Service Hours... double dipping ok?

[Gunny2862]

What's ridiculous to me is that we are discussing this and in almost every "in life" example has a Scout doing many times the requirement and we are talking about if the hours he does on purpose for someone else (that are not stipulated by either organization as to be counted only for that organization) can be counted for both.

 

I have no problem taking those hours.

 

Now give me a Scout who sits in a class that is counted a service hours by another organization and coincidentally that same number of hours is needed by him to advance in Scouting but he's never at Eagle projects, he 's never at Scouting for Food, and doesn't have any ongoing service he just does as a part of his life(whatever it might be) but can be reliably found on the couch at home - maybe I don't take his attempt to double count.

[Gunny2862]

Ok no double dipping - flip the page - has anyone seen a Scouting achievement matrix?

 

So just for instance, Since someone takes Wilderness First Aid thru the Red Cross we can't credit them with Red Cross AED and Red Cross First Aid/CPR? Do they still have to go get the separate certifications even though they covered the material in the WFA class? I mean even if the Red Cross gives them the cards for The four different certifications, they only took one class - surely it would be wrong of us to count the other three certifications for Scouting?

 

[Beavah]

Huh. You made a choice to be a registered leader in the BSA. As such, you made a choice to support BSA advancement. What your promoting is not the BSA program.

 

Absolutely it's da BSA program. Yeh just have to understand da BSA program. All aspects of advancement must be interpreted so as to harmonize with da aims and purposes of da BSA.

 

Givin' kids five awards for da same six hours of service doesn't teach character, fitness, or citizenship.

 

Gunny, skills are a bit different. I'm not familiar with da new ARC class, but da old ones did the CPR component as part of da first aid class. That is to say an 8 hour first aid class was really a 3 hour CPR class followed by a 5 hour regular first aid class.

 

What's being discussed here as double-counting to my mind is more like a lad who is both bugler and scribe in a small troop completing Star in two months, because he has 4 months in two different PORs served simultaneously. Although at least that lad actually did two jobs. Da service double-counter would just count bugler twice.

 

Beavah

[Basementdweller]

Not bragging, just speaking of the difference in people.

 

5 year, you view community service as something to be gotten thru or simply a line on a college resume or box to simply be checked off or tallied.....I believe it is my responsibility to be part of my community.

 

 

My struggles in scouting with district and not simply giving up are part of that belief in serving my community. The boys in my area deserve the opportunities and adventure scouting offers and much as the rich two parent boys in the suburbs and rural areas. If I was just doing it for kicks I would have walked away long ago, scouting on a personal level has stopped being fun a long time ago........

[Gunny2862]

Beavah, I've never read that description of double counting, for POR 1/2 the time for each counts as one term of service - I don't think I could take that and has never been in my viewpoint on service hours.

 

But if a Scout(1) helps another Scout(2) work on his Eagle project, then I could see counting Scout 1's hours toward his advancement. Some here would apparently think that we shouldn't do that, that they should only count towards Scout 2's Eagle project hours using them to benefit both Scouts would be again, double-dipping.

[Gunny2862]

I also don't really see the difference between my certification example and what I conceive of as double-dipping, or at least allowable double-dipping.

 

I'll try again:

If a Scout goes to work at a Community Garden for a number of hours, does he not get to eat his share of the produce(divided as agreed in the Community Garden rules) if I count those hours for Scouting?

[qwazse]

Gunny, In the community garden our scout set up as part of his Eagle project the answer would be "no." The food is grown to provide fresh vegetables for the food bank. Since we they can't predict who will be out of a job next month, they can't guarantee a surplus for the folks who worked the garden but whose families are doing OK financially. (Although, I think in the past couple years there was enough to go 'round.)

 

That said, I get your point.

 

POR's overlapping is a different issue. When that happens, I want the boy to do both well or give one up. (Just read the riot act to my VP Program/VP Admin whose troop elected him SPL! Looks like the kid's gonna try to step up, but he knows we'll evaluate in a month.) I don't mind a kid being a PL/Bugler for four months. As far as I'm concerned he's one person with one position of responsibility that involves two merged tasks.

 

Then again, if a music teacher gives him some kind of recognition for the fact that he not only performs duties for his troop, I'm not gonna go to the kid and say "Sorry, it's been nice to hear your rendition of taps at all our activities. But now that I find out you've got an award from the school for it, I gotta take away your bugler patch!"

 

Let me re-emphasize: one service hour under the banner of scouting should be recognized in as many other areas of a boy's life as possible.

[5yearscouter]

Basement this is an incredibly rude statement

"5 year, you view community service as something to be gotten thru or simply a line on a college resume or box to simply be checked off or tallied.....I believe it is my responsibility to be part of my community. "

 

I do not think of community service that way, neither does my son. His average community service hours since joining scouting 6 years ago is WAY higher than the ones you report for your son in 18 months. If we only wanted to do the minimum and get it checked off, then certainly we would have done so. But we are talking averaging 15 hours of service a month, rather than 7.4.

 

As I've stated numerous times, his hours of service for SCOUTING has been checked off pre high school years ago.

