The Old New scout patrol debate

[Thomas54]

 

 

Well we have done it both ways aged base patrols and mixed aged patrols. We are now mixed aged patrols with a group of Webelos about to transfer in. There numbers could be as high as 6-7 scouts.

 

The PLC wants to back-fill the three existing patrols with the new scouts. I have reservation and am considering a new scout patrol.

 

My change came from numerous events but in particular at a recent campout. On that campout the high schooler's hung and bunked with the other high schoolers and middle schoolers hung with other middle schoolers. They got permission form their PL's to bunk with scouts in other patrols who are in the same grade as them. They functioned as a patrol during meal and other events but the draw to be among age peers was strong.

 

My inclination is that the new scout patrol should remain an aged based patrol and become a full fledged patrol. They are well bonded and will likely stay in if they are with the same age group. However, if we used mixed aged patrols the older scouts will be perfect for training the younger scouts. I don't see that same sort of training being handed down through just a Troop guide. The little guys will over run even a strong of scouts.

 

 

What say Ye?

Aged based patrols

or

Mixed aged patrols

 

 

 

[Venividi]

Some thoughts:

 

Dont let one experience that didnt work as well as you expected derail what you are trying to accomplish. The same argument can be and often is used to justify adults taking on roles that scouts should be doing (an example that I have seen: scouts didnt dry their tents after the last campout, resulting in mildew; so from now on an adult will keep track of all tents, who has took them home to dry them, and call each scout to remind them to unpack and dry the tent, with a followup call to remind them to return the tent at the next troop meeting).

 

Before doing that, try:

 

- Talk to the patrol leaders and have a review of what went well and what didn't. Point out that there didnt seem to be much patrol cohesiveness,and ask them to develop ideas to solve the problem. Let them know your expectations, and why you have those expectations. They will want to live up to your expectations, so have high ones, but make sure that you communicate them frequently in ways that they can understand.

 

- Talk to the scouts individually about why they chose to abandon their patrol mates in favor of hanging with their own age group. Appeal to their sense of duty and fairness, and explain your expectation that they would be working with the younger members of their patrols to help them increase their skill levels.

 

- Have more patrol level competitions on campouts. Set this expectation with the PLC, and work with them to implement them. From meals to campfires to scout skill based competitions throughout the weekend, have competition based points and scoring, with the winning patrol receiving some nominal prize (pizza at the next troop meeting perhaps?). The real objective is to give a patrol bragging rights over the other patrols.

 

- Seperate the patrols when camping. If all the patrols are camping adjacent to each other then they really arent patrols, but one rather are one large group with an artifical designation as separate patrols.

[acco40]

What should a patrol be? A patrol should be a group of peers - a group the boys choose - not the adults.

 

I think that answers your question.

[Beavah]

Yah, Thomas54, it depends what your goals are, eh?

 

From what you describe, the problem isn't so much with your patrol makeup as it is your use of the Patrol Method. Yeh should go read one of Kudu's expositions on 300 feet . Right now, your patrols might just be administrative groupings rather than real teams. I get that because if the Patrol Leader felt real ownership and responsibility for his patrol, he'd never split it up and leave da younger fellows to go fend for themselves. So my question would be why your older scouts don't feel that sense of responsibility. Might be that since yeh have switched back and forth, they've never really seen what a real patrol and a responsible PL looks like. In that case, yeh have some work to do as a Scoutmaster.

 

Venividi's point is a good one, eh? Age based and NSP's shifts yeh back toward more adult run, kids-hang-out sorta operations. "Oh well, we tried..." kinda thing. Patrol Method, if yeh don't have it going on, takes a while to build. It's worth it, but yeh need to do a lot of conversations and coaching and just being a good example. AND yeh need to set things up so that it's natural. Like campin' 300 feet apart, or running competitions, or whatever.

 

Good luck with it.

 

Beavah

 

[BadenP]

Thomas

 

I'll tell you what, it can and does work both ways, it all depends on your boys and how much control they have in running the troop vs an adult run troop. As a kid in my troop we had 12 new scouts join the same time. We were split into groups of 3 and integrated into the four exsisting patrols, personally speaking it was great for me I think I learned much faster than if I had been in an all tenderfoot patrol. The older scouts treated us like anyone else in the patrol and we were expected to pull our weight, within our skill level, just like anyone else. I think we matured and advanced faster as well with the older scouts acting like our mentors.

