Scoutmaster Podcast 139

And now the old scoutmaster, So the bald eagle. One of the kings of nature, and man has looked upon that sight of a bald eagle soaring through the sky with reverence and respect for centuries. The thing that strikes me, though, is that an eagle may look on a bald man and not seem to be impressed at all.

How about that? Huh, Oh my, Hey, if you've listened for a long time, that's a good agreement. This is podcast number 139..

Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look at the mailbag here.

Oh, we have a message from Thundering Thor. He sent an email in just after the Kickstarter project.

Do you know about the Kickstarter project? This was to create a t-shirt called Stuff, Adult Leaders Say, and it just closed last night. I'm recording this: on Monday, October 1st. It closed on September 30th, last night, Just over 100% funded. Thank you everyone for helping out. And Thundering Thor was amongst the last of the backers and was able to back the project in an amount that put it over the top, and he wrote in to say thank you for all you do for Scouts, Scatters and Scouting all over the world.

You are awesome. Well, my relative awesomeness is always in question, but you guys are awesome.

All of you who backed the t-shirt project really do appreciate it, and now we have to make t-shirts. So we'll keep you posted on that if you were a backer for it, and keep an eye out, because you never know, Maybe we'll do something like this again in the future. But thanks, Thundering Thor. Gant Edmondson wrote in. He said: thank you, Clark, and thank you for your past, continued and future service to Scouting. I also teach Merit Badge counselor orientation.

For my counsel. I used podcast 138 this past week- Great stuff.

Well, thank you, Gant. Gant was a backer for the t-shirt project And there I go. I've mentioned it again and I said I wouldn't, but thank you for the good word. Michael Daniels is in Tallahassee, Florida, And he said: I know you get this all the time, but I enjoy your work. Thanks for the information. I thought I was comprehending everything wrong until I found your podcast.

Thank you, Michael. Thanks for your kind words there.

Mark Bowie was the Scoutmaster of Troop 531 in Orange, California, And he wrote in to say this: I'm retiring as Scoutmaster of our troop tonight so I can focus on my Jamboree troops. So now Mark is still a Scoutmaster.

He's just a Scoutmaster of a Jamboree troop- right now This is our troop- is really benefited from the blog and podcasts and book recommendations. We've moved a long way towards the patrol method and now we are recognized in our district and council. I'll continue to read, listen and to contribute, and I have hooked a few leaders on you as well. Thanks for all the guidance.

Well, thank you, Mark, And thank you for your service to your troop and your continued service as a Jamboree Scoutmaster. That's going to be a blast. You're going to have a lot of fun with that. Once again, thanks for the kind words.

So in this podcast we've got Scoutmaster ship in seven minutes or less. It's going to be a briefer podcast. This week We'll be recording a Scoutmaster panel discussion for podcast 140, which will be coming up next week. But one of the posts on the blog got a lot of attention this week and I thought it would be a good thing to talk about.

So let's get started, shall we

The Scoutmaster ship in seven minutes or less? Now I know most of you follow Andy over at the US Scouting Service Project. Andy is a longtime commissioner and has had an online column where he answers questions that people send in about scouting and it's really great. He publishes a new column every week or two. There was one email that he got and responded to. That I thought was just really interesting.

And the email he got was from a parent who had attended summer camp with their son's troop this year and watched as the Scoutmaster kind of sat there and watched the scouts try things and fail and the parent was a little incensed about this because it took the scouts a long time to get it. You know the particular activities they were doing and things like that.

And of course Andy responded by saying: well, it sounds like a pretty savvy Scoutmaster to me. Let the boys learn things. He didn't interfere with them.

He kept an eye on things and made sure that you know they weren't doing anything that was dangerous or inappropriate. But he probably did the right thing by not intervening.

Well, I posted the email and the response at scoutmastercgcom and it's under the title: are you a safety net or a nursemaid? And I drew that right from Andy's response. He said this Scoutmaster was acting more like a safety net instead of a nursemaid. There's been a really great active discussion.

Some of the principles involved in that in the comment section on that post, And you know what I mean. I really appreciate people coming over and reading the posts and participating, but the thing is is that what you really want to read on most of these posts are the comments, Because that's where things you know we'll present an idea, but that's where things get discussed and you get different points of view and it can be really helpful.

So we've gotten several comments on this one this week and we've made some replies and I thought it would be useful to talk about. This is one of these subjects that we return to again and again.

What do you do? You know, I mean very broadly, what do you do as a scout leader, as a Scoutmaster in particular, but as any volunteer leader?

You know we're watching the boys do whatever and kind of muddle through and they're making mistakes and they're getting frustrated and you know they're pushing themselves to the point of failure. And you know what do we do, How much advice and mentoring and instruction is enough and how much is too much and how much is too little.

Well, you know what? There's just no way to tell you, There's no way to tell you one rule for every single instance in the book there, you know. But there are some, just some conceptual things that may be of assistance to you in learning these. First of all, let me say this: as you're working along here, learning how to be a scout leader and learning how all this works and mirroring the things that you see your scouts doing- and this isn't bad, because this kind of trial and error thing is the way that we advance right in our work and the way that we become more skillful and experienced in it.

