PLC Campout

[Spiney Norman]

Hi Spiney, I'd be interested in seeing your syllabus for scout leadership training. I've struggled with using the standard syllabus because it seems too vague for a scout. How to set up a duty roster is concrete. The importance of communication doesn't really help with a scout that doesn't want to help clean dishes. The vague concepts are important but there are some common situations that a patrol leader should know how to handle.

Hi Matt,

I can send you the documnets we use to run the course. As for the nuts and bolts of operation the Patrol Leaders guide is a good resource. I also have older experienced scouts present this portion.

 

Send me your e-mail addy to ken_knasiak@hotmail.com and I will forward you the attachment

Spiney Norman

[Eagledad]

>>There are better ways for the PL to solve the problem and ways to teach that is what I'm looking for.

[Twocubdad]

I wrote our own TLT/JLT syllabus several years ago. The new, national syllabus is comfortingly similar to ours to the point we gave then new syllabus a try. I thought it went well.

 

I'm sure we will modify it for next year. We always do, even when it was our own. In part, to keep it fresh and keep the boys returning year-to-year but also in response to issues which arise in the tro

A recent modification was the communications module. The old sender>receiver>acknowledgment thing is a yawner. We our version focused more on medium (phone, email, text, smoke) and message. This is concrete stuff the kids can use. Kids all seem to believe texting is the answer to everything. Through skits we demonstrate different examples of where different media is appropriate. Then we give the boys a written message which is purposely long and complicated. We ask them to convert it into a phone message, email and text. We give them a list of phone numbers (the numbers of the course leaders) and have them call. One call gets answered by the "Scout's" mother who goes on-and-on with detailed questions. Another call gets answered by a answering machine. Another is answered by a four-year-old sister and another by a hard-of-hearing grandfather. It makes the point and is a lot of fun.

 

Another modification was to add cooking. At one point we felt the troop meal planning was very weak and needed a boost. Instead of ending the training with a cookout, the Scouts did all the cooking. One of the morning sessions was to go through a stack of camp cookbooks and find a dish the had never made before and wanted to try. We told the boys to really stretch -- McDonald's is a half-mile in one direction and the grocery store even closer in the other (we run this at our Scout House). It's a fail-proof environment, so try something challenging. Interestingly, we got a lot of Italian (chicken pharm, lasagne, home-mades spag sauce), Mexican and Asian. But one kid said he had never grilled a steak and wanted to learn how. Another wanted to spit-roast a chicken. One kid wanted to make gaspacho! At lunch we send an ASM to the grocery store with a list and all the boys start cooking about 4:30. Dinner ends up being a pot luck of everything. Some of it is really bad, but some is quite good -- the gaspacho was fabulous! In the end, the guys get to try some dishes and techniques the would have tried before. It's always fun when you see these items trickle down to patrol menus.

[Eagledad]

>>There are better ways for the PL to solve the problem and ways to teach that is what I'm looking for.

[Eagledad]

>>There are better ways for the PL to solve the problem and ways to teach that is what I'm looking for.<<

 

I kind of thought that was really your question. The site is very difficult and it’s taken me several attempts to get this far, so wish me luck.

 

First off, you are struggling with a very common situation that most all of us have confronted. It’s just part of growing into a mature unit. Adult leaders need to grow as much if not more than the scouts for the program to mature. And you need to understand that these aren’t scout problems, they are adult growing pains in learning how to be good mentors and coaches.

 

You said leadership is about gaining respect, but that is not quite right. Leadership is about guiding the team to accomplish successful goals. Respect just makes the job easier. I do agree with you that servant leadership is the best way to led. But where inexperienced adult leaders go wrong is they try to force the value of respect on all the scouts through the leaders. Respect is developed through helping all the members of the group feel they are equal and treated fairly.

 

The Oath and Law only guide scouts to serving others, they do not define who and where to serve because we are expect to serve everyone all the time. In short, you really want to encourage a servant lifestyle and a servant heart in every part of your Troop program. Servant leadership is just one opportunity for a scout to practice serving. I’m sure you want your scouts to act as servants to each other even when they are in not Positions of Responsibility.

 

Back to your problem. Like most of us from time to time, you are seeking new ideas for helping the adults teach skills that help the scouts motivates actions from other scouts in a non confrontational way. That is a difficult skill for adults to learn because have it easy since they only need to pull their adult card to intimidate a scout into action. But the scout’s peers don’t have that leverage, nor should they. Adults need to learn not to pull the adult card, which is a very difficult habit to break.

 

You are going to have to learn how to think like a scout to better understand how to get him to change his way of thinking. You want a scout to independently make the right choices because it is the right choice, not because he feels intimidated or forced to do it.

