EDGE - why dictate it?

[Kudu]

The solution to the problem of Eagle Scouts not knowing basic Scouting skills isn't to just to require any training method, but the solution might be to require a training method that can be shown to actually work.

 

The problem with Eagles is that any cupcake can be one without ever walking into the woods with a pack on his back.

 

Since day one, the whole point of Leadership Development has been to assert that not knowing basic Scoutcraft skills is a GOOD thing:

 

In general, Patrol Leader training should concentrate on leadership skills rather than on Scoutcraft skills. The Patrol will not rise and fall on the Patrol Leader's ability to cook, follow a map, or do first aid, but it very definitely depends on his leadership skill

 

http://inquiry.net/leadership/index.htm

 

Our Chief Scout Executive still never misses an opportunity to trivialize Scoutcraft skills as "rubbing two sticks together" or "catching runaway horses," so as to stress the importance of replacing Patrol Leaders with adult "character and leadership" experts:

 

You can teach a kid about character and leadership using aerospace and computers. The secret is to get them side by side with adults of character.

 

http://inquiry.net/leadership/sitting_side_by_side_with_adults.htm

 

Leadership Development's ultimate denigration of Patrol Leaders occurs in the Patrol Method presentation of Scoutmaster training where the BSA's top "training" experts replace Patrol Leaders with EDGE theory.

 

FScouter is dead-wrong when he asserts that "Kids dont instinctively know how to teach a skill."

 

They most certainly do when a skill (any skill), leads to adventure.

 

Most boys know a natural leader who will teach him how to have adventure.

 

That was the whole point of Baden-Powell's "Patrol System" and Hillcourt's "Patrol Method."

 

Leadership Development took this adventure out of Scouting and replaced it with "training methods." It finally won its long battle with applied Scoutcraft during the BSA's centennial celebration when The Guide to Safe Scouting castrated the Patrol Method with its surgical removal of Patrol Overnights.

 

Without regular Patrol Outings, all any indoor boy needs to be an Eagle "character and leadership" expert is 20 nights of Webelos III camping.

 

That is why we dictate EDGE.

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net

 

[SeattlePioneer]

Comes now Kudu with a repetition of his usual namecalling and rant.

 

 

>

 

 

While Kudu does just the reverse.

 

 

 

Personally I think it makes sense that if you are going to do Patrol Leader Training or Senior Patrol Leader Training the emphasis would typically be on the leadership training, not the Scout Skills that should already have been developed.

 

I would suppose that using those leadership skills to show how to motivate Scouts how to learn and perfect Scout skills would be a commonly used method to teach junior leaders.

 

If those junior leaders don't have a reasonable command of those Scout skills, then they may need to be reviewed before the leadership training is done. If that's the case, then those doing the training have an opportunity to demonstrate how teaching and leadership skills go together when leading a Boy Scout program.

 

Overemphasis on either Scout skills OR leadership skills will lead to an unbalanced Boy Scout program. A certain balance is needed to insure that new boys are trained and that boy leaders can justify their leadership position by their competence in Scout skills and their ability to train and motivate other Scouts.

 

 

(This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

[sherminator505]

Namecalling?! Kudu is using things that the CSE has actually said to underscore things that have already come to pass or are currently in process. If Kudu called anyone a name, I missed it...

 

Why is it that whenever some folks hear something they don't agree with, they shake their fists and point their fingers and cry "namecalling!" or "ad-hominem attack!" in a vain attempt to stifle any serious consideration of what is actually being said? Have we really become so insecure in our own beliefs that this has become an acceptable fallback position?

 

Personally, I'd like to see more balance in how our program is described and prescribed from National, from the Mission Statement on down...(This message has been edited by sherminator505)

[KC9DDI]

No reason that you can't do both. The NYLT program (and JLTC before that) seems to take the approach of conducting leadership training in a setting that the Scouts should be familiar and proficient in - namely the patrol setting in the outdoors. The setup has the potential to give you the best of both worlds - Scouts get the practice leadership skills by working with their patrol to refine their Scout skills.

[NJCubScouter]

Well Sherm, Kudu does do some namecalling, and the one I have noticed specifically is that he calls certain Boy Scouts "cupcakes." His post above includes at least the third instance of this that I have seen from him. I am pretty sure I questioned this the last time I noticed it, and I am questioning it again. What exactly does Kudu mean when he calls a young man a "cupcake"? I also wonder, does he call the boys names to their faces, or does he just do it behind their backs on a web forum?

[Kudu]

NJCubScouter, when have I ever made a personal attack on any individual forum member?

 

And in what universe is an Eagle Scout who has never walked into the woods with a pack on his back not a cupcake?

[NJCubScouter]

Kudu asks:

 

NJCubScouter, when have I ever made a personal attack on any individual forum member?

 

Leaving that question aside for the moment, in my post above, I didn't say you did. I said you engage in namecalling, and the one example that I can think of offhand is that you call unnamed boys "cupcakes."

 

And in what universe is an Eagle Scout who has never walked into the woods with a pack on his back not a cupcake?

 

I'll ask you again, what do you mean by cupcake?

 

As for me, I am not sure what to say about an Eagle Scout who has never walked into the woods with a pack on his back, because in the troop I serve and the two troops I was a member of as a youth, there is (and was) never any such thing. (And my time as a Scout includes the period 1972-76 when you seem to think the Scouting program lost its way (without a pack on its collective back), though I never noticed the difference. That's the same era during which I hiked into many woods (including at Philmont and various chunks of the Appalachian Trail) with a pack on my back, though I never made Eagle. My son, who did, did not do as much backpacking as I did, but he did some.)

 

Admittedly, my personal experience is limited to a total of only three troops. But in my "universe", your hypothetical non-pack-bearing Eagle Scouts don't even exist for you to call them names.

