Scoutmaster Podcast 147

And now the old scoutmaster.

Horace Kappart was a very well-known author and you may have even seen some of his books, even though he wrote them almost a century ago now. One of them is Woodcraft and Camping. He wrote it in 1916.. And just to show that the more things change, the more they remain the same, Let me read you this passage.

I do this as regularly as the birds come back in the spring, And their kind has been doing it since the world began. It's good for us If some misguided genius should invent a camping equipment that nobody could find fault with. half our pleasure in life would be swept away.

Oh, it's still true today. Yep, we have to have gear and then we get to mess around with it and read about it. I'm pretty sure that's the only reason we go camping, Just so we can have this. Oh well, This is podcast number 147..

Well, welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look at the mailbag. Not real full this week, but we heard from a couple of people. Jono wrote in And Jono's last name. I'm going to give it a shot. Jono, Tell me how I do.

How about that? Get in touch. okay, If I really murdered it. get in touch with me. But Jono wrote in and said very simply: thanks for all your podcasts and work, Much appreciated in Northern California. Well, we certainly appreciate hearing from you, And I also received this comment on the blog. While I typically enjoy the thought-provoking articles, they seem to have taken on a commercial nature recently. That is a very astute observation And, yes, due to the season, some of the blog articles are a bit more commercial in nature than normally, And I don't think we've ever really talked about this on the podcast before. but let's talk about the assorted financial details of being a blogger and a podcaster. I really enjoy writing and I enjoy speaking to you on the podcast and it's all great fun. It takes a lot of time. It takes a tremendous amount of time And it also costs a little bit of money- Not tremendous amounts of money, but a little bit of money. So I use two commonly available of creating a little financial revenue to offset the time and the money I spend in creating the blog and the podcast. These two things are affiliate marketing and online advertising. Affiliate marketing, in a nutshell, is: if you're a blog or a podcaster, you associate yourselves with different vendors, You provide links to the goods or services that they offer. when someone buys one of those goods or services, you get a commission And usually that commission is somewhere south of 10%. More often than not it's about 5% to 7%. So let's say you see a product reviewed or featured on the blog and you click on an affiliate link and you buy that product. I'm going to get a small commission on that. When I review a product or service online and I suggest it to you for purchase is almost always going to be something that I have personally used and a lot of times for a good many years, and I can hardly recommend to you. Sometimes people get in touch with me and they offer me things to review. Sometimes I get in touch with them if I think something might be particularly useful or applicable to the way that scouts camp and hike and things like that. All the gear and equipment you see on the blog that I talk about where there is a link to a place to buy it is going to earn me a very small commission. You also, if you visit the blog at scoutmastercgcom, you'll see some advertising And if you click on those ads I get a small fee for every click that happens on those ads. I have very limited editorial control over what appears in those ads, So don't consider them to be products I've endorsed or used or reviewed. But I thought we would just draw back the curtain a moment. look into the realities of doing this. So the revenue from things like that on the blog amount to not much. It pays for the different services that I have to engage to keep the blog online and to publish the podcast. It pays for some of the equipment involved- I mean, there's microphones and stuff like that that you need- And on occasion there's enough of a surplus to compensate me in a very small way for some of the time I spend provoking your thoughts. So so in this podcast we're going to in Scoutmaster ship in seven minutes or less, continue with our series on four steps to scout advancement. Last time we had the introduction, this time step number one, And then I have a couple of email questions and answers to share with you. So let's get started. shall we Scoutmaster ship in seven minutes or less?