 

1^st principle: a scout follows the pack, he rarely leads it. I encourage our scouts to think and work as a team, especially with behavior. We had a scout cut his foot pretty bad while running through came one year. This happened right in front of the SPL and 20 other scouts. The SPL admitted he knew the rules and should have told the scout to put shoes and not run in camp. Great SPL, but I realize then that his bad decision was only 1/20^th of the problem. The bigger problem was that none of the other scouts felt obligated to stop the scout’s wrong choices either. I found a troop problem that was caused by the adults because we tried to handle responsibility only through the leaders. So we attacked the problem by starting to hold everyone accountable for everyone. The scouts started to see that if they were capable of stopping bad behavior and didn’t, no matter how many scouts were there, they would be held equally accountable. Believe it or not, scouts actually like that because it gave them permission to stop their friends from making bad decisions. Why is your PL the only scout in the patrol holding the problem scout responsible for doing his job?

 

I work with every new PLC to understand how to work as a team. If one scout causes problems, the member of the PLC (or a senior scout) closest to that problem should immediately deal with it. I explain that a PL farther away shouldn’t have to yell at the scout because he is too far away to deal with the problem quietly. Also, if the problem requires help, another member of the PLC (or senior scout) should walk over and help. Don’t leave a fellow scout stranded with the problem. Work as a team and deal with the problem quickly and quietly.

 

2^nd principle: Scouts don’t change habits until their heart wants to change. What I mean is that just saying a person should respect leadership, or a leader should have respect doesn’t change the heart. You have the choice of either forcing a person to make the right choice or changing their will so that they voluntarily make the right choice without outside pressure. Your adults need to learn and practice (a lot) the art of finding a scouts heart, or motivation. I once had a mentor tell me that motivation follows the path of least resistance. So he made sure scouts always had clear choices. A scout should never be forced to against his will, he should have clear choices.

 

Let’s look at the scout who refused to help out at KP. If he were given a choice before the campout that he was expected to help out at KP, or not go on the campout out, what would he chose? Either he is all in or all out.

 

Our troop had a real problem with scouts just taking their time breaking camp, some scouts simply refused to help without the help of an overbearing adult leaning on them. Parents were upset because they had to wait in their cars for quite awhile. We were dealing with your same problem and wanted to find a better way. So the SM and the PLC worked together and came up with an idea. Our troop has a tradition that the scouts really enjoy of stopping for junk food on the way home from campouts. The PLC explained that getting the troop home on time was their first priority, if they take too long to break camp, they would skip the junk food stop. We never had another problem after that in the following 10 years while I was a leader in the troop. The scouts had clear simple choice of which path to take.

 

Find the heart of the scout and use it to develop good habits.

 

These principles aren’t just for problem behavior, but for all behavior. If scouts aren’t enjoying a part of the program, they need to learn to take action and change it. That is kind of the bases of my part in this TLT discussion. We had good trainings, but they got repetitive and old and the scouts started dreading them, so the change them to be fun again. Every part of the scouting experience should be fun.

 

Personally I don’t see that you have a leadership problem, you have a bigger problem of bad team work in the patrols. This tells me your program isn’t pushing the patrols to work as a team. If the patrols had a choice of cooking, eating and cleaning in 45 minutes, or miss out on the fun activities, would their motivation change? Scouts need a reason to have to work as a team. I think “time†is a Scoutmasters best tool for encouraging motivation, but so few use it. Hey, whatever happened to patrol inspections?

 

Also you need to simple message for your simple servant lifestyle vision. The Scout Law is a pretty darn simple guideline of servant habits. The scouts need to start practicing to make decisions (all decisions) based from the Scout Laws. Make it easy on yourself and start encouraging decisions based from the scout laws instead of MattR’s laws. Even the simple act of making a menu should force the scouts to consider other scouts allergies, likes and dislikes.

 

So what can you add or change in your TLT right now to help youth leaders deal with unmotivated scouts or bad behavior? Understanding of course your other problem is patrol team work, but here are a couple suggestions.

 

First teach the scouts how to handle difficult behavior in a nonconfrontation manner by always approaching talking quietly and never yelling or losing patience. Teach them to just do their best to explain to their expectations and why.

 

Second, if the scout still refuses to change his behavior, then simply remove him or the problem from the group or activity and deal with them later. This is a great habit for adults too, but we guide the scouts to just ask the problem scout to leave the area and go visit the SPL to explain him the situation. If the SPL can’t change things, he can ask the scout to visit the SM to give him an opportunity to help the scout grow in his decision making skills. If the scout still chooses incorrectly, then he can hang out with the SM and miss the activities while the SM performs his responsibilities like washing dishes. LOL. I once got two new scouts up an hour early because they kept the PL and SPL up all night talking. We just quietly collected fire wood and started a fire. There was some mention of the scout law and general respect of others, but really not much talking or lecturing. The very tired scouts got the point.