 

His OA hours of service DON'T count toward school requirements as they do not recognize the OA as a service organization. He has hundreds of OA hours every year.

 

His Months of 24/7 as a CIT at summer camp also DON'T count for any hours at school since they were not during school months.

 

So if the school double or triple counts his service in their limited view, I have no issues with that because I KNOW hes putting in more hours than they require in acts of service in his community.

 

Luckily his scoutmaster not only views his hours of service as acceptable, his scoutmaster wants to nominate him for Vigil (don't tell my son I told you that it's a secret)based on his selfless servant leadership and service hour count. I don't think he's put in enough time for that honor actually. Vigil is something that find you, you don't seek it, but I'm not sure it should find him this early in his scouting career.(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)

[Beavah]

If a Scout goes to work at a Community Garden for a number of hours, does he not get to eat his share of the produce(divided as agreed in the Community Garden rules) if I count those hours for Scouting?

 

Huh? Now this old furry critter is really confused. Maybe I just don't understand da Community Garden thing.

 

If a boy is working in a community garden because he gets a personal benefit in the form of a share of the produce, then it's not service at all. It's labor for remuneration. Like a business partnership, eh? He works, and gets a share of da profits. That's not service.

 

So qwazse, let me see if I'm understandin' your point of view (all done up in bold ).

 

A lad does six hours of community service for Life.

He uses da same six hours of service for NHS.

He uses da same six hours of service for FFA.

He uses da same six hours of service for church youth group/confirmation class/bar mitzvah.

He uses da same six hours of service for young Rotarians or whatever.

 

None of those organizations are giving him a free-will recognition, the way a lifesaving award might be. They each have requirements of service for the status conferred.

 

So for da same six hours he gets feted and rewarded and can claim honors from any number of organizations, because he (or his parents) are good at filin' paperwork in quadruplicate. He can present himself as more qualified for college admissions or jobs than another fellow who has actually done the individual work expected of several awards separately.

 

And that's honorable??

 

Beavah

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[fred8033]

"And that's honorable??"

 

Abolutely 100% honorable. And don't imply anything different. The kid did what was asked.

 

If your disappointed by the expectations, contact BSA, NHS, FFA, churches, rotarians and get them to change their requirements. Just don't lay a guilt trip on the kid for doing what was asked.

 

 

 

[JMHawkins]

Gunny, regarding the Wilderness FA and CPR/AED classes, the 16 hour Wilderness FA class doesn't cover CPR or AED use. Holding a current CPR cert is a prereq for taking the class, it's knowledge you're supposed to already have and we don't cover it when we teach the class. (frankly, and unfortunately, CPR is probably of limited use in the backcountry. If someone's heart stops on you in a wilderness settings, odds aren't in your favor - but it's worth it try and beat the odds, anyway, back on topic...) The class time in WRFA is going to focus on skills like wound management, primary and secondary assessments, hypothermia, altitude sickness, go fast/go slow evac decisions, etc. The certification implies that you've been trained in a specific set of wilderness skills, of which CPR isn't one (no time, 16 hours is too tight as it is). We only give out one card, because that's the card for the skills we taught.

 

And there-in is a huge difference between a WRFA or CPR cert and credit for a service project: The cert covers a set of skills we can check off: primary assessment - check, secondary assessment - check, head injury - check, etc. all the way down to Childbirth in a wilderness setting (oh, I hope I never have to deal with that one...) We're not tallying hours, we're tallying skills.

 

But for service projects, for some reason, National (and all the other youth orgs that include required service projects) have decided to tally hours. That's where I think we run into the problem. You and I, clearly we understand that hours don't equal understanding, and the point isn't to have a kid who's done x hours of "required volunteering" but rather a kid who understands the value of service to his community.

 

And that's what creates the difference of opinion between folks like Beavah and BadenP and me, Scoutfish, etc. The hour tallying creates something of a no-win situation if the kid sees it as an hour-tallying requirement. Because once that happens, we can't avoid running the risk of teaching the kid something wrong.

 

if we take my approach - hours count for multiple different organizations, you can get mutliple cookies for the same service work - then Beavah and BadenP worry that we're teaching the kid to game the system and take shortcuts - double-bill his clients as it were, and look for ways to get by with the minimum effort required. It's a valid concern, I agree with them we don't want to teach kids those things, and that letting them count hours for multiple organization could do just that.

 

But if we take their approach - hours can only count for one cookie at a time - I'm worried that we're teaching them that service to their community is not something you do for the good of the community, but something you do to earn another cookie. And the truth is that once they're all grown up, there aren't many cookies for real service. The whole point of service - the reason it's important - is that it does all the things that need doing but don't earn rewards. We don't need Service for those things adults are ordinarily rewarded for doing (like, say, your job). We need service for the acts that don't bring a paycheck or a promotion or a ticker-tape parade. If we take the counting cookies approach with the kids, I worry they'll grow up without really understanding what service is and they'll stop doing it when there aren't any more cookies to earn. Or perhaps even worse, we'll leave them gullible to people who manipulate them into giving their energy to questionable causes by dangling fake cookies.

 

So, for me, the real problem is that we stress the hours instead of the acts. If the kids pick up on that (and it's right there in their books) then we're stuck trying to reorient their thinking, with risks of falling off either side of the cliff.

