Skills Training Exercise

[SR540Beaver]

Since the "training method which shall not be named" has been roundly deemed to be a Wood Badge concoction to destroy scouting as we once knew it, is no more than snake oil and has no basis in scientific research or scholary review, I propose a challenge.

 

What other method would you/do you use to teach rank requirement scouting skills to your youth? As part of this challenge, you can't use any of the dreaded parts of the "training method which shall not be named". No explaining, no demonstrating, no guiding and no enabling. Those parts in any combination are the bane of scouting and unworthy of use.

 

Without using those parts, what scientifically valid method(s) would you use to teach a skill.

 

PS Mimes are out as part of this exercise too.

[Eagle92]

I'm partial to the old Tell, Show, Do, or is it Show, Tell, Do (old age is getting to me )

 

In which the scout is told how it is done, shown how it is done, and practices until he does it.

 

Or it may be the scout is shown how it is done, told how to do it during practice, then practices until he can do iton their own.

 

IMHO, the current "training method which shall not be named" and the old method are identical, except that "training method which shall not be named" has a catchier name, and is mandated as a training method.

 

Now some scouts can just read something, and get it to the point they can show knowledge without additional training.

[KC9DDI]

I'm eager to see what those with more of a background in training and education have to contribute here. But could I ask why you want to leave out explaining, demonstrating, guiding and enabling? I wasn't aware of any reason why a successful training model couldn't contain those pieces, I thought the controversy was more over whether those pieces on those own constituted a training model...

[SeattlePioneer]

Heh, heh!

 

Sink or swim. Deep water is favored as an additional motivator.

 

 

If someone can do a task when their life depends on it, then you just had a problem with motivation!

[SR540Beaver]

I refer all to this thread to learn why the "training method that shall not be named" is verbotten in this exercise.

 

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=310776

 

Eagle92, you used steps that are included in the "training method that shall not be named". That method has been deemed an utter failure. Go back to start and try again.

 

KC9DDI, because the "training method that shall not be named" which contains the components of explain, demonstrate, guide and enable have been deemed, poppycock and snake oil. Go back to start and try again.

 

SP, sink or swim would meet the criteria of this exercise. You've got spunk kid! I like the way you think. Extra points for the deep water motivator.

[moosetracker]

Oh.. Oh.. I like the scream and bully until the kid gets it right.. You can call it the military drill training method..

[Eagle92]

SR,

 

You mean I can't use the Green Bar Bill's old method? BUMMER.

[KC9DDI]

Beaver - The method itself has been categorized by some as "poppycock." That doesn't mean that the method doesn't contain anything of value, it means that the method taken as a whole isn't very good despite the valuable components it contains.

 

I would think this would be obvious. Say that I have a computer that's very unstable and keeps crashing. Clearly I'm not going to buy the same kind of computer again, but I'm still going to buy something that contains a hard drive, memory, processor, etc.

 

Or are you just going for hyperbole instead of conversation and discussion?

[Beavah]

Yah, what KC9DDI said. Yeh can use flour, egg, baking soda, and spice to make a delicious cake, or yeh can use flour, egg, baking soda, and spice to make an inedible mess. As scouts sometimes demonstrate . Da problem isn't with individual ingredients. The problem is with da bad recipe.

 

I think this is probably a duplicate of da other thread at http://www.scouter.com/Forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=311705&p=1 . I thought there were some good responses over there.

 

B

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[SR540Beaver]

KC,

 

I'm going for both actually. I mentioned utter failure, poppycock and snake oil in an earlier post as those were actual terms that others have associated with the method and it's components, regardless of what order they are used in. It has been stated that there is NO evidence that it works and personal experience has been disregarded as evidence. I could wade thru the 7 pages of posts and pull out other terms used to boo and hiss the method, but I think most people here have already read them.

 

My exercise is simple. If the particular method is worthless and there is no evidence it works, then it should be easy to describe superior methods employed by others that do not use the components within the method held in such low regard. I'm asking for examples.

[Beavah]

So one example of tryin' to help other people learn how to teach that does not use da EDGE method is the BSA's Trainer's Edge course.