Last week we introduced this series about the four steps to scout advancement, And last time around we contextualize advancement within all the aims and methods. This week we're going to talk about step one, and that is that a scout learns. Now the subsequent steps are: step two, a scout is tested. step three, a scout is reviewed. and step four, a scout is recognized. So how does learning happen in the context of scouting? Well, let me read you this quote from Albert Einstein. He said this: it is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the Holy Spirit of Inquiry, For this delicate little plan, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom. Without this, it goes to rack and ruin without fail. It can be a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. And in the Scoutmaster's Handbook we read this: learning is a natural outcome of scouting activities. Instruction in scout skills can come from a number of sources. Most important are the scouts themselves, sharing what they know with one another and helping each other along the advancement trail. So when we introduce this idea of learning into the context of scouting, we usually think of the more common academic model of learning, And I identify that model this way: The students are passive, the teachers are active and the attainment of a certain standard of performance is paramount, And we need to understand that scouting is not an academic exercise in that sense, And that's the key, That's what I really want to get across to you- We can say scouting is not school, and that is half the message. But what we really want to think about is that scouting focuses on what Einstein calls that Holy Spirit of Inquiry. Learning in scouting is experiential, a process of discovery. It's not an academic exercise. Learning is the natural outcome of scout activities. We don't put the cart before the horse here. We do what scouts do and they learn as a result of doing that. And so there's this kind of subtle emphasis that I think we find lacking in a lot of places, that we start with learning stuff and the activities just kind of follow in suit. Well, it's totally the other way around. We start with doing what scouts do and they learn as a result. And this process of discovery is one question following another, just like a path of breadcrumbs, until scouts discover what they need to know. So what's the practical purpose in learning to tie a square knot? Well, it joins two ropes together. What does a scout gain from learning to tie a square knot? On the surface, he learns to join two ropes together And that's a great practical skill. But simply learning that practical skill isn't the point. Our aim is the process of discovery that enables scouts to lead themselves, and subsequently others, to learning anything that they need to know. Self-leadership is the first step in leadership development. You learn to lead yourself and then you're able to lead others. Scouts discover these things in the course of doing what scouts do, and then they master them and they begin to share them with their fellow scouts. That's the focus of what scouting is and how it's different from that academic model. Now, anybody can teach a scout to tie a square knot in a few minutes, Left over right, right over left. Now you try it. The scout's passive, I'm active, He watches, Then he tries. It's an echo of what he's done in school a thousand times: Listen to the teacher, Do what the teacher does. This is efficient, This is effective, But I'm going to contend that it's not really scouting. Whenever possible- and it's almost always possible- we initiate this process of discovery In the course of a camping trip. a scout needs to tie two ropes together. How does he make that happen? Well, does he have a scout handbook? Can he find out how to do this by looking in the handbook. Can he find the right page? What does it say there? Can you learn how to do this? Yes, I can. Can you show it to somebody else? Yes, I can. A whole other field of inquiry opens up when we ask other questions. What does a square knot symbolize in scouting? When would you use a square knot? You'd probably use it twice a day at a minimum to tie your shoes. What? That's not a square knot? Are you sure? Can you see a square knot in there? One question follows another, building on this spirit of independent inquiry, this spirit of discovery, And pretty soon we're out of the picture all together, because the scout knows how to find things out. Learning skills in scouting is kind of like a head fake in basketball. Do you know what a head fake is? That's when a player fakes you out by looking in one direction and moving in another direction. In scouting, it looks like what we want to do is just learn some practical knowledge and skills, but we're really off in another direction. Learning how to learn is what we're looking for. A skill that far surpasses the simple knowledge of joining those two ropes together is the skill of learning how to learn. As scouts gain these practical skills, they begin to instruct and lead others, and then we start to reap the other benefits of this discovery process. Discovery is not as linear and efficient as the academic method, but what does it create? At an Eagle border review, what's more important to you? A scout who remembers how to tie a square knot or a scout who's capable of leading himself and others to discover and accomplish nearly anything? Ideally, scouts gain achievement towards advancement as a natural outcome of what they're doing in their patrol or troop. We don't do requirements, We do what scouts do. And what do scouts do? They go camping and hiking, They build a fire, They cook over a fire, They build towers and bridges, They play games. If scouts are doing what scouts do, they will be completing requirements. I for sure learned the hard way that nothing drains the spontaneous joy

and excitement out of scouting More than telling scouts something like you know now, fellas, we're going to work on requirements. They have to put down the fun, intriguing, interesting things they're doing and stand around listening to somebody tell them how to do requirements. So the way a scout learns and the place of learning in scouting creates useful, even important, life skills, But those skills are nothing more than a means to a greater end, And that is developing a capable, contributing, decent human being. We work towards this by inspiring what Einstein called that Holy Spirit of Inquiry and desire for achievement. that is measured by the effort that a scout extends, not just by the sum of his performance, And we're going to look closely at step number two. a scout is tested in our next podcast.