 

And that's why I've been interested in yammering on about this even though, in amlost all the real examples, the kids have plenty of hours. I'm not worried about the hours, I'm worried about the message.

 

 

 

 

 

[fred8033]

JMHawkins - Nicely worded.

[BadenP]

JM

 

I think the problem is since you and 5yr sons are involved you can't really be objective here. Look, anyway you slice it doing a scout service project means just that and if a boy is using a school or FFA project he previously performed and counting that again as a scout service project that is double dipping hours by any definition.

 

Any SM who allows his boys to follow this practice better reread the scout law under trustworthy. It is not your job to find loopholes for your boys in meeting their requirements, no matter how "busy" they are. This is just another example of how some SM's do a great disservice to their boys fudging rank requirements here and there, allowing triple dipping on service while the boy realizes that he hasn't truly fufilled all the requirements and is still awarded his rank anyway, what message does that boy come away with, the message is it is okay to sometimes fudge or skip a project or requirement if it gets you to your goal faster, and he carries that onto college and adult life to his own kids.

 

Look whether you call it double dipping, fudging or whatever it is still Cheating, and that is contrary to the BSA program like it or not. What is better for a boy scout to say, man getting my Eagle was a lot of hard work but it was worth it., or, man getting my Eagle was a piece of cake I got to use work I did for other things and count it as a boy scout requirement too, made my Eagle by 13 with no sweat.

 

Which scout do you think received the true BSA program and appreciated his achievement???

 

Look you guys can debate this till the cows come home but it has become counter productive and pointless. Morality, Integrity, and Honesty has come to mean different things to different people, as this thread has sadly shown. I am done!

[Gunny2862]

 

As with a lot of things going on in this thread - people are taking what happens in their neck of the woods and assuming it happens the same way elsewhere.

Community Gardens have different purposes and rules. That's why I stated according to its' rules in my original touch on Community Gardens

Red Cross Instructors add to what they instruct.

People think we're talking about POR terms of service and not just Service hours.

 

But things are becoming so contentious that unless a poster spells out every detail of what happens locally, responders to the post aren't taking the general idea but then picking the posters point apart on the fact that it may not match what happens in their locality.

 

I assure you I got all of those certifications by taking the WFA course, which wound up being about 25 hours, vice the 16 the syllabus says it should be.

 

Not all Community Gardens are Eagle projects nor are they all solely for soup kitchen or alternative food programs.

Not all Scouts who work in them are wealthy, and may be part of a population that wouldn't see fresh produce without working in the garden.

Sometimes their whole family works the garden to ensure they actually produce enough for it to be shared among all of the "members" and in that sense it could be taken as Beavah states that they are simply being renumerated and no volunteerism should attach.

 

Again, depending on how the Scout approached it, I might take his hours and I might not, it's NOT about the hours - it's about the attitude of service - Is he putting in hours at the Garden only because he gets a share or does he want his neighbors and any others who share or receive a gift to have the best it can produce would be an example of one difference.

 

"Develop the character", not "account his time - and ensure anything he does outside doesn't count" and I thought we weren't supposed to really think of "in Scouting" and "out of Scouting". Aren't all of their daily life activities all opportunities to engage the Scout in development whether we structured it as a Scouting event or not?

[Beavah]

Develop the character", not "account his time

 

Agreed with this sentiment, Gunny. And that's da tension that JM describes, eh? Any "accounting" approach that is taken to be an end in itself is goin' to run afoul of developing character.

 

But given that we're saddled with an accounting problem by various requirements and by folks who insist on approachin' the thing as an accounting problem, then there is an answer. In accounting, it is unethical to double-count. Dishonorable, as in "should be fired, might be jailed, must definitely feel ashamed". We should teach boys to work harder, to earn each award on its own terms, not to find creative ways not to.

 

Simply put, a boy who got creative with double-counting so as to earn more awards may earn benefits (college admission preference, etc.) over others who did more work honestly. That's not OK if we care about character.

 

JM's second point is a good one, eh? But it's really an objection to service hour requirements that we're stuck with or to BSA's checkbox approach to advancement more generally. It doesn't answer da question of whether double counting is OK within that environment. I agree with him, though, that it's da wrong approach. A Star, Life, or Eagle scout should be givin' back to his community in ways that vastly exceed da requirements placed on an ordinary citizen, so that counting shouldn't be necessary at all.

 

Now, goin' back to da practical stuff, as scouters all we can do is decide whether the paltry 6 hours we expect should be somethin' in addition to what is required for other cookies in da boy's life. There are all kinds of good reasons to do that, eh? To help the lad find a new service opportunity that matches his interests, to tie into MB work or troop activities, all kinds of things. Seriously, in any troop that does even a touch of service as part of its campouts and programs this is never a problem.

 

But nuthin' is goin' to stop a SM, Committee, and CO from double-counting if they want to. It's their discretion. Most of da times when I've seen it, it's been a product of program weakness, adult laziness and youthful manipulation, and I don't think da outcomes are consistent with what we want to teach. But not always.

 

Beavah(This message has been edited by Beavah)