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Asking “what is an Eagle Scout?” sparks interesting conversations among Scouters.
This question got me wrapped around my own axle for a few years; but not anymore.
Conversations about Eagle Scout commonly unfold like an operatic libretto. The curtain rises on the chorus singing about how once proud standards have fallen because now just anyone can be an Eagle Scout. Stories of overzealous parents, twelve year-old Eagles (good lord twelve!), and other “grave concerns and injustices” unfold dramatically to advance the theme.
In the finale the basso-profundo aria; “Well, we really make our Scouts earn Eagle, we aren’t an Eagle Factory (the chorus gasps in horror) like that troop across town.”
A standing ovation, and the curtain falls until the next performance.
As a new Scoutmaster (mind you, this was thirty years ago) I was in the audience listening to old Scouters sing their aria of complaint. I certainly wasn’t going to be one of those pariahs, a Scoutmaster who just gave away Eagle. No sir, not me! I joined the cast and learned the songs; I built up my own idealized standard of what an Eagle Scout ought to be. Nobody, nobody was going to get Eagle unless they met my standards.
I hadn’t actually answered the question “what is an Eagle Scout?” I had been distracted by a very different question; “who deserves to be an Eagle Scout?”
The answer to the question “who deserves to be an Eagle Scout?” is easy; any Scout who completes the requirements.
That’s it.
No more and no less.
There’s no Eagle-plus, and no Eagle minus, only Eagle.
During my tenure as a Scoutmaster I presented somewhere north of 100 and south of 120 Eagle Scout badges.
So how did it go?
Not one of the boys who received an Eagle during my tenure ever completely measured up to my idealized, dramatically operatic, and totally unnecessary standard.
Some years ago, thank goodness, I learned that didn’t matter.
The important thing to realize is that once a Scout earns Eagle Rank he begins the lifelong process of becoming an Eagle Scout.
Not one of the 2.7 million or so boys who have earned the rank were an ideal, fully formed, “EAGLE SCOUT” when someone handed them the badge; they have a lifetime of opportunities ahead of them. We have recognized a measure of potential and character in those Scouts, the rest is up to them.
My first Eagles are well into their forties now, and I am privileged that many of them keep in touch with me. Each is busy becoming an Eagle Scout every day.
That’s what an Eagle Scout does.
Our job is not defending the holy sanctuary of Eagledom from the unworthy, quite to the contrary;
This puts me in mind of a discussion by the Troop commitee meeting held at my parents house over the disciplining or expulsion of one of my fellow Scouts. My bedroom ,(shared with my brothers) was up the stairway from the meeting. We had been enjoined to NEVER repeat what we may have overheard when comm. mtgs. took place at our house. The said scout had breached a core priciple of scouting, that some parents and commitee members thought deserved expulsion. One ASM took the floor, and stated that this boy is Why We Exist! We teach them the better path; if he is expelled, what path does he take? Discipline teaches positively, while expulsion teaches negatively. I don’t know what became of the scout after we moved west, but he was not expelled, and I like to think he became a better person. Discipline means training, after all. Train the boys in the way of the Eagle path, but stick to the requirements, and one cannot go wrong.
Superb post, Clarke. An Eagle Scout is someone who spends his entire life becoming an Eagle. He never fully achieves his goal, but he never stops trying.
best,
Mike Malone NOESA ’11, DESA ’15
We have one of these Eagle Factory troops in our district. They have “Eagle Factory” written on their troop t-shirts. They have 150 to 200 scouts, making them the largest troop in town. They produce 30 to 40 Eagle scouts per year, and everyone admires that. They have 40 adults at any time, who work not only with the troop but volunteer for a lot of district and council positions.
The Scoutmaster’s driving priority is to get his scouts to Eagle rank (I have heard him say this). He has set up a program that can do this in three years. The plan calls for bringing the merit badge program into the troop (it has traditionally been a council function) and setting up merit badge classes that occur during troop meetings. All the adult scouters register as merit badge counsellors for several badges. The troop assigns each scout to an advancement advisor who plans the scouts advancement and steers the scouts into classes for the badges that the scout needs (that is the factory part).
A lot of troops in the district copy these practices because of the results the Eagle factory produces. The troop I currently work with does this.
I think this goes against the philosophy of Baden-Powell, William Hillcourt, and indeed the BSA’s Aims and Methods of Scouting. The goal is not to get scouts to a certain rank, but to produce men of character. In following the Aims of scouting we want to have scouts learn how to fill their roles in a group (citizenship), strive to develop the character traits in the scout law, and take steps to develop a healthy life style. The eagle factory scoutmaster would say that if a scouts earns Eagle then he has fulfilled the Aims along the way. I am not so sure. I have known many scouts who quit, then came back to get eagle before their 18th birthday because they thought it would look good on a resume or college application. Although I cannot look into their hearts to examine their commitment to Scouting, this reason for doing it seems less than ideal.
Sounds like a tanning bed. People go to the salon to look like they’ve been outdoors and active, but all they get is the tan rather than the real benefits of being outdoors and active.
Aiming at making Scouts into Eagles sounds so good doesn’t it? If that’s the point let’s amp things up and really get things done -sacrifice all the other benefits and hop on the tanning bed.
But we know Eagle isn’t the aim of our work, only an indicator that we have reached the aim.
I doubt that the Eagle Factory actually does any real harm to young people, but it doesn’t sound like anything I’d want for my son.
Perfect and another great podcast! Knowing how challenging I was as a kid, it is a wonder how I ever did complete my Eagle Scout as a youth. But more important was that I had a Scoutmaster that always kept that opportunity available and supported both my effort and that of many other youth (because a Scoutmaster cannot change or delay your 18th Birthday). Now I think my Scoutmaster took revenge on me with a “cursed”, as I just took on the role of Scoutmaster at a troop with 15 Life Scouts and I need to ensure that the opportunity is available to them to overcome the Eagle rank “hump” and that all 15 may become Eagle Scouts.
Amen! Well said Clarke.
I have been trying to share this same message with many Scouters that continually try to find reasons why a Scout is not “worthy” to be an Eagle. “He’s too young, he’s not mature enough, his leadership skills are lacking, his parents pushed him too much so he didn’t do it on his own, he doesn’t fully understand what it means to be an Eagle, his service project didn’t feed the world or cure cancer so it wasn’t good enough to be called an Eagle project, etc., etc., ad nauseam.” This debate comes up all too often both locally and on Scouting discussion forums like many that can be found on LinkedIn.
I love to share the wonderful “Guardian of the Gate” by Darnall Daley and often point to articles and podcasts of yours, and now you just gave me one more excellent resource.
I am sure that as long as we are involved in Scouting, we will be dealing with this type of misguided Scouter that tries to protect the sanctity of the idealized, mythical vision of what an Eagle Scout is. I always give them the benefit of the doubt that they are well intentioned but in my opinion they are misguided and may actually be doing harm to some of the youth in the program. Fortunately, articles like this may help to at least reduce the future numbers of this type of Scouter, and may even change the hearts and minds of some of the current Guardians.
I am being completely honest, the controversy is not unending, it’s a very simple matter. The only way you earn Eagle is completing the requirements, that is not “anything goes” that’s why they are called requirements.
Your opinion and my opinion based on a Scouts age, what has done, if he’s a “real” leader, or how many knots he can tie are immaterial – there is only the requirements.
At no time did I suggest rushing or holding back (both are equally inappropriate).
Eagle is not a title, it is a rank based on completing a set of requirements, carefully defined.
Substituting your judgment or my judgement for the requirements is not what it’s all about.