Patrol Leader Handbook?

[bnelon44]

PL Handbooks are back in stock at scoutstuff.org

[Kudu]

Has anyone seen the new edition? Does it include the national "health & safety" committee's new anti-Patrol Method policy?

 

Kudu

Back from Woodruff

 

[Reasonable Rascal]

Anti-patrol method policy? Did I overlook something? Always willing to learn from others.

 

RR

[Kudu]

"Most patrol activities take place within the framework of the troop. However, patrols may also set out on day hikes, service projects, and overnighters independent of the troop and free of adult leadership..."

 

Page 28.

[bnelon44]

 

Same wording as in 2010

[Kudu]

bnelon44,

 

Interesting that the wording has not been changed. I wonder if the same is true for page 22 of the new printings of The Scoutmaster Handbook

 

RR,

 

"and overnighters" has been removed from the same passage that appears in the Guide to Safe Scouting.

 

William "Green Bar Bill" Hillcourt's Patrol Method defines a Patrol that hikes without adult supervision as a "Real Patrol," and Patrol Overnighters as extended Patrol Hikes.

 

So the current Patrol Leader's Handbook's insistence that "Most patrol activities take place within the framework of the troop" is what critics of Leadership Development call the "Troop Method."

 

Compare that to Green Bar Bill's Handbook for Patrol Leaders, which devotes 189 pages of instruction on how to lead "Real" Patrol Hikes and Patrol Campouts without adult supervision.

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net

 

 

 

[Reasonable Rascal]

Kudu, thank you for the clarification.

 

I am trying hard to get a decent core of boys who can be trusted - yes, trusted - to act as independently as that. When I was a youth we could be and were. In my view that means maturity, appropriate rank with all that entails (learned skills and responsible behavior), and the ability to react without the crutch of a cell phone call for every hangnail.

 

RR

[Kudu]

RR writes:

 

I am trying hard to get a decent core of boys who can be trusted - yes, trusted - to act as independently as that.

 

You can't beat Baden-Powell's method for sorting that out: His minimum standard of 50-100 yards between Patrols.

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

 

[bnelon44]

RR,

 

Nothing wrong with having the patrols separated (in fact it is recommended if possible and trusted.)

 

BUT BEWARE: If you send out a patrol of trusted Scouts on a patrol overnighter without adult supervision and anything happens the BSA insurance will not cover you since you are now violating the Guide to Safe Scouting. It doesn't matter what Green Bar Bill wrote in 1928.

 

In 1928 most Scouts had a LOT more independence as youths than in 2010, and families of Scouts who got hurt or died didn't tend to sue the Scoutmaster for negligence.

 

(This message has been edited by bnelon44)

[Reasonable Rascal]

I understand the difficulties. One of our best campouts was last November when we used a local BSA camp for a week-ender and camped by patrol method - 2 patrols in separate sites and the adults in a 3rd. Each group planned their own menu and cooked separately, and likewise tented.

 

We recently sent 4 boys to NYLT and they cam back infused with spirit. Granted, they didn't teach strict patrol method as I was taught vis-a-vis' JLITC back in the early 70's. But it's a definite start. We saw a definite difference at summer camp this year.

 

I am not ready - because the boys themselves are not ready - to unleash them for youth-only overnighters, etc. But they are expected increasingly to act as patrols that form a troop, rather than as a troop that is divided into patrols.

 

RR

[bnelon44]

I like NYLT. With all its faults it still is one of the best places to send Scouts to get infused with the Scouting spirit and want to come back to lead.

 

I recommend all Scouts attend.

[Forever-A-Scout]

Chronological number of pages contained within a Patrol Leader's Handbook:

 

1933 = 598 pages

1950 = 392 pages

1970 = 216 pages

1992 (Junior Leader Handbook) = 160

2009 = 123 pages (+ 5 pages for notes)

 

It's amazing how little is available for a Scout to know of his duties and POSSIBLITIES as a Patrol Leader by today's Patrol Leader Handbook. Quite frankly you could say the same of "The Scoutmaster Handbook". Today it has 190 pages, in 1941 it came in 2 Volumes at a total of 1142 pages.

 

Something to think about...

 

F.A.S.

"Scouts Out!"

 

 

[OldGreyEagle]

With attention spans the size of a flea, is it no wonder the BSA publications are getting shorter? One could be happy that at least the Patrol Leader Handbook has not been converted to a Graphic Novel format.

 

BSA is matching its publications with the wants of the consumer. Not saying that its right, but what youth looks at a 600+ page Victorian novel and wants to dig right in, to say Middlemarch by George Elliot (PS he is a she)

 

We have heard all sorts of reasons why Scout Leaders don't have time for training and we want an Opus of over 1,100 pages for the scoutmaster to peruse?

[Kudu]

It doesn't matter what Green Bar Bill wrote in 1928.

 

Setting aside the insurance myth, one Green Bar Bill condition that "doesn't matter" is the Scoutmaster's permission to set off on a Patrol Overnight.

 

As soon as you introduce lightweight camping (if only to backpack a quarter-mile from the Troop trailer) and separate the Patrols by Baden-Powell's 50-100 yards, the natural leaders will understand the Patrol Method. At that point the only leverage you have over Patrol Overnights is access Troop gear. The male instinct to accumulate tools will quickly circumvent that. Perhaps that is why so many Troop Method units forbid Scouts from using their own tents: To discourage Patrols from becoming self-aware?

 

In 1928 most Scouts had a LOT more independence as youths than in 2010

 

I don't know about 1928 but in the 1960s it never occurred to us to ask the Scoutmaster's "permission" to camp in the fields behind our house when we were little, or to drive a hundred miles to the Adirondacks as we got older. Likewise as a Scoutmaster, no natural leader ever asked me for "permission" to hike and camp along old railroad land or to drive 250 miles to the Adirondacks. How many Patrols drove 500 miles round-trip in 1928?

 

In real life, neighborhood "Patrols" have always been mixtures of Scouts and their non-BSA outdoor friends. The only "permission" that matters is parental.

 

One thing I do differently as a result of the health & safety committee's centennial attack on the Patrol Method is that I no longer encourage mature Patrols to conduct loop overnights from a Troop basecamp. Perhaps it can be argued that we have two-deep leadership in the general area; but since I am no longer a Scoutmaster, I have the gung-ho Scouts plot their own longer day-route and then meet up with the adults and younger Scouts at a common destination, where they camp about a quarter-mile away.

 

Another concession is that I only allow cooking on backpack stoves, and use Baden-Powell's practice of social campfires only in the central adult area, if at all.

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

 

[bnelon44]

"It's amazing how little is available for a Scout to know of his duties and POSSIBLITIES as a Patrol Leader by today's Patrol Leader Handbook. "

 

If you read the old Patrol Leader Handbooks you will find that many of those pages are filled with items that are now in the BSA Fieldbook, Boy Scout Handbook, Troop Program Features, Troop Program Resources and Troop Leader Training.

 

"Quite frankly you could say the same of "The Scoutmaster Handbook". Today it has 190 pages, in 1941 it came in 2 Volumes at a total of 1142 pages. "

 

Same for the 1936 Handbook Scoutmasters. You can add the GTSS and Advancement guidebooks and Boy Scout Requirements book (that and the fact that Bill Hillcourt was very verbose and redundant in his writing style.) Even Bill Hillcourt cut down on the number of pages of subsequent Handbooks for Scoutmasters.

 

That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement in the current handbooks, because there is a lot of room there.(This message has been edited by bnelon44)