Good Movies for Training/Team Building

[cheffy]

I'll jump in here and mention one they used at Philmont Training. Glory.

The scene where Brodrick is told to loot and burn the village by his superior is a great lesson in making ethical choices.

[BuffaloSR793]

Its a little "old school" but Follow Me Boys is a classic.

[SctDad]

I just thought of one when someone mentioned "Glory"

 

It is a long movie therefore it may not be good for the younger scouts. "Gettysburg" There are a lot of good Leadership points in there. Like when Lawrence Chamberlin of the 20th Maine Volunteers gave the speech to the prisoners that were accused of desertion.

 

THere are also some other great points of leadership in there.

 

I think that if your scouts have a good attention span (hey look that is pretty shiny) (just kidding) then this might be a good movie.

 

Good Luck

[fgoodwin]

I know you guys mean well, but this is the sort of thing about adult Scouters I find troubling. My first reaction to the question was: "why are you asking us when you should be asking your PLC?"

 

To me, this whole discussion is just another example of well-meaning Scouters completely ignoring the advice in TLT of "never doing a job a boy can do". Why are adults making decisions the PLC s/b making? Do we teach this in TLT and then pay only lip-service (if that) to the idea in practice?

 

I think adults should have veto power over a movie choice if its clearly inappropriate, but if it isn't, and even if its not the SM's first choice, why not let the boys decide which movie they will show?

[NewCrewToo]

fgoodwin-- You make a very good point about involving the PLC. Soliciting ideas and suggestions from them is certainly in order. However, it appears that the movie is intended to be used as part of the Scoutmaster's Youth Leadership Training-- something for which the SM has ultimate responsibility. I don't see anything wrong with soliciting suggestions via this forum and then perhaps presenting several options to the PLC for their input...? I think the idea is to find something that meets the SM's training objective--that the boys will find engaging.

 

Personally, I was delighted to find this discussion. My Venturing Crew likes to incorporate a movie or other social event with their meetings; I've made movies available to them from my collection and even suggested others for them to consider (ones that I feel promote the Aims and Objectives of Scouting)-- I certainly don't "push" these suggestions, emphasizing that they're "ideas." Ultimately, it will be their choice... but is there anything wrong with me printing out this discussion and handing it to the Crew? I think not...

 

[acco40]

Okay, let's put some reality in here.

 

Our SPL informed me in early December (three months after the troop elections) that he would miss two months of meetings due to robotics. Well he just returned back to the meetings a few weeks ago. He has been SPL before, has had JLT training and taken NYLT.

 

We are having another round of JLT on our March outing. At a meeting with the SPL (just me, I'm the SM and him in a public place) I pointed out to him that one of the responsibilities of the SPL is to help plan and run the troop level JLT. As such, I asked him for ideas. His responses were fairly generic - team building, games, etc. and oh yeah, I won't be able to make it - I'll be out town. Did I communicate ineffectively? Was the SPL just lazy? So as SM, what course of action do I take? (rhetorical question - please don't answer.)

 

That is our job as mentors, guides and role models. We have to be able to balance these sort of things. Do I wait for a better thought out plan from the SPL, let the SPL "fail", step in an plan it myself, pass the task on to a first time ASPL, etc.? The correct answer really depends on all the parties involved and it is easy for those of us out in cyber land to cherry pick the mistakes and foibles from the outside.

 

dScouter15 - I'd try to stay away from any movie that was not action packed and try and use one that had boys in the 11 - 18 year age group making decisions and showing leadership.

 

The Wood Badge syllabus (at one time) had Remember the Titans and October Sky.

[OldGreyEagle]

The X Men movies do show what happens when people of a diverse background and skill come together for a noble purpose. Even the loner Logan comes to realize the attributes of Team Work

[NewCrewToo]

Yes, I have to agree with acco40... I remember when I was going thru the Boy Scout Leader Specific Training, and commenting along with the other leaders-in-training that I wish we had scouts with the enthusiasm, drive, and dedication shown in the training videos. I called them the "Stepford Scouts"-- they were just too perfect!

 

It is a balancing act... sometimes a SPL needs just enough rope to hang himself, in order to learn the responsibilities associated with his position-- yet at the same time, all the boys in the troop shouldn't have to suffer because a particular SPL is a slow learner. Sure, the boys need to learn by observing and may one day be a better SPL because they learned not to make the same mistakes as one who went before them... but if the SLP's learning experience is permitted to ruin the scouting experience of the rest of the troop, there may not be any troop left after long.

 

Sorry for taking this topic off subject--but we are talking about leadership training and philosophies, I guess...

[dScouter15]

fgoodwin - I hear what you're saying, and your point is well taken. A very wise Scouter once instilled in me that a fundamental of enabling youth leadership is to provide opportunities for "guided discoveries." That is, youth leadership should be given every opportunity to make decisions, implement and execute the Scouting program. However, this should all be occurring under the guidance of trained adult leadership. Obviously, the youth leadership will be developing and conducting the majority of this training. However, as an adult leader, it is my obligation to ensure that certain lessons are conveyed, and this is very the "guided discovery" principle comes in - in terms of focusing discussion in the planning phase, so that the youth are able to stay focused on the overall objective, and develop a program suited to achieving that objective. Thus, in order to prepare myself for this planning phase, seeing as I'm not too familiar with the movie scene, I simply asked for some ideas I could share with our youth leadership. Perhaps I should have made that more clear in my original post, though, honestly, I didn't expect a scouter asking an innocent, specific question about good movies to turn into a "you're not really doing The Program correctly" discussion.

[ASM59]

dScouter,

 

Well put, well thought out response.

 

I'm just enjoying reading all the responses regarding movies and how they can be applied.

 

Keep the responses coming...

 

ASM59

[briantshore]

One of my favorite lines in Drum Line:

You must first learn to follow before you can lead.

[Eamonn]

I just bought the DVD from the 10 hour PBS show:

Carrier.

I really enjoyed the series and bits of it do show some great leadership along with showing how when everyone does their job things go well.

I got it from Amazon (sp?) It was a lot cheaper than from PBS!!

Ea.

[evmori]

You must first learn to follow before you can lead.

 

I couldn't agree more!