Scoutmaster

Reinventing the BSA?

What I carry away from this widely distributed AP Article is
- The BSA is in the midst of a membership crisis owing to two basic factors -

"...a still-standing ban on gay or atheist leaders, and scandals surrounding inflated membership numbers. In addition, teenagers raised on TV and shoot-'em-up games had less use for learning to build a campfire or memorize the Scout oath."

- The BSA has not yet figured out how to close the deal with an ever growing population of Hispanic families in spite of Soccer and Scouting and other initiatives.
- Studies by experts have resulted in a new initiative that will be piloted in several cities during 2009.
- This initiative is lauded as "... a reinventing of the Boy Scouts of America."
- The article does not elaborate on the details of exactly what this reinvention involves, but mentions an emphasis on family based activities.

I am somewhat troubled by the idea that we are going to 'reinvent' Scouting. I may be hopelessly behind the times but it seems to work pretty well as it is.

Just about all of my Scouts are tech savvy video gamers, watch plenty of TV and are involved in activities of every description. The argument that boys are no longer interested in an active, challenging program of Scouting is, and always has been, specious.

The sharpest declines in membership followed the highly publicized controversies over sexuality and belief. Scouting has benefited, grown and flourished with the participation of many gay and atheist Scouts and Leaders - we just don't ask and most people don't tell. Without addressing these issues the relevance of the BSA will continue to dwindle away as society continues to evolve.

A heightened campaign directed at Hispanic families is laudable. I have a fair amount of experience with this myself and have found limited success - perhaps a breakthrough is possible. I hope it can be accomplished without any radical alteration to the program. It would be absurd for a national leadership who has refused to alter membership standards in the name of integrity to significantly change a program with a century of proven results in an attempt to shore up flagging membership numbers.

Ten Essentials of Scoutmastership 2 - Focused Zeal

The Ten Essentials of Scoutmastership penned by William 'Green Bar'  Hillcourt were part of the Scoutmaster's Handbook for many years.

2. A zeal focused upon one point - the boy’s happiness through his formative years - "A happy boy is a good boy, a good boy is a good citizen."

One point - the boy's happiness. Not his measurement against a standard, not his level of skill or achievement but his happiness. Scoutmasters are neither taskmasters nor drill sergeants.

Focusing on happiness is not removing challenges, discipline or rigor but revealing the genuine joy of achievement, of taking the road less traveled rather than the path of least resistance. Scoutmasters demonstrate the this in their example of joyous service,an attitude of genuine excitement in meeting difficulties head on and freely speaking words of honest encouragement.

Front Line Stuff - Commemorating 100 Years of the BSA

The next Front Line Stuff question is:
The BSA’s 100th anniversary is less than a year away. What special efforts are packs, troops, and crews planning to gain visibility and bring more boys into the program?

We are planning to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America in three ways:
Tell 100 boys who aren't Scouts about Scouting and invite them to join our Troop.
Commit to complete 100 man hours hours of good turns for our community in addition to Eagle projects and our normally scheduled service work.
Complete 100 merit badges and Rank advancements.

A Scout is Trustworthy

A Scout is trustworthy. A Scout tells the truth. He is honest, and he keeps his promises. People can depend on him.

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882),

A stable life hinges on unconditional trust in many things. As minor as a bus schedule or as significant as the daily path of the sun we trust the predictability of things and events. A trustworthy person, though dependable, is not merely predictable.

We trust people who have consistent, ethical judgment, who's actions spring from intellectual integrity. Trustworthy people are less concerned with appearing to be honorable then with actually doing the honorable thing. They will not compromise their ethics under pressure.

A trustworthy friend is both faithful and honest seeking respect before approval and win confidence through sincerity not flattery.

Trusting others tends to engender their trust. When we are honest and dependable it is likely that others will be likewise.

Friday Five - Advancement

Every Friday five posts from Scoutmaster worth reviewing. This week the subject is Advancement;

Holding Scouts Hostage - the 13 year-old Eagle?
" Now I'll go further... To artificially and arbitrarily hold a Scout back from his own advancement goals is a form of hostage-taking.  In doing this, in purposefully delaying a Scout by throwing up roadblocks, so that he "stays in the troop longer" is a complete and total miscarriage of the Scouting program itself, to say nothing of the advancement plan."

Kill Your Troop Advancement Plan
My contention is that if a system for compelling scouts to advance they will wait until they are prompted. If advancing depends on their own initiative they will motivate themselves.

Standardization of Advancement
We want to get them ALL along through cheery self development from within and not through the imposition of formal instruction from without.

Tough Calls - Advancement
What I came to realize was that these requirements are purposefully silent when it comes to numbers or uniformity of evaluation. We cannot assess these requirements by comparing one Scout to another. The only way to assess that a Scout has successfully completed these requirements is the Scout himself. Has he met his own expectations? Have we done our job of helping him internalize a personal standard of responsibility?

Boards of Review
He has had his requirements signed off, he has had a Scoutmaster's conference and in uniform and armed with his handbook he's off to a Board of Review.

Ten Essentials of Scoutmastership 1 - A Belief in Boys

The Ten Essentials of Scoutmastership penned by William 'Green Bar'  Hillcourt were part of the Scoutmaster's Handbook for many years.

1. A belief in boys that will make you want to invest yourself and your time on their behalf.

As Plato said “Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable”. But our work is not merely managing boys as if they were our employees, teaching boys as if they were students in a classroom or preaching to boys as if they were our congregants.

Our work is creating an environment were they discover for themselves their capabilities and develop the many possibilities that await them in life.

Can Scouting actually have any impact on boys? Is it worth our tremendous investment of energy, time and resources? Can a Scoutmaster make a difference?

The answer is in the hundreds of thousands of stories told by men who were once Scouts.

Neutralizing "Bad Apple" Behavior

Almost all of us have either had the personal experience of working with someone
who displayed bad apple behaviors ... When this process starts to unfold at work, it consumes inordinate amounts of time, psychological resources, and emotional energy. ... such  circumstances underlie many people’s reluctance to fully commit to teams...  they offend us, reduce our enthusiasm, change our mood and may ultimately lead us to personally de-identify or leave the group, with a high likelihood that the group itself will perform poorly, fail, or disband.

Will Felps - How, when, and why bad apples spoil the barrel: Negative group members and dysfunctional groups. PDF LINK

Professor Will Felps was interviewed on a the December 19, 2008  episode of 'This American Life' (Ruining It for the Rest of Us). He relates the results of a study in group dynamics where an actor put into a group of unwitting students and told to model one of three 'bad apple' behaviors: the slacker, the depressive pessimist and the jerk.

After dozens of trials Felps conculded that the bad apple did 'spoil the barrel' significantly reducing the performance of the group with one remarkable exception. One member inthis exceptional group was a 'particularly good leader' who would 'ask questions, engage all the team members and diffuse conflicts'.

Now Felps is studying the technique of asking questions and engaging everyone's opinion as a way of strengthening groups.

Any reasonably attentive student of human nature understands how very difficult it is to moderate or overcome the 'bad apple' effect. The discovery that engaging people in a group setting with questions may significantly neutralize bad apple behaviors is encouraging.

Questions are an especially effective tool for Scoutmnasters. They engage youth leadership in discovery and development, diffuse difficulties and, now apparently, help balance the efforts of a group working towards a goal.