Scoutmaster Podcast 196

I'm Ed Bruce and I'm a Scoutmaster with Troop 38 in North Falmouth, Massachusetts. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by backers like me. Thanks, Clark.

And now for you, Scoutmaster Ladies and gentlemen, back by popular demand, this story of two penguins in a canoe in the desert. So let me repeat: two penguins in a canoe in the desert.

And one penguin says where's your paddle? And the other penguin says: yes, it really does, doesn't it? You got to think about this one.

It's a real head scratcher, isn't it? It's crossed a furor of comment and questions. The first time we mentioned it that I thought we've got to bring this one back.

So there you are. Hey, this is podcast over 196.. Hey

Well, welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's zip right over to the mailbag and let's see here. Julio Roman is an assistant Scoutmaster of Troop 1959 in Puerto Rico And he wrote in to say: me and my wife have been listening to the podcast since number 174.. I was listening to the last podcast, number 195, and heard the announcement of the app for Android devices. I downloaded it and finally got to listen to the first 20 podcasts.

The app is very friendly and easy to use. Linking the blog and your Twitter and Facebook feeds was a great idea. My Troop is a relatively new one and we are slowly but surely moving along. Your podcast has been a lot of help, at least for me as an assistant Scoutmaster. Thanks for everything. Thank you, Julio.

Thank you for the kind words. I'm glad you're enjoying the app and we're going to talk a little bit more about that in a moment. Paul Simonetti got in touch with us via Facebook and said: Clark, I feel like I know you well. I will soon accept the Scoutmaster position and I have used your podcast as an important component of training. I completed the introduction to outdoor leadership skills and Boy Scout leader specific.

I've got all that taken care of, but it's still my opinion that listening to 125 of your podcast has merit, and with the remaining 70 or so already on my MP3 player, I will be caught up Now. When I catch up, I want a signed training card from you as proof. Then I will be a heck of a good interview as the first Scoutmaster who used your podcast as official training.

Well, Paul, I don't think we're allowed to call this official training, but you know, we might come up with an unofficial training card. And Paul went on to say: here's a joke about your opening jokes. I was talking to my son about scouting and I offered him a few of the jokes from your podcast.

I told him about the penguins and camping in tents at the time the bear left and he looked at me and said, dad, those jokes are wrong on so many levels. Thanks, Paul, thanks for continuing to stay in touch and I'm so happy to hear that you are going to jump into the volcano and be a Scoutmaster.

I think that's great and if you're wondering folks about the penguins and the camping in tents and the bear leaving, you just have to go back to the old podcast and listen to those. It may be worth your time and it may not. You'll have to be the judge. We heard from Rob Glazier, who is with Troop 18 in Muskeko, Wisconsin, again this week. Clark, it's my pleasure to support Scoutmaster CG as a backer. I definitely have gotten far more from the blog and podcast than I'm giving back, but I just read thoughts on scouting and I'm looking forward to the scouting journey.

Thanks, and keep on traveling. Thank you, Rob. Michael Harrington wrote in to say I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to your new book. I've been a Scouter for 14 years. I've been a Scoutmaster and a crew advisor for the last two and a half years and I was an assistant Scoutmaster prior to that. I didn't completely get it until I started to read your blog and listen to the podcast.

Thanks for all you do. You've helped my Scouts and my Troop experience scouting along the way as it was truly meant to be by helping me see the complete picture. I've always believed in the patrol method and you made things click for me. I've since taught my Round Table Scouts what I've learned and I've also sent them to scoutmastercgcom as a must-go Scouter site.

Thanks so much, Michael. Thanks for your kind words of support and thanks for becoming a backer. Our old pal, Steven Jarvis, is in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and he is an assistant Cub Master with PAC46 and he wrote in to say I was excited to see the details on your new book and the new backer program and I was quick to sign up. I've been listening to your podcast since the beginning and reading your blog longer than that.

I became a Scouter when my son entered as a Tiger Cub over four years ago and now I've been a Dent Leader and a Cub Master and an Assistant Cub Master and my son's about to move on from Webelos into Scouts and the Troops invited me to be an Assistant Scoutmaster. All the accumulated years of listening to your podcast and reading your blog is going to prove invaluable as I move on to my next phase as a Scouter. I have a much better idea of what to expect and what they should expect of me. Thank you for that, Thanks, Steve, and thanks for being in touch and continuing to comment on the blog and to add to the conversation. It always means a great deal.

So last week, on podcast 195, we announced the new backer program and I'm really pleased and heartened and frankly, touched by the response. Funds from backers go towards the expenses of producing and publishing the blog and the podcast and the videos that a lot of Scouts feel are a valuable resource, and you can become a backer too. Go to scoutmastercgcom. I have some premiums prepared there and a more in-depth explanation of how your support is applied. As I'm recording this podcast, it is November 18th 2013 and by the end of the month we will be shipping backer premiums out, including a Kindle e-book edition of my new book, The Scouting Journey and thoughts on scouting that was published earlier this year, and autograph copies of the two of those are also premiums. And you go on to scoutmastercgcom, follow the link to the backer page and you'll get all the details about exactly how that works.

