Scoutmaster Podcast 163

And now the old Scoutmaster. It was a big international event, and the camping areas assigned to the different units that were there were pretty tight, And so the leaders of this particular troop made it clear to the scouts that they should not walk through anyone else's campsite.

And so, not long after they had made this clear, a gentleman in full Swedish scout uniform walked straight through their camp, just like he owned the place, And the youngest scout, who was eager to impress everyone and who wanted to indicate that he remembered the conversation about not walking through another person's camp, told this gentleman in no uncertain terms that he was not to walk through their campsite. And the gentleman, of course, apologized and moved on.

And then the scout looked over at the adults, you know, as if to say, hey, you know, I remembered and I told this guy. But they weren't quite so thrilled with the younger scout, because the gentleman he had told was actually the king of Sweden who was out touring the camp. Oh dear Hey. This is podcast number 163.. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green.

Just a couple of quick announcements before we get started. Sunday April 14th is our next scout circle, And the scout circle is a live presentation with a question and answer period, And that is going to be with our guest, Kevin Callan, who is an author and a canoe guide and canoe enthusiast and an outdoorsman, And I think you'll really enjoy listening to Kevin and then you'll have a chance to ask him questions.

Go to scoutscircleorg in order to find out how to participate in that, And then on April 14th, from 9 to 10 pm Eastern Standard Time, we'll have Kevin Callan on as our guest. And the next thing is this: It's getting towards the end of March. If your troop is like mine, you've just welcomed a bunch of new scouts who have come up from their weebillos den And they're going to be looking for gear.

Wouldn't it be great if you could send them to somebody who knew what to get, who'd been a scout leader for a number of years and had seen boys work their way through a bunch of stuff and knew exactly what kind of gear worked best, what saved you money and what was going to last? I've got news for you. That guy does exist.

His name's Bill Fleming and he's on the phone with me right now from ConahoeCreekcom. Hey Bill, Hello Clark, How you doing? I'm good, Bill. You've been a scout leader for eight or 10 years.

Is that right? That is correct. We'll be starting our 10th year in May. Tell us a little bit about the gear bundle that you've put together at ConahoeCreekcom and how that's going to save everybody a little heartache.

Well, the heartache can come from two directions: Not only getting cheap gear that's not going to serve you well, but also going out and buying expensive gear that's not going to serve you well or that's unnecessary for what you're going to be doing. Over the years we've kind of watched this and that's kind of generated this idea of putting together this basic outdoor gear bundle that we have at ConahoeCreekcom. We've catered it towards someone just getting into scouting.

We're flexible about the components, so if you are a little bit more experienced, we'll be glad to swap out some of those features for you to meet your needs. Obviously, one size doesn't fit all. One set of camping gear isn't going to work in every part of the country. But Bill knows what to get and how to get it and how to save you some money too. And you can save a little bit more by using the discount code for the listeners to the Scoutmaster podcast, CG113.. Go to ConahoeCreekcom- C-O-N-O-H-O-Creekcom.

Thanks a lot, Bill, Thank you, Clark, and we'll see you at the creek. So in this podcast we're going to talk a little bit about the difference between planning and preparation in Scoutmaster Ship in seven minutes or less. Then we've got an email question to answer. That's going to take care of the rest of the podcast.

So let's go ahead and get started, shall we

Scoutmaster Ship in seven minutes or less? So the Patrol Leaders Council sits down, They plan. Then they get up from the table and they have their plans written down And the assumption is that the Scouts are going to start preparing.

They'll go home and they'll pour over their Scout Handbook and, you know, take notes and look things up online and spend a whole lot of time preparing for that next meeting, Getting things ready right. Then we get to the next meeting and we find out, oh, they really didn't do too much of that, did they?

So I'm going to mention this again. I think I mentioned it recently, But we've started to differentiate between the idea of planning and preparation in our Patrol Leaders Council meetings And we do it this way: The planning part, that's easy, okay, That's who's going to do what and when they're going to do it and what day it's going to happen. That's a piece of cake. You need 10 minutes to do that for a month's full of meetings really. The preparation part is usually where everything falls apart, because they don't do this in the context of a Patrol Leaders Council meeting. Necessarily.

They're sitting around a table somewhere, They're coming up with a plan and then they're talking about the television show that they saw last night or the video game that they're playing, And then they work on the plan a little bit more and then they switch back to something else. And you know, remember being 14 or 15?

You know, if you thought of something, it was planned, Basically planning at the speed of thought. So what we're missing sometimes, I think, in this youth-led paradigm where the Scouts are planning and presenting everything, where they're thinking things through, is the fact that they don't really think things through.

