If Scouting were left up to the Scout

[Eagle92]

Eng,

 

Not everyone is into sports. I got CUB SCOUTS (caps for emphasis not shouting)chomping at the bit to go camping in 3 weeks. Last week's den meeting was foil cooking and cardboard box oven baked cookies. Kids loved it. And when I told them that next year as Webelos they can do their own campouts without the pack, they said they couldn't wait. (OK, actual quote was "AWESOME!!!!!!!" and yes the caps are for them shouting that at me.)

 

If BSA would follow Green Bar Bill's "OUTING is three-fourths of ScOUTING," quote, and not screw it up with the current "Outing is two-thirds of Scouting" in the current book, Scouting would be better.

 

 

An aside, my Bear Cub son even noticed that math mistake.

[jrush]

platypus, I'll halfway agree with you.

 

The kids probably would add MBs like orienteering, pioneering and wilderness survival, and drop others like family life and personal fitness. Eagle is only as easy or hard as they already make it. Some kids have it by 13, others slide in with only days to spare, and 98% or so don't get it at all. When 98% of a group isn't getting something, it's obviously not easy to get.

 

OA an Eagle requirement? Are you serious? While boys universally want more adventure, they don't universally want more OA. I've mentioned this on the OA board, but the OA itself is it's own worst enemy. There are a lot of troops out there with no participation in the OA for one reason that the OA doesn't like to admit: the boys don't care. The boys aren't calling the chapter for elections, boys who get elected don't bother to go through Ordeal and boys who go to Ordeal "sash and dash". While some troops out there have strong OA participation, that isn't the rule. Far from it. I'd venture a guess that if the OA disappeared tomorrow, half the scouts in the average council wouldn't even notice and another quarter wouldn't care.

 

A more realistic thing the boys would do? Make every Eagle Scout an honorary member of the OA.

[CalicoPenn]

I'm sorry, I just have to note the irony involved when Lord of the Flies is brought up which can be read as either an adult allegory by an adult writer or as an adult writer's fantasy of what kids might do in a thread where adults are trying to think of what youth Scouts might do if it was left to the Scouts.

 

Of course, Platypus96 is the exception - as would any other Scout that would care to comment.

 

 

[Platypus96]

jrush, I think you might have missed my point. I don't think Eagle Scout's should be in the OA because it is a great program. I just think that any scout who wouldn't be elected by their own troop into scouting honor society should hold scouting's highest rank. I was pretty much trying to think of a nice way to say that eagle scouts should be approved by their peers. Actually, I like that idea. If scouting was left up to the scouts, then instead of the current EBOR, all eagle scouts would have to be reviewed by a commitee of scouts from their troop. Scouts of all ages, and all ranks. It would be a great place for a scout to apolagize to kids who hold a grudge, or be congratulated for all the work he has done in his troop. If they don't think he is scouty enough to be an eagle scout, then he doesn't pass, and can try again later.

 

As for making all eagle scouts OA members? That would be ridiculous. Some of the worst scouts I have ever seen are eagle scouts, and many of them do not deserve to wear a sash. that is something that should always be left up to the kids.

[Eagle92]

Platy,

 

Prior to 1989, Scouts sat on T-2-1 BORs. I know of a few troops who continued the practice for some time after it changed.

[desertrat77]

Eagle92, that is true...I recall one of the duties of the SPL was to organize and chair those boards.

[Eagle92]

To bad one of the few things that national got right with urban scouting, they decided to do away with.

[desertrat77]

Eagle92, I concur.(This message has been edited by desertrat77)

[Venividi]

Platypus,

 

You are an example of what is right with scouting, and what we want boys to get out of scouting (besides getting as many as possible to advance - 'cause how else will anyone know that we are good leaders and parents :-) very big grin)

 

Please continue to define what how scouting would be if left up to scouts - your doing a good job.

[jrush]

Platypus, the scouts already have a peer review system. Nobody calls it that, and it's not official, but it exists among every group of teenagers, including every troop, team, crew, post and ship in the nation.

 

Those who don't have the support of their peers are run out of the troop long before the SM is left deciding whether or not to appoint the boy as an Instructor because the troop won't even nominate him for Scribe.