And I want to make sure to recognize the folks that have become backers this past week. So, in no particular order, thank you to Alan Shrivner and Bill McMahon and Bruce Johnson and Dave Goldenberg, David Wilkes, Donald Fowler, Gant Edmondson, Gary Curry, Hutron, James Chaplin, Gerald Dosh, Jim Gilligy, John Donut, John Nelson, John Weibke, Michael Duff, Michael Harrington, Rob Glaser, Steven Jarvis, Tamothio Zepeda, Tom Lotito, William Parker and William David Levesque.

Thank you so much for making this first week of the backer program so very successful and for your support, and I hope I did a reasonably good job with all the names. If I mispronounced, you know, get in touch and I'll fix that.

And in the continuing saga of making the scouting journey into an actual book with you know, pages and a cover, and we're well along the way and I'm confident that it's going to be ready for purchase on Amazon by the end of the month and we'll make sure to have a Kindle edition available too, and I'm looking forward to being able to tell you that it's finally done in many, many ways. Also, last week, we announced the beta edition of the ScoutmasterCGcom app, which you can find in the Google Play Store.

So far, we've made it available for Android devices, but we'll make sure that we get it on iTunes when we've got things taken care of a little bit. I appreciate the feedback that I received this week from those of you who downloaded the app. It's a free app. It features the blog and our Facebook and Twitter feeds and, of course, the podcast, with a growing library of the podcast archive.

So you'll be able to access all of what we have to offer through the app, and I've got some good suggestions of things that can be added to it. We're trying to debug a couple of things before I advertise it any wider than just announcing it and talking about it here on the podcast. Get the app and let me know how it works for you.

So the remainder of this podcast is going to be taken up with a discussion of Scoutings- positive rights of passage in Scoutmaster Ship in seven minutes or less, and then we've got some email questions to answer. So let's get started. Shall we

Scoutmaster Ship in seven minutes or less? I wanted to take just the opportunity to talk about, and maybe expand on a little, a recent post on the blog called Scoutings- positive rights of passage, and what I want to emphasize is our role in making sure that these rights of passage have a positive spirit behind them.

Now, in the post I use the example of a backpacking trip. A scout who goes out on their first backpacking trip, or even their first scout camp out of any kind, is leaving the familiar comforts of home and they're striking out on the trail. They are really have little idea what to expect. This is all new to them and they're going to go through a series of challenges and difficulties and they're going to experience these things with a little apprehension and great joy and excitement as well. What will happen is at the end of that weekend they will have been through kind of a right of passage.

Now, a right of passage has three kind of distinct steps to it. The first step is the separation from things that are familiar.

You know, a scout packs his gear and ends up in a campsite, somewhere that they may or may not be familiar with, but they're separated from the comforts of home and that kind of support system that they always depend on. And there they are. The next step in a right of passage is transition. There's a period of uncertainty and vulnerability If they go through challenges and encounter difficulties along the way.

The final step is the accomplishment of that goal of passing through this series of events, and we want that accomplishment always to be positive. We want the experience through the transition period and the period of separation that they experienced to be very positive.

We may be familiar with the experience of, you know, packing our things and leaving home and going camping. We may be assured of the support system that we have there, in the knowledge and experience that we have, but we have to always remember that for a scout this can be a tremendous challenge and we need to appreciate that they volunteered to do this and enter into this kind of right of passage.

So how do we make sure that this sort of experience is a positive one for young people? Well, we're familiar with that kind of movie stereotype of the harsh, insulting military officer who's tough on his recruits.

And that officer does that because, you know, they have a deeper knowledge of the idea that they need to make them tough and resilient because of what they're going to face. We begin to understand why they're so harsh and demanding and difficult. I mention this because that seems to be the stereotype that some scouts feel is an appropriate one to take with scouts. I've got to tell you that it is not. You are not there to be tough and demanding and harsh to your scouts. You're there to be supportive, You're there to be encouraging and you're there to make sure that they remain safe and happy as they pass through these difficulties.

Now, every young person wants to belong to something that's bigger than themselves and be accepted by the group. That desire is so strong and so instinctual that it blurs the lines between good and bad.

Sometimes Young people are so desperate to become accepted They can be coerced into doing negative or destructive things. I think that's easy to see, you know, in the example of something like a street gang or something like that. But obviously scouting is an antidote to that kind of negative, destructive behavior. The attitude that we apply to work with our scouts is a key in making these things positive.

Now, perhaps you're a scouter and you experienced as a scout, or you experienced as a young person, that kind of hazing and harshness and discouragement that was meant to strengthen you and meant to make you into a man or something like that. But scouters never stoop to hazing or harshness or discouragement. How you experience the rights of passage that you went through will inform your reaction Now. Maybe you receive support and affirmation and perhaps you're met with that kind of discouragement and harshness. Our instinctive reactions to these situations may be positive or negative, but as scouters we check our negative instincts and we champion those positive, affirming and encouraging rights of passage. We're never harsh or disapproving, but unfailingly supportive and understanding.