Oh, I'm in love with the man who loves to camp. He camps when it's sunny, He camps when it's damp. All he needs is a tent, a sleeping roll, a package of hot dogs and a sack of charcoal. He camps in the desert, He camps in the snow. He says: baby, come with me, A snowman, I received two emails since the last podcast that basically had the same kind of question, So I'm kind of mixing those two emails together. On a recent camping weekend the boys did not help with cooking, clean up and washing dishes as much as they should have. They would begin their tour but then begin to vanish to other places to have fun. So when they woke up Sunday morning looking for a hot breakfast of eggs. the adult leaders said it was not happening because griddles did not get cleaned the prior night. They also littered the campsite with wrappers the night before. Of course, the next morning they cleaned up the site, but that's not the point. In the past, adults have done all the cooking on trips. What suggestions do you have for working this out and keeping the boys accountable and responsible? Our troop is a good troop, but they're primarily adult-led, not patrol-led. I realize Rome wasn't built in today, so how can they begin to teach the boys what they should have been doing all along? What do you do about a situation when boys vanish when there's work to be done? How do you start out teaching clueless boys how to cook and wash dishes? I think that adults need to model what is required and work with them, teach them and direct them. We have a great group of adults and the troop has approximately 30 boys and the majority of them are on the younger side. Thanks for any thoughts you may have about this. The situation you describe is not all that uncommon and its cause is adults running the troop, Plain and simple. So I want to get you started thinking about a few basic ideas. First, scouting is something that scouts do for themselves, not something that adults present to them. Second, scouts can do everything for themselves Other than, you know, a very few administrative functions. Scouts can make menus and purchase food and cook for and clean up after themselves. They can plan their activities, instruct and prepare those fellow scouts to participate in them. They can lead their fellow scouts through activities and help their fellow scouts advance and rank. The adult role in scouting is helping scouts discover their leadership abilities and helping scouts find the resources that they need and getting out of the way so that they can do it. Let me tell you about my weekend, and I'm telling you about it just to contrast what you've described. Well, I'm really proud of my scouts. They're not super humans or anything like that. They're just like your scouts, And last weekend we went backpacking with them. We had 17 scouts with a pretty good distribution of ages from 11 to 16, and we had nine adults along- a lot for us on any given weekend, But we've got a lot of guys who really like to go backpacking. The adult role on this outing was basically chartering the bus that took us there, helping the patrol leadership council determine what route they would follow and accompanying the scouts on the trip. Everything else was done by the scouts. They planned their meetings to prepare themselves for backpacking, with instruction on the proper gear and food that they'd need and things like that, And adults did know not even a minute's worth of instruction. Everything done in those meetings was done by the boys. Each patrol planned their meals, purchased and packed their food, prepared it and cleaned up after themselves. No adult touched a pot or a pan or a stove or any of the food the scouts brought. We cooked for ourselves. We got there Friday night and the scouts had a campsite from the adults. They set up their own tents. They camped and hiked the whole weekend as patrols, each patrol staying together. For the most part the scouts hiked well in front of the adult group. No adults hiked with the scouts because the scouts looked after themselves. We observed and advised only if we were asked or if a decision on part of the scouts would lead to some kind of you know situation, which, by the way, wasn't really necessary. on that weekend I spoke to the senior patrol leader for perhaps a total of 20 minutes for the whole weekend, mostly to check in and to review what was going on. So how did things go? Well, I could have solved some problems for them, but they figured things out in the end. They did not do everything perfectly, nor did they do everything the way that I would have done them or any of the other adults on the outing would have done them. The important was they did it for themselves. Every once in a while, something untoward happens, But the scouts have elected patrol leaders and a senior patrol leader who are responsible for seeing that things go well. They've learned to ask us when they need help with these things. You asked a question that I get asked a lot. How do you hold scouts accountable and responsible? Because they're doing things for themselves. they're always busy, So they don't disappear when things to be done, because they're the only ones who are going to do them. We don't worry about making them responsible or holding them accountable to anything, because they're actually responsible and accountable to themselves. If they don't do it, it doesn't get done, And since the program is something that they do for themselves, they're not waiting on some adult to tell them what to do next. This is a reasonably good explanation of the patrol method. Boys form themselves into patrols, select their leaders. We work with those leaders to help them discover their abilities and talents and get them the resources that they need, And then we're off camping. Now can this happen with a really young troop? Well, yes, it certainly can. It'll take a while to develop, But the backpacking weekend I just described to you- it can happen. There's no way to apply this whole patrol method idea a little bit. It takes full commitment from all the adults involved And when it comes down to the very practical aspects and mechanics of this, I have little idea of how my scouts do dishes. They've been instructed on how to do that, They have the right equipment for it And once on a blue moon I'll stroll through a patrol campsite and check on dishes just to see how things are going. And he concerns I may have get handed to the senior patrol leader and he's going to take them to the patrol leader. As for duty rosters and things like that, it's really none of my business. I'm pretty sure our scouts don't use duty rosters or plans. They just sort of all pitch in. I honestly don't get involved with that sort of thing. It's a scout decision. I mean, there are general expectations and so long as their decisions are in bounds of those expectations. I really don't have a whole lot of concern over the details. So scouting is not something that a bunch of good natured adults present to a group of boys. This is something that boys do for themselves When they're actually responsible and accountable for what they do. you don't have to hold them responsible and accountable. The only real limitation is your understanding and application of the patrol system. Well, I hope that helps a little bit and I really appreciate you for getting in touch, and you're going to find out how you can get in touch in just a moment.