 

As an adult ASM and later SM we did it both ways and both styles worked well. As to what works better that depends on your boys and their leadership abilities and each boy clearly understanding what is expected. My own personal take, when we did new scout patrols there seemed to be much more adult control and in mixed patrols more boy controlled and led. Whatever you and the boys choose to do as long as your program is fun, activity filled,and allows the boys to learn scoutcraft, leadership, and citizenship your troop will succeed. Good Luck.

[desertrat77]

It all depends on leadership....

 

If you have the right adult and senior scout leadership, the new scout patrol is a great idea.

 

If not, it's a recipe is trouble. The new scouts get neglected, or bullied.

[clemlaw]

Well, I can only speak of my experience with the best Patrol Leader in the history of the BSA, who happened to be my Patrol Leader when I joined.

 

I joined an existing patrol at the end of 5th Grade, but it was essentially the "new scout patrol" (although nobody told us that it was). Most of the members were in 6th grade, and had probably all joined Scouts early in that school year. The Patrol Leader was in 7th grade, and as far as I knew, he was an expert woodsman. In retrospect, he was probably just a Scout who had a pretty solid understanding of most of the skills required for First Class, which he had acquired by going camping a lot.

 

I figured he was the smartest kid in the world, but it turns out he was just a C student.

 

But he was excited about being the leader of a bunch of Tenderfoots that were younger than him. And in the process, he turned out to be the best Patrol Leader in the history of the BSA.

 

So my suggestion is to find a First Class or Star scout who is gung ho about Scouting, and ask him if he's interested in leading a bunch of newbies. Then, have the adult leaders, and the Life and Eagle Scouts stand back in the woodwork and be prepared to give him a hand on those rare occasions when he needs it.

 

If you have another gung ho Second Class or First Class Scout, you can put him in the position to become the APL. Or, you can let one of those newbies get himself elected APL in a few months.

[sbemis1]

In my son's troop, the outgoing SPL is the NSP PL. The new boys like having 'the man' to lead them, and it makes some of the parents happy too.

[Stosh]

The first question I would ask is what do the new boys want? If they don't get what they want, they will quit.

 

If they want to stay together, great, they then pick their own TG to help them. They pick their own PL/APL and take on the challenges they want. The SPL/ASPL are there to support their decision.

 

If the PLC want's mixed patrols, what are they doing to promote it to the Webelos boys? Are they sitting around thinking they are going to mandate to the new boys a solution that's in the best interest of the existing patrols? It's going to be a hard sell under those circumstances. The new boys will quickly realize they are the bandaids for a poorly run troop.

 

SM: "Welcome to Troop XX, what do you want to do to get to where you want to be in Boy Scouts?" If nothing else the new scouts are going to stick around long enough to see whether the SM really means what he/she says! If they are not empowered to take on any leadership and that for the next seven years they are going to have to toe the line, and there is no future that looks good to them, they will find other avenues to pursue and they probably won't be in a restrictive program of BSA.

 

Both styles of patrols works well if allowed to. However, once hidden agendas by adults or other boys are brought to light, then someone has to pay the piper and it usually means some voting is done with one's feet.

 

Your mileage may vary,

 

Stosh

[Beavah]

The first question I would ask is what do the new boys want? If they don't get what they want, they will quit.

 

Nonsense.

 

The new lads don't know what they want yet, eh? They don't know what this "patrol" stuff means yet, so they can't make an informed decision. They want fun, adventure, challenge and to be accepted. So a better question in terms of retention would be somethin' like "In your unit, what will make da new fellows feel accepted?"

 

If yeh have older scouts who don't enjoy the challenge of leading and workin' with younger fellows, or yeh don't have real patrol spirit that way that thinks of da younger fellows as "one of us" instead of "those little kids", then the new fellows might feel better accepted by an adult NSP ASM and a chosen TG. Alternately, if yeh do have a strong patrol identity and a sense of service leadership by the older boys, then that's a better way to go. The younger fellows will feel more attached to those great older kids, and will really feel accepted and "fit" within their patrol.

 

All this makes me wonder if we can't come up with some loose guidelines for which method is strong at what. For example, NSP's seem to work well for troops that do mostly car camping and the like (at least with the New Scouts), since a ratio of one TG to 8 or so new boys that TG is workin' pretty hard just car camping, eh? He couldn't handle the lot on a canoe trek. Troops that do canoe treks with the younger fellows have to have 'em in regular patrols (or break up the NSP for the trek) so that they can get enough support from the older scouts.