When the going is tough and our scouts efforts look less than encouraging, we maintain a positive outlook. We trade discouragement for honest praise. We trade demeaning, abusive hazing or initiations for simple ceremonies that honor accomplishment. It's important that we're expressing honest encouragement, not just dispensing platitudes or disingenuous praise.

To be honestly encouraging, we have to strive to understand the scale of the challenge from each individual scout's perspective, whether they're bold and outgoing and enthusiastic or they're tend more to be a little shy and meek and fearful. We never belittle or demean a scout's effort, even if we're just kind of joking around with them What we intend as good-natured ribbing. That could be a really difficult thing for a scout to deal with. Put the best face on every step forward and support each scout's effort towards the goal and do it in a positive manner, and that's how you turn the challenges and the difficulties that scouts are supposed to encounter into a positive rite of passage. Yeah, you are always on the beat boy, beat boy. I'll hang it in.

A sweet boy, a sweet boy. We re-dancing to the beat boy, beat boy.

This email comes in from someone who asked me to withhold their names, so I will do so. I have a question regarding advancement.

We have a scout who advanced to second class within the first few months of joining the troop, but there's a problem with the first class requirements. He's not a swimmer.

He's 13,, does well in school, has his black belt at martial arts, but won't get into the water. I know that there are sometimes options to requirements.

Is there any options so that this scout can earn first class without passing the BSA swimming test? Well, if we're talking about a young man who is simply reluctant to get in the water, who may be afraid of it if he's not identified or diagnosed with some specific difference or disability that would disallow that on a medical basis, then we're talking about somebody who needs to overcome their fear of the water. If you do a little research, you'll find- maybe at the local Y or at the school or maybe through your scouting contacts, the swimming instructor who is skilled at dealing with this very difficulty and will be able to help your scout overcome his reluctance to do this. There are alternative requirements available for scouts who have a difference or disability that absolutely precludes them from achieving the normal requirements.

If you have a scout with the capacity, mentally and physically, to be able to get in the water and complete the first class swimming test, but he's just reluctant to do so, I don't think it's appropriate to try to apply the alternative requirements there. I want to send you to the resource and that is the Guide to Advancement 2013.. Take a look at what it has to say about alternative requirements to see if they may apply in this case. Gary Curry is a Scoutmaster with Troop 15 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and he got in touch to ask this question. The BSA describes new scout patrols and regular patrols and venture patrols and further defines a patrol as a group of boys that are similar in age, rank and interests. More or less, From some of the writings on your blog and some of the comments, I'm under the impression that regular patrols exist all the time and that after the first year, new scouts will be joining an existing regular patrol.

Do I have that right? Normally, working with the senior patrol leader, a Webelos then will crossover and become a new scout patrol with a troop guide attached to it. Then we usually have them stay together for the rest of their scouting career because they know each other. They become a regular patrol when we get to the next set of crossovers.

Are patrols supposed to be permanent and how are scouts assigned to patrols? Well, Jerry, I don't think you're really missing anything. What the BSA explains is a good basis. It can be a little confusing because it seems to offer some definitions that may be at odds with my best advice at times, but it may be helpful just to think of patrols as patrols. You, like me, think the best way to form and occasionally reform patrols is letting the scouts figure out what works best for them. Patrols aren't really a management structure to make things convenient for us.

They are the heart of what we do in scouting. Sometimes they last a year or two. Sometimes they last many more years than that, It depends. The natural gang of friends is what works for scouts and it should stay that way for as long as it works for them. Sometimes it's all scouts of the same age, Sometimes it's a little mixed up, but what's important is is that a scout is happy in their patrol and they get the real work of scouting done.

Everything else well, you know it helps administratively, but it's so much window dressing, my opinion. I do something similar to what you do when a new group of scouts cross over from Webelos.

They usually choose to be in their own patrol and an older scout helps them out for a period of time And then, when they are familiar with the way a patrol works, that older scout will move on and let them run their own patrol on their own. So I think the most important takeaway is whenever we discuss patrols is they are strongest and most permanent and best when scouts choose rather than being assigned to patrols. I hope that helps. Katie is with the Torshalla Scout Corps in Sweden and she writes in to say: you're fantastic. You make me laugh and you make me think. You make me realize that sometimes I don't always do everything I should.

Well, Katie, I think that's true of any of us, isn't it? My question is this: I'm a scout leader in Sweden and fairly new to the scouting thing. My group are eight and 10 year olds. Therefore, although I learn a lot from your podcast about scouting in general, I need someone that's focused more on the younger scouts, who shouldn't necessarily be left alone with a box of crayons, Never mind a box of matches. They're kind of unfocused and messy and loud, but they're also enthusiastic about life and learning.

I want to be able to take that enthusiasm and energy to use it to create the foundations for competent scouts. Do you know of any similar podcasts that are aimed at younger scouts, Katie?

Thanks so much for your kind words of support. I am very happy to hear from you. I really don't know of any similar podcast aimed at working with younger scouts in cubs that is still recording. I know that if you Google PTC media, you'll find a backlog of podcasts about cub scouting that you may find helpful. As you noted, I work mainly with older scouts, and that's mostly what I end up talking about. Since I work within the Boy