 

Da four modules in Trainer's Edge aren't actually E/D/G/E, eh? Instead they're

 

Communicating

Preparation (logistics, media, and methods)

Directing Traffic & Thoughts

Platform Time / Feedback

 

I confess I'm not terribly enamored of Trainer's Edge either, because it's more of a corporate presentation model than a real teaching/learning model. But isn't it interestin' that when we teach how to teach, we don't use da very model we're supposedly advocating?

 

Beavah

 

[KC9DDI]

SR - That really doesn't make much sense. Do you believe that if a finished product turns out poorly, then every ingredient that went into that product must also be poor? That's not the point that I've seen anyone make when criticizing EDGE, and I would strongly disagree with anyone who would argue such a position. In fact, I've said a couple times that one of the reasons I find EDGE to be a little hokey is that any trainer will at some point use some combination of explanation, guiding, demonstrating and enabling in the context of an effective training model. The problem is not with the ingredients or components, but with the finished product as a whole.

 

I really enjoy reading everyone's take on these issues, and hearing differing view points, and defending my position when its challenge, and adjusting my position based on others' convincing arguments. I think that this kind of discussion is beneficial for everyone involved. I'm not sure that setting up a straw man argument is quite so helpful though.

[Eamonn]

SR540Beaver,

No I'm not going to fall into the trap that you have set!

Looking at todays list of topics this does seem to be the one that is being discussed the most.

I was retired from WB a few years back. But back in the day when I was active with the then new syllabus, reading it, re-reading it and going thought it. I at times tried to imagine who had done (Written) what parts of it.

There used to be a video that introduced the then new course, with a female Cub Scouter holding her laptop in her hand in every shot. For some unknown reason I was willing to blame her for all the stuff that I seen as being silly or over the top. I was at that time willing to think that she was the one who had stumbled by accident into some kind of a Leadership Course and had the idea to add all this stuff to the course.

 

While I'm really OK with us having a Leadership Course and I'm OK with us all trying to learn about leading. I really do think that the entire world seems to be buzzing around presenting different types of courses on leadership.

Too much so for my liking.

Just last week in my "Real Job" I attended a meeting of our Culture Change Committee. The very first hand out was the good old Four Stages of Team Formation (God Bless Tuckman.)

Later in the week I attended a training on Hostage Negotiation. Sure enough the second session was about Successful Situational Leadership with a lot of stuff taken from Blanchard and Hersey Management of Organizational Leadership.

Talk about overload!

As I say I have no problem with any of this Leadership Stuff.

The problem I do have is that at times someone somewhere gets it into their mind that the "Buzz Words" or phrases used are kinda important.

While I fail to see a huge amount of a difference between what Tuckman and Blanchard are both saying as to my mind they are both saying very much the same thing (At least when it comes to leadership development.) Picking on a few words and stressing them as being the be all and end all is just silly.

I don't have any real issue with teaching a skill.

I have sat through lots of classes both in and out of Scouting which deal with how different people and different group learn and gain know how and skills.While for the most part I have never bothered to remember the cute little names that who ever might have taken the time to write this stuff might have given them, they all for the most part work, at least for someone or some group.

Right now it seems that someone in the BSA has taken much the same classes and come home remembering EDGE.

They must have been really impressed with it and want to pound away at it.

Over the years we have had catch phrases that have come and gone.

Back when I took WB, I swear that if one more person had come up to me and said "Check your resources". I was ready to scream.

When the new course came along for a while just about every trainer you met was going on about Forming, Norming and lets never forget performing.

I do think that falling in love with a cute little term which we allow to get overused and become far bigger and more important than what it really is a disservice.

I'm not saying that EDGE doesn't work. It can and does work, but just give us a break! Next year we will have another cute little bit of jargon that we will be up in arms about.

Who knows maybe leadership from the top down with come back and I'll write a best selling book on Practical Leadership?

 

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you will help them become what they are capable of being."

Goethe.

(My cute little saying for next week?)

 

Ea.

 

[OldGreyEagle]

And here I thought EDs Guide to Elucidation was the answer

 

I guess any method that tells the youth what the purpose of the skill is and then showing them how to do the skill and watching them do it for awhile before you send them off to do the skill would be good, no matter what you call it

[AvidSM]

Roger that OGE. The BSA has finally come up with something that sort of makes sense and the BSA-bashers on this forum just can't let it go.