Just the way that when scouts are building a campfire or setting up a tent or something like that, you know they got to try out a dozen different ways of doing it before they settle on one that really works for them. So how do you know?

How do you know if you're doing too much? How do you know when you've kind of hit the balance there?

Well, I've got a little practical exercise for you. Okay, Your next camp out, your next troop meeting, Get a chair and really a chair, and sit in the chair so that you are in a position to observe what's going on. But you're far enough away that the scouts you know. They may be aware that you're looking and they may not, But just observe. Just observe and sit in that chair and time it for 30 minutes or an hour, 45 minutes, something like that- A decent amount of time- And resolve to do this, Resolve not to get out of the chair and resolve not to speak or react to what's going on with the scouts.

Now, naturally- and you know I have to mention this caveat, but naturally it's understood- if they're doing something dangerous or inappropriate you get out of the chair and you speak and you make it stop. So we all understand that.

Right, Okay, we're going to react if things are dangerous or inappropriate, But sit there and watch and observe. Now, a useful way to think about this may be that you're like a naturalist, okay, And everybody's seen the shows on TV and things like that.

You know, the naturalist goes and they find out where the particular animal or phenomena of the study is, and then they set up a blind right And then they sit in the blind and they kind of peek through it and they're watching, so that they don't interrupt the subject that they're observing And they don't break the natural flow of things happening. And this is what I'm suggesting to you Is just sit and watch, Sit and observe And watch what's happening, Listen to what they're saying, Watch how they're acting. They're not having any investment or participation in what's going on at all other than to observe.

Now, if you're a fairly active scout leader who's putting their oar in a lot and you have a lot of opinions about things and you offer a lot of advice and instruction and things, this 30 minutes or hour-long session where you sit in the chair is going to be very uncomfortable, Because I know I've tried it and it's very uncomfortable. You're going to squirm around a little bit. You're going to have 20 things running through your mind about why you need to step in and fix whatever is going on. But resist the temptation and just sit and observe.

Nobody's going to die, Nobody's going to quit scouts because you're sitting and observing for this 30 minutes or hour or so And see what you can learn. I think that in that time you'll learn more than you would in a week of training in a lot of instances. Once you're sitting and observing and you've resolved, I'm not going to get up and I'm not going to react and I'm not going to speak. I'm just going to watch and see what goes on. Then note your reactions to the different things that are happening. Scouts say one thing, or they start doing one thing, or they're doing something one way.

Or I wish they didn't look at it like this, or I wish they didn't say it like this. Don't judge that, Just get the reaction and note. I find that kind of aggravating. When they do that, that makes me aggravated, or when they do that, that makes me very proud of them, or when they do that, I don't have much of a reaction at all. Once you have done these observations and once you've noted the reactions that you have, then you kind of move on to how would I normally react to this. Let's use this illustration: It's time to build the campfire and you're going to sit by and you're going to watch for the next 30 minutes to an hour as the Scouts work on building a campfire.

You've instructed them in the past, probably, and you've given them a really great outline on how to build a campfire and you've demonstrated it to them and everything, and they've picked up some things and maybe not. And you know this is going to be, for the purposes of our illustration, a pretty mixed group of Scouts- some younger guys and some older guys- and watch what happens.

Okay, So as they're doing this, there's going to be something that rubs you the wrong way. They're going to get the wrong kind of tinder or kindling like that, or they're going to try and light the fire too soon, or you know they're going to do something where you would normally jump in and instruct and just note that and say, okay. Normally I would jump in at this point and I would reiterate the instructions that I've given them in the past.

Normally I would call the patrol leader over at this point and I would say: you know what's going on there and how can you fix this. Normally I would just grab the stuff out of their hands and light the fire because I'm getting tired of waiting, and just note how you would react to that type of thing and see what you can learn from it.

And then, if you continue watching them, even as painful as it can be, eventually- well, in most cases, eventually they're going to have a campfire lit. Now, it may take a long time and it may be really aggravating to you to watch them fumble and to fail and to go through you know half a box of matches, but ultimately they're going to get the fire lit and I'll tell you that experience is more informative about what you do as a scout leader than, like I said, like a week of training.

Now, the next time you have the opportunity- you know where you're observing- work on it a little bit. Keep your trap shut a little bit longer, stand right where you are or sit right where you are a little bit longer and watch the scouts and see if they discover and develop the ability or the skill that they need at that moment.

You're going to be surprised that they do, and then measure the different reactions that you have and the way you're going to approach addressing those reactions and what you're going to do. Now.

My guess is is that most of us will discover after we go through that process, Most of us will discover that we may be doing a little too much in the way of instructing and advising and things like that. Perhaps some of us will discover that, may you know, maybe we need to do a little bit more, and you know, and some of you will have it just about right.

But try this little exercise and see if it works for you and then let me know the results, won't you? I'd really appreciate it? You're being in touch and letting me know what's going on out. There is one way to keep this lively and interested and informative, and I'm going to talk to you about how to stay in touch in just a moment.