mistakes are not lifethreatening, emotionally damaging or costly (like a whole new tent)."

 

I haven't done woodbadge yet, but from the sounds of it, I'm not going to enjoy it too much when the time comes. Boy Scouts is NOT about becoming an MBA. We have plenty of those type folks who have done a fine job getting our nation into the mess its in right now.

 

Fun, citizenship, personal responsibility, and leadership. Done using the outdoors as the classroom. If this is not the BSA any longer, then I'm not sure I want to be in the organization.

 

I posted before about this book, but I would LOVE to see BSA adopt it as required reading for ALL leaders at Cubmaster / Scoutmaster and higher levels...

 

"Last Child in the Woods", by Richard Lourv. He was awarded the 2008 Audibon Award for this research and writing. He addresses many of the issues we bicker on these forums about. Please, do yourself and your scouts a favor and check it out.

 

Best in the New Year,

 

Dean

[OldGreyEagle]

Dean, don't le the naysayers kill Wood Badge for you. I took Wood Badge for the 21rst Century and liked it. I never took the old course, it was not available to me to I can't compare it. But if you want to get into a group of people who are as excited about scouting as you are, then don't be afraid. 21rst Century Wood Badge has been derided as just being "another management course" and the same ol' same ol'. But to the people in the course, the mechanics, the factory line works, the people who are not management, who have never taken any managerial training, it was quite helpful.

 

It's easy to say what's wrong with something, how much more poor somehting is that its predecessor especially when those who are being derided have no opprotunity to experience that which is gone.

[BrentAllen]

Dean,

If you love Scouting, you will most likely love Wood Badge. Don't be discouraged by some of the posts you read here. It is NOT an executive MBA course - it is Scouting, demonstrating how a Troop should operate. In our council, you can take it as a two-weekend course, or a week-long course. (BTW, when my dad took the course in 1975, it was broken up over two or three weekends, not just one week). The participants are divided up into Patrols, they select a PL, we have a SM, several ASMs and an SPL. Troop Guides instruct the patrols, just like in a Troop. We have flag ceremonies, skill instructions, and games - just like in a Troop. We have Troop meetings and Patrol meetings. We teach team building and recognizing the strenghts of all the team members. We teach EDGE, which is the same as how we teach the boys to teach skills. All of this is done in the outdoors, at one of our council camps, just like a regular Troop camping trip. I hope your course is as fun as mine was!