 

Another thing is encourage scouts to explain the expectations so they understand what is expected of them. One suggestion is for the PL to show the scouts the roster at the meeting before the campout and have them approve it, meaning agreeing to follow it as written. If the scout has an issue, they can deal with it there instead of the campout. If the scout chooses to break the agreement on the campout, then the SM has another opportunity to help the scout grow, and we like that.

 

Finally you can get three or four other adults and perform a skit to the scouts showing them how to deal with difficult behavior. Add a little humor and the scouts will lock into it. I remember a scout reacting to a skit at our TLT by saying loudly, “Oh I get it nowâ€. Sometimes we adults get lucky. Honestly I think I learned more that day than the scout.

 

I’ve gone way long here and I apologize. I love this scouting stuff and sometimes I just can’t stop. I hope something, at least one little thing I’ve written can help make your job a little easier. The time you are giving to help our sons is noble and we should do what we can help.

 

Barry

 

 

[MattR]

Barry, thanks for the ideas. I agree with most of what you said. I like the time and "everyone is accountable". I've done it some but it could be more.

 

A lot of what you're talking about is problem solving. ILST mentions communication, planning, and EDGE, but not problem solving. The PL and SPL handbook talk about conflict resolution and problem solving, why not ILST?

[Eagledad]

>>A lot of what you're talking about is problem solving. ILST mentions communication, planning, and EDGE, but not problem solving. The PL and SPL handbook talk about conflict resolution and problem solving, why not ILST? <<

 

I don't know, we didn't have ILST when I was SM, we had something much more basic. We learned most of our wisdom through the humility of doing it wrong. I'm trying to save you from that kind of growth because scouting is hard enough.

 

Barry

[MattR]

Too late, I've already made plenty of mistakes. But I know exactly what you're talking about. Troop culture is very hard to change.

 

 

[SSScout]

Test, Test, pass or fail, test tes...

[Spiney Norman]

I wrote our own TLT/JLT syllabus several years ago. The new, national syllabus is comfortingly similar to ours to the point we gave then new syllabus a try. I thought it went well.

 

I'm sure we will modify it for next year. We always do, even when it was our own. In part, to keep it fresh and keep the boys returning year-to-year but also in response to issues which arise in the tro

A recent modification was the communications module. The old sender>receiver>acknowledgment thing is a yawner. We our version focused more on medium (phone, email, text, smoke) and message. This is concrete stuff the kids can use. Kids all seem to believe texting is the answer to everything. Through skits we demonstrate different examples of where different media is appropriate. Then we give the boys a written message which is purposely long and complicated. We ask them to convert it into a phone message, email and text. We give them a list of phone numbers (the numbers of the course leaders) and have them call. One call gets answered by the "Scout's" mother who goes on-and-on with detailed questions. Another call gets answered by a answering machine. Another is answered by a four-year-old sister and another by a hard-of-hearing grandfather. It makes the point and is a lot of fun.

 

Another modification was to add cooking. At one point we felt the troop meal planning was very weak and needed a boost. Instead of ending the training with a cookout, the Scouts did all the cooking. One of the morning sessions was to go through a stack of camp cookbooks and find a dish the had never made before and wanted to try. We told the boys to really stretch -- McDonald's is a half-mile in one direction and the grocery store even closer in the other (we run this at our Scout House). It's a fail-proof environment, so try something challenging. Interestingly, we got a lot of Italian (chicken pharm, lasagne, home-mades spag sauce), Mexican and Asian. But one kid said he had never grilled a steak and wanted to learn how. Another wanted to spit-roast a chicken. One kid wanted to make gaspacho! At lunch we send an ASM to the grocery store with a list and all the boys start cooking about 4:30. Dinner ends up being a pot luck of everything. Some of it is really bad, but some is quite good -- the gaspacho was fabulous! In the end, the guys get to try some dishes and techniques the would have tried before. It's always fun when you see these items trickle down to patrol menus.

Seems like our troops ran a similar path. we rewrote the old TLT and amazingly it come out a lot like the new curriculum. Though in my opinion it looks like they took a lot of the practical games and exercises from the old JLT video course and added them in to the theory heavy TLT. I do like the new course though and we too have added an entire session just on meal planning and cooking. I like your idea of a cook off. Alos, have you documented your communication module. It looks interesting and if you could forward me a copy I would really appreciate it.

Thanks,

Ken/Spiney Norman