So if I have a 14- or 15-year-old Scout preparing to instruct his troop or Patrol on orienteering, he'll think this. He'll think I'll be instructing everybody about how to do orienteering. I've done orienteering in the past, I have a compass and I'll find a map or something and we're ready to go. What more do I need to do When it comes time to demonstrate any skill associated with orienteering and instruct others. Out comes the compass and the map and he's going to stand there and the other Scouts are going to look on and he's going to try and remember how to orient a map and he maybe really hasn't understood what he's doing. And he opens his handbook and he's reading the instruction and in the meantime the dozen Scouts that he's trying to work with, their attention is elsewhere.

They're talking or asking questions, They're bored. The whole thing devolves into that familiar chaos we all know so well because they didn't do much of anything.

Now, any adult looking on is going to have an almost uncontrollable urge to step in and save the Scout and ask for the compass and the map and show everybody how to do this themselves. We're going to decide that this whole boy-led idea and this idea of Scouts instructing and planning things Well, this just doesn't work.

So we're going to take over and we can avoid this, I think, by being very intentional about helping our Scouts get through the preparation stage. Now, you don't need to do this every single time a Scout is preparing something, but think of it as a little bit of that on-the-job training, that is a little bit of mentoring We need to lead them to discover how to prepare and how to instruct.

Well, by asking questions. So here's an example of what I'm talking about. Let's say the Patrol Leaders Council meeting is over. It was fairly simple. It took 10, 15, 20 minutes maybe, And they established the structure and the content and the plan for their activities.

And now it's time to prepare. Using my example, I'm going to be instructing his fellow Scouts on orienting a map, And he sits down with me so I can coach him through the preparation process. And I'll do this by asking him a question.

So what are you going to need to make this happen? And he'll say: do you have one?

And that's the point where he'll probably say, yeah, I don't know, Maybe we have one somewhere And maybe we spend a few minutes finding one in the Scout Closet or something. And then I would ask- let's say it's next week and you're the instructor and I'm a Scout- show me what happens next.

And my Scout is going to kind of stand there for a second and he's going to say: well, I'm not sure what I'm going to do next. And I said: well, you need to show me how to orient a map.

And well, okay, well, here's the compass and the map and you do this. Wait a minute. Wait a minute, I know how to do this.

I'm going to ask him the question: what are the Scouts doing at this point? And he's probably going to tell me that they have pretty much so lost interest and gone right through the scenario.

So I'm going to walk him through this question wise. Hey, where is it written down about how to orient a map?

Well, maybe it's in the Scout Handbook. Hey, do we have one of those?

Yeah, Alright, so let's see what we can do here Now. Are you going to remember all this when you're getting ready to do this next time? Oh sure, Yeah, I said.

Well, is there any way you can kind of store this in a memory somewhere so that you will actually remember it? Yeah, well, maybe I could write some of it down.

Okay, so now, in the space of maybe 15 or 20 minutes, I've asked a lot of questions and now he has, like a reasonably good handle on what he needs to do. He's beginning to work things out. Maybe he's even taking a few notes and writing things down.

You know, I didn't tell him anything, I just asked questions and I helped him discover things for himself. And I think in doing this we've not only helped him through that particular process. We've been starting to impart a skill to him that he's not likely going to forget. Once a scout's been coached through that process a couple of times, he'll be a self-starter.

He'll anticipate and answer the questions for himself, And when he's instructing his fellow scouts things won't decay into chaos maybe quite so quickly. They'll just be that low roar of activity and learning that looks like chaos to the adult eye. We could, in theory, take all of our older scouts and set up a how to instruct training session, but I like the idea of mentoring with something that is actually related to something he needs to do. Right then, If we just set up that kind of how to instruct training session and do that once a year or something, that's just another adult talking to him about things that they don't really attach to any kind of actual need to know. If we coach and mentor them with an actual rather than theoretical task in mind, there's a sense of utility about that coaching that makes it more valuable to them and actually helps them to learn a new skill.

So think about separating planning and preparation. Think about pointing out the importance of good preparation. Ask questions and coach a scout through the process of preparation And pretty soon he'll be able to do it all by himself.

I heard from Carl Smith, who is with Troupe 603 out in Cave Creek, Arizona, and he asked me this question. He says our troop has for many years assimilated new scouts like Webelos who cross over into the pack by putting them in their own new patrol and because of that our patrols are pretty much divided by age. There are some benefits to this type of patrol structure, but several of the assistant Scoutmasters feel the boys are missing out on one of the most important aspects of scouting: older boys leading younger boys.

