Follow
Here’s an exchange from Ask Andy about forms and Scouts.
Hi Andy,
I’m a relatively new Assistant Scoutmaster. I’ve been instructed that Scouts seeking ranks beyond First Class, in this troop, are required to complete a “Scoutmaster Conference Worksheet” before their actual conversation with the Scoutmaster, which they then submit for their board of review. (I’ve attached the worksheet for your reference—it was created by the previous Scoutmaster.)
I’ve just read that pedantic, soul-sucking, cheerless form. What a load o’ horsepucky. This is anathema to the purpose of a Scoutmaster’s conference and should be burned; the author should be taken out and shot. Somebody needs to read the Scoutmaster Handbook. – Andy
This made me wince for two reasons: I have been guilty of trying to reduce a lot of Scouting to a handy worksheet or form and I hunted down one of these ‘Scoutmaster Conference Worksheets’ on Google.
I have to agree with Andy’s assessment.
Can you imagine a task more antithetical to the spirit and intent of Scouting than filling out a worksheet? Picture the look of resignation on a Scout’s face when, in answer to his inquiry for a Scoutmasters conference, he is directed to fill out a worksheet. I cannot imagine a better way to kill a Scout’s enthusiasm. Now rather than an active exchange with a human being the Scout is interacting with a bunch of blank spaces he is commanded to fill.
What’s worse is that someone is going to save that form as if it were contract and use it to assess the Scouts performance against what he has written.
Scouts are not units to process through an assembly line. They are inquisitive, lively and ready to take on the world. Such energy and potential can never be reduced to writing.
I was in the military and I can imagine the form that the scoutmaster conference worksheets might take. It’s easy to forget the the scoutmaster conference isn’t a competitive evaluation where some scouts get good marks and others don’t (and need to have their non-performance documented).
But I also think it’s easy to dismiss any and all worksheets out of hand. I think they can be a nice tool for things like merit badges or even for rank, not as an extra piece of homework that gets graded pass or fail, but as a place for a scout to collect his thoughts and record what he has learned or found out.
Take the cooking merit badge for example. The scout is supposed to find out about a laundry list of food borne pathogens and know how to avoid each. A list with some blank lines can be a nice way of corraling that info. Not to say that MB counselors should require it or only sign off if the scout used them. But they can be a useful tool.
In a way, the rank requirements are a form of worksheet, listing the tasks to be mastered for a scout to advance.
ARRRGH! (gag retch etc)
What an excuse to not take the effort to know your scouts. The only possible excuse is having one of those “mega-troops”, and if that’s the case the troop really needs to be split up into realistic sized units.
I think this is going in the district’s “don’t do this” part of scoutmaster training.
Amazing isn’t it?
What I hope is that folks who have tried using these forms have decided (as I did) that they are a bad idea.
I’ll discuss some alternatives to forms in my next post.
I did the same google search, I looked at the various personal growth agreeements and determined that at some time one of the people in the troop must have been some paperwork loving fool. It looked their forms had forms. I think that forms that help guide conversations may have a use in scouting. But above all adults don’t like paperwork so why would scouts stick around if this paper work is sucking the soul out of scouting.