One and done?

[Basementdweller]

One and done on requirements or Mastery.

 

 

my personal favorite requirement

 

 

In an approved place and at an approved time, demonstrate how to build a fire and set up a lightweight stove. Note: Lighting the fire is not required.

 

 

There is a huge difference between demonstrating how to stack tinder and kindling and actually getting a successful fire.

[Eagle92]

Base,

 

I think some folks complained about the firelighting since some areas do have fire bans. Hence the requirement as it is read.

 

ALSO, if we continue to follow DOL rules like we are currently doing for service projects, those under 16y.o. won't be able to light stove at all

 

 

THAT BEING SAID (emphasis not shouting), you can come up with creative ways to light fires during fire bans that are not done on camp outs. Heck I'm willing to bet the local FD would be willing to help out.

[JoeBob]

Fire is probably the most dangerous tool Boy scouts will ever use.

 

My own personal negative experience:

3 fourth grade boys had a casual overnight campout in a pine forest. It was cold in the morning, so we built a little fire. I don't remember if we cleared a safety area. If we did it was not adequate. No problem until the breeze picked up and our fire spread over into the pinestraw blanket covering the forest floor. We tried to stomp it out with our feet. I do remember thinking it was fun trying to stomp all the fire down only to have it pop up again somewhere else. Three giggling little boys were running in and out of the fire playing at whack-a-mole. The blaze got into a stacked pile of limbs and grew in size. That's when I started worrying about getting a whipping.

When a big yellow flatbed truck came crashing over the cattle-gap and unloaded a bulldozer with a fire-plow, I started to understand what trouble we were in. The firetower down the road had spotted our smoke and dispatched a unit. They circled the fire and let it burn out after consuming about three acres.

 

 

Except for burning their fingers, Scouts today are not afraid of fire. They love fire's heat, staring into the mesmerizing flickering flames. They have never seen flame slyly lick its way down a finger of leaves and into the brush. They don't believe that the embers of a floating leaf can start a new fire off in the timber in dry conditions. More than once I've walked over to campsites at scout camp and found still smoldering coals and even fires cheerily burning after being revived by the wind.

 

I know it's hard to expose all our boys to real hands-on fire safety. Using the fire department to help stage demonstrations would be good. Does anyone know of a good video online illustrating the raw power of fire, and how sneaky fire can be?

[Beavah]

Yah, that change was made to accommodate all the lads in drought areas with fire bans (more than half the lower 48 last summer!). Da thing of it is, there's no reason why they couldn't have left this up to SM discretion.

 

In other words, why not have the requirement to be to build and successfully start a fire. Then have a footnote that says "in areas with extensive drought or burn bans lasting more than two months, a scout who has only this requirement to complete may, at his Scoutmaster's discretion, fulfill this requirement in an indoor fireplace or by constructing a suitable outdoor fire lay without lighting it. The scout on his honor should demonstrate successful fire starting at the first available opportunity after any ban is lifted."

 

In other words, instead of dumbing down da requirement for everyone, allow a reasonable exception for those in drought-affected areas. Heck, a good scouter in those areas would have made reasonable exceptions anyway, eh?

 

Beavah

 

[Cambridgeskip]

Exactly what Beavah said. There is a whole world of difference between being able to build a fire ready to light and then actually lighting it and then subsequently keeping control of it.

 

Similar to Joebob when I was a venture scout my unit were asked to run a camp fire for a group of Beaver Scouts (6 and 7 year olds this side of the pond). What we created was a blazing inferno. Any other time this would have been fine (remember in the UK we are rumoured to have 197 words for rain, nothing is EVER dry!) but we were in the middle of an unusually hot and dry period. The camp site we were on promptly lost half an acre of grass land before we got it back under control. Harsh lesson learn and yours truly along with half a dozen others got the balling out of our lives.

 

Important to learn these things young.

[Basementdweller]

Your focused on the fire example.....

 

Had a life scout at summer camp cut himself with his knife and stood their and looked at me saying "I cut myself" held his finger out for me to fix it. He had no idea how to deal with it....

 

Or the First Class scouts at NYLT that couldn't set up their patrol fly because they did not know their knots or proper application.

 

 

[eisely]

Living and doing scouting in an area where major fires occur quite frequently, we are often under fire bans during the fire season. That said, I agree that boys should be required to test their fire laying skills be trying to actually get the thing going. I also see nothing wrong with doing this in an indoor fire place or an outdoor brick barbecue, even without explicit language in the BSA rules, in order to meet the requirement.

[Basementdweller]

so eisley, why not do the fire starting requirement when there is no burn ban on or out of fire season.....

 

[Kudu]

 

"Our goal is not to teach someone to rub two sticks together and make a fire. But when you rub two sticks together and make a fire side by side with an adult of good character, you're going to learn about who you are and go on to lead men...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

[qwazse]

BD, I drove to OK (as far as Wichita Mountains) this summer. Don't see a ban lifting soon for some of the folks between here and there.

[Eagle92]

Or the OA candidates who do not know what to bring on a camp out or how to waterproof their gear in their packs.

 

Can't blame them too much though as some of the outdoor info that older BSHBs had in them is no more.

 

Best example I can give is that asew/repair kit was in my old BSHB as some to bring. I do and have used it as recently as 2 months ago on a camp out. A piece of equipment broke for an event, and the person asked if anyone had a sewing kit. I was the only one who did.

[ntrog8r]

The application of skills in the requirements is, well, often lacking. When I visit units and see "Patrol meetings" where all of the Patrols are seated theater style in front of a podium while a lecture is going on about "the calendar" and then "moving on to outdoor skills" it makes me tic a little. Classroom-style learning? for Scouts?

 

As a SM for number of years in the high desert of the SW, we always lit fires for the requirement. In fact, we lit fires all the time. On camp-outs, at the Scout Hut, in my yard, etc. Whenever food was served, Scouts were lighting a fire and cooking. Now, it was almost always in the large brick BBQ oven at the hut or in one of my charcoal BBQ grills but the Scouts had plenty of opportunity to light a fire. One of the first lessons for the PLC at our "Leader's Camp" was get out the book and build a fire lay according to the handbook (on private land). We once put together a portable "fire box" made of stone and metal for the fire department (we also had to have a fire extinguisher, bucket of sand and a bucket of water on hand) to approve our dutch oven demonstration at the Camporee.

 

The principle at work is for the adults to get creative sometimes in providing opportunities (resources) for the Scouts to USE the skills. Its not about a class, or a training session but about using the skills. With an adult of character nearby, sure, but best next to a Scouting peer. As they use the skills, use them to actually do something - like cook or get warm, not just get their book signed - they _learn_ it. The patient repetition and chances for Scout leaders to act as the guide allows for development - both for the learning Scout and the teaching Scout.

 

Of course, when leaders aren't creative/resourceful about how to help the Scouts meet the requirements a couple of things can happen.

No Scout ever advances because the draconian unbendable "keeper of the way" points to the book and quotes the requirement.

OR The requirements get "modified" by the well-intentioned harbinger of success who sees it as too hard to do the requirement.

OR Safety gets ignored and bad things happen.

OR national steps in and waters things down to avoid local Scouters making decisions.

 

Back to the question of "One and done or Mastery"... I think successful accomplishment and proficiency are the same thing. How do we know if a Scout is proficient? By observation, not testing. Didn't someone once say, "Rank should be like a tan, something earned effortlessly while out of doors" or something like that...

[BadenP]

 

 

Ntrog is correct in that the SM's have an obligation to give their boys repeated opportunities to apply their scoutcraft skills. With a greater deemphasis in many troops these days on the outdoor experience one and done has now become the norm instead of the exception. Which is why IMHO in too many troops these days this dumbed down-easy pass methodology has produced generations of scouts who really never master or even be competent at anything concerning the outdoors. Now with all the bad PR the BSA is going through, scouts who are not truly deserving of the rank they wear, a program being dumbed down more and more every year by the idiots at National it will truly be a miracle if the BSA survives at all, and that is just plain tragic.

[AKdenldr]

Just take time with the signatures and all will benefit.

 

This is a great example that just came up this week. We have a batch of brand new tenderfeet who are on fire for signoffs in 2c and 1c.

 

Boy comes up to for signoff on 2c 3f (build a fire and light a stove). Says "I did this in new scout program at camp". Leader says "I didn't see you do it, did you actually light the stove?". Answer was no. Leader says, "well bring a stove to the patrol meeting tomorrow we'll all do it together, BESIDES LIGHTING STOVES ARE FUN." Add-on for the patrol meeting was scout demonstrating his stove -- taking it outside to light and all the boys assembling and lighting. Then talking about the safety points in the book. And, they did have fun.

 

Boy and leader could have gotten into the lawyery dissection of the written requirement -- but instead they improved the program and everyone's learning.

 

-- AK

[Kudu]

 

ntrog8r writes:

 

"Didn't someone once say, 'Rank should be like a tan, something earned effortlessly while out of doors' or something like that..."

 

No.

 

Nothing like that.

 

Terms like "rank" and "advancement" are One & Done concepts, like "Once an Eagle, always an Eagle."

 

Maybe you are thinking of Baden-Powell's retesting quote, which is less popular with the indoor "leadership skills" crowd:

 

"He must be repassed in all his qualifying badges once between twelve and eighteen months from the date of his being awarded the badge...He must cease to wear the [Eagle] Scout badge should he fail in any of them" Baden-Powell, Rules on How to Play the Game of Scouting for Boys.

 

See Rule 432:

 

http://inquiry.net/traditional/por/proficiency_badges.htm

 

ntrog8r writes:

 

"Back to the question of "One and done or Mastery"... I think successful accomplishment and proficiency are the same thing. How do we know if a Scout is proficient?

 

Um, retesting.

 

In Baden-Powell's Scouting, "ranks" are called "Proficiency Badges." They indicate a Scout's Current Proficiency, rather than past accomplishments.

 

B-P's alternative to "Required" Merit Badges are "Qualifying" Proficiency Badges, ALL of which are either Public Service (e.g. First Aid), or Scoutcraft (i.e. outdoor skills).

 

In One & Done Scouting, outdoor skills are something you get out of the way in your first week of summer camp so that you can move on to the meat & potatoes of post-Hillcourt Scouting: "Character & Leadership," which is learned by "sitting side by side with adults of good character."

 

As opposed to hiking side by side with your Patrol Leader

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net