 

And by the way, what do you mean when you call a boy a cupcake?

 

[Beavah]

Yah, I've relegated Kudu to my blocked user list. His good thoughts and suggestions get too lost in his emotional rhetoric, and I've heard it all before.

 

So I'm pretty sure he means that it's possible given da current BSA requirements for a boy to Eagle in two years and never put on a backpack. He's right, eh? Nuthin' in the requirements that demands it. Heck, if we look at most of da requirements these days, theres a lot more "discuss" or bookwork stuff than there is active outdoors skill stuff.

 

Now of course the lad might have done a thousand mile bike trek or 200 miles by canoe . And like NJ says, the actual experience of many if not most boys in troops is that they will do some backpacking (and maybe some pedalling and paddling as well). But Kudu has a point in that all of that is extra, eh? Stuff that is beyond what is expected of programs or Eagle Scouts. Yeh don't see patrol camping or backpacking or pedaling or paddling in da new Journey to Excellence either, eh?

 

Should that really be da case? That's Kudu's point, once yeh get past all da inflammatory nonsense he puts out. And yeh have to admit, he does have a point.

 

Beavah

[SeattlePioneer]

Every Boy Scout leader training program I've ever heard of emphasizes the importance of an active outdoor program.

 

There are parents who scheme, carry or drag their child to Eagle. Despite reasonable efforts, there is probably a practical limit to what you can do about that.

 

In any case, I consider Eagle to be overrated as a goal. Boys are turned into Scouts on the trail to First Class in a good troop.

 

There is nothing that prevents a quality Scout Troop from offering a quality program to youth, and everything encourages troops to offer a quality program.

 

No doubt some programs have been designed by adults to get their offspring to Eagle as rapidly and painlessly as possible. Others may lack the leadership needed to offer a quality program. Most Scout programs that endure cycle between varying levels of quality over time. The quality program can become an Eagle mill and cycle back to a quality program over time.

 

Personally I consider it silly for some people to be pea green with and ger and envy because some kid gets an Eagle award for minimal effort. There is nothing that prevents people from offering a quality program, and that's the real bottom line.

 

 

[qwazse]

To steer ever so slowly back on topic ...

 

That's Kudu's point, once yeh get past all da inflammatory nonsense he puts out

 

Inflammatory nonsense is to Kudu's message what EDGE is to teaching models. Just a little extra noise that may get some people's attention, but most of would do just as well without it.

 

We need youth who are passionate about the outdoors. (More "trail mix" than "cupcake"?) We also need youth who try again and again to impart scout skills to their peers pulling from a large toolkit. (More "teachers" than "EDGEers.")

[Kudu]

NJCubScouter writes:

 

I'll ask you again, what do you mean by cupcake?

 

"Cupcake" comes from the only pre "Wood Badge for the 21st Century" era Camping Merit Badge requirement that Baden-Powell would recognize as "camping" for the purposes of advancement:

 

8b: On one of these camping trips, hike 1.5 miles or more each way to and from your campsite. Pack your down gear plus your share of patrol gear and food.

 

Of course Baden-Powell's minimum requirement was 7 miles in each direction for First Class, more than four times the standard for an Eagle Scout.

 

The "21st century" program offered Camping Merit Badge alternatives to camping for Boy Scouts who will never walk into the woods with a pack on their back:

 

9b (4) Plan and carry out a float trip of at least four hours.

 

In other words "If you don't like camping, you can float downstream on an inner tube for four hours eating cupcakes."

 

So "cupcake" is a synecdoche for the "21st century" pastry fluff alternative to the meat and potatoes of Baden-Powell Scouting.

 

I hope that helps

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net

 

[SeattlePioneer]

You can try to rationalize your condescending name calling all you wish. It remains condescending name calling and it's grossly offensive when you use it to characterize Scouts.

 

 

I hope that helps.

[packsaddle]

I was driving to work one morning and I saw a young man on the side of the road, facing another young man across the street, he was in 'that' posture. I slowed because I was suspicious of what was about to happen. In my mirror I saw one of them rip his shirt off (why do they do that?) and the two of them, like fighting cocks, rushed each other, meeting on the side of the road. I stopped and began dialing 911 on my cell phone. The fight lasted about 10 seconds and one retreated to a house. The deputy I spoke to took my information and suggested that I NOT try to intervene. I later learned that one of the young men had returned...with a golf club...and had nearly killed the other.

 

As I survey this last exchange, I see those hackles up, roosters circling ready to fly at each other. Because I am able to control neither your emotions nor evidently your better judgment, and evidently the application of scout spirit is failing, I can merely promise that if such an invitation to join in a contest begins here, I will end it. So take it offline if you must. Neither of you are adding to the topic.

 

Alternatively, a virtual handshake and apologies, followed by a return to topic would be nice. I mean, REALLY, over a topic like EDGE????? Good grief! You guys are better than this.

[Kudu]

packsaddle writes:

 

The deputy I spoke to took my information and suggested that I NOT try to intervene...I can merely promise that if such an invitation to join in a contest begins here, I will end it.

 

Um, you are the deputy here, Packsaddle. That's why you get paid the big bucks: To intervene.

 

You should have "ended" this already.

 

 

[packsaddle]

Yeah, I normally try to allow all debate and I certainly NEVER 'ignore' a user. So my instinct is to try to get things back on track if possible. Sometimes there's a special 'chemistry' at work...I'm reminded of some of my exchanges with Rooster7...so I try a friendly reminder before something more drastic.

Besides, we're only supposed to 'get mad' over in I&P, right? At least that's where I see most of the flying monkeys unleashed.

 

Edited to add: Ending this is easy. All we have to do is NOTHING. In 24 hours it goes away.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)