We have a buy-in from our current Scoutmaster to reorganize patrol so that each patrol has a strong mix of older and younger boys, but he wants a detailed plan on how we will both execute this as well as handle some of the potential rough spots. We have a troop of about 80 boys.

About 35% of them are older and about 50% of them are younger, So I'm looking for some advice. What's the best way to reassign boys to new patrols.

Should we make sure to put a NYLT trained boy in each patrol? Should we distribute the reliable older boys amongst the patrols? Number two is many of the patrols have been together for years. We are making this change. Number three is several of the older boys only attend meetings sporadically.

How do we handle the situation where a patrol has none of its older boys there to lead the younger boys? And number four: because of this change, we feel the new patrols will need some guidance while they learn the ropes.

How should we do this? Remember we have 10 plus patrols and we do not have that many assistant Scoutmasters. Any other guidance or advice would be: Carl, I wouldn't recommend changing your patrols around like you're suggesting, unless the patrol leaders council says that they think it changes in order. After all, it is their troop and they ought to be able to figure things out like this for themselves. As a Scoutmaster with our troop, I don't have anything to do with who is in what patrol. I don't assign scouts to patrols and frankly, I don't really care if a patrol has 10 members or 4 or what their ages are.

Every once in a while, the senior patrol leader will come to me for advice on handling a patrol or maybe resetting all the patrols in the troop, And I always tell him the best thing to do is to get together with the scouts and let them decide who goes where. If he runs into a problem he can always ask my advice. But I don't really get that all that often.

This works well for us because basically we understand that boys join scouting to be with their friends on camping trips and at patrol and troop meetings. They make up patrols without a whole lot of fuss and bother and when we have a new group joined from Webelos usually they choose to stay together more often than not and they may spend the whole of their years in the troop in the same patrol together. Most older boys aren't interested in being in a patrol with younger boys now. They're happy to instruct them and to help out, but they really want to be in a patrol with their friends. I'm not interested in coercing them to lead. I asked if they would care to and the ones who are interested say yes and the others do what they can to help and somehow it all works out.

Now you sent me this question just after we welcomed a new group of Webelos into our troop. My two junior assistant Scoutmasters agreed to work with them for the next few months to get them going.

They all elect a new patrol leader every month so that they can learn a little bit about how a patrol works. I asked these junior assistant Scoutmasters to work with these, these scouts, with the idea that by the time summer camp comes around they'll be functioning as a patrol on their own. I'll have an 11 year old patrol leader and he'll do just fine.

We've had many others who did pretty well too. As for adults- kind of helping patrols out, I don't let adults get anywhere near patrols. As a rule, Boys automatically defer to adults when they are around and the adults end up leading more than the scouts. When we're meeting or camping, our adults are a respectable distance away from scouts, observing rather than participating in the activity. We are there if they are needed, but they don't seem to need us very much. To tell you the truth, Patrols camp in their own area.

They cook their own food. They looked after each other. Many times I've been on a camp out without ever going into the patrol areas at all.

So all this goes to point out that scouts can form their own patrols, elect their own leaders and do just about everything short of writing checks and driving themselves back and forth to camping trips. The fewer things we do to interrupt or interfere with that process, the more capable they become at doing it for themselves. I sent that answer off and Carl wrote back and he said: that's an awesome reply, exceptionally insightful. I hope you don't mind if I share your reply with some of our assistant Scoutmasters and our Scoutmaster. I have only one thing to add: nearly everything you pointed out that scouts should be doing we currently have adults doing, and that's a big problem.

Many of that established guard believes that we have a well running troop and they're quite resistant to changing anything. It runs well, of course, because the adults are running much of it, But I believe we need to change.

Maybe we should start somewhere else and leave the patrols alone for now. As you may imagine, Carl, I couldn't agree with you more Obviously. You're doing something right with a troop of 80 plus boys.

Now maybe the thing to do is to look at the way that things are being run and see if, by applying the patrol method- and that'll begin with some discussions with the adult leadership, probably returning to a lot of the things that you've heard through training and things like that. You get the Scoutmaster handbook out and the boy scout handbook and especially the senior patrol leader handbook. That's kind of a rare item but you can find one at your scout shop and I'd even suggest working the patrol method. It's a book that you'll find on our website. Once you have a commitment out of the adults to make this change, it'll take a little while.

There'll be some chaotic times and there'll be times where you're pretty sure it's not going to work. But in the end, if you stay committed to it and you are determined to make it happen, it will work. Thanks for being in touch, Carl. You can send me an email question and you'll find out how to do that in just a moment.