 

Beavah

 

[qwazse]

If we have a half-dozen cross-overs at the same time, we form a NSP for 5-6 months. The TG's goal is to get the joining rank and maybe tenderfoot requirements down. Each boy may not make rank, he'll just recieve instruction.

 

Since attendance at activities is far from perfect, the new scouts usually get folded into the existing patrols for the weekends. At summer camp, permanent patrol assignments are made. We give our boys the lattitude of completely rehsaping themselves every year (new name, new yell, new flag).

 

In terms of relationships this seems to work pretty well. The troop guide gets a run for his money for 6 months, and by then he may feel like running for SPL. The new boys build new friendships gradually while still retaining the old ones. Then after summer camp, each PL can assess where his boys are on the trail to first class, and suggest program accordingly.

[Stosh]

Nonsense???

 

If they aren't getting what they think they want they leave. Any other explanation is nonsense. Sports, cars, and girls are excuses, not reasons. I know of a lot of boys that can balance those "excuses" just fine and stay with Scouts.

 

These new boys don't necessarily all think they are going to be Eagles in a couple of weeks, but they do know what they want today and it's up to either 1) the troop tells them what that is or 2) you ask them what it is. It just depends on which of those one chooses. And with a 95% attrition rate in the standard BSA program, I'm thinking most troops opt for #1. To me this is the real nonsense.

 

If it is my expectation that for the next 4 years my team is going to be conference champions and for the first three years we've been sitting in the basement of the standings, what makes me want to go back a 4th year? Oh, I can't go out for the team this year, I have a new car, or a new girlfriend, or (fill in the blank).

 

If my Webelos boys want to go to Philmont (their stated goal from day one) then it's up to me to provide a program that supports that. As long as they continue to see progress towards that, they'll stick around, otherwise they will move on to something else.

 

Well, if the requirement for Philmont is 13 years old and FC, then they have a preliminary goal from which to start, but Philmont stays on the table.

 

People (especially adults) telling others what they "want" just doesn't work in the real world.

 

Welcome to Boy Scouts. For the first 6 months all you new boys will be given classroom instruction so you have skills to go out into the woods. Yes we'll go out and work on those skills once a month. Then at the end of 6 months, you and all your buddies you've been hanging out since Tigers are going to be split up in all the other patrols where the older boys can teach you things. Don't worry, you'll get to know the boys after a while and you'll have fun. But if we want to stay together? Nope, not an option, if you don't like it quit or find another troop. Gotta love the logic in that. Even 11 year old boys see the gaping holes in that argument.

 

Your mileage may vary,

 

Stosh

[Eagledad]

>>The first question I would ask is what do the new boys want? If they don't get what they want, they will quit.

[Venividi]

Stosh,

That sounds like a heavy handed way to approach the issue. I reread Beavah's post, and don't see any suggestion that the issue be handled like that.

 

I would expect that experienced SM's are adept enough to engage the PLC in a discussion about the issues the troop has in bringing new scouts into the troop, let them float their ideas, put out some additional options to consider, help them uncover the advantages and disadvantages of each. An adept SM implements the methods to achieve the aims by using coaching and persuasion, not by using the iron fist.

 

 

[Beavah]

Giving a scout who has no knowledge of the troop program a choice as important as the patrol is like leading him blind folded in the middle of the woods and then taking it off and telling him to choose a trail that gets him back to the troop.

 

Yah, this was the essence of my point, though Eagledad is so much more poetic is his wording.

 

Da issue isn't giving boys what they want, it's givin' 'em what they need. What they want is to do awesome cool stuff without having to do chores, be too uncomfortable, or ever falling down. Like that game Eagledad mentions. What they need is a home, eh? A stable structure that works and becomes the base from which they launch on their adventures to Philmont or whatever else. Somethin' that gives 'em buddies to do chores with and someone strong to help 'em up when they fall.

 

Da structure just depends a bit on your philosophy and goals, eh? Most important is to find one that works for what yeh want. I've seen all of 'em be successful for folks, because different folks are lookin' for different kinds of outcomes or growth, and because people sorta adapt to structures and make 'em work. Given all I've seen, like Eagledad my own feelings run toward the traditional scout patrol of mixed-age lads, just because it seems to do better at the character and citizenship stuff that I care most about, and tends to be a good fit for da more adventurous outdoor programs I like to see. But yeh have to figure out if that's what your real goals are, what your activities are like, and recognize that the structure is just one piece, eh? The other bits like adult association and outdoors and all da rest are what help the structure to work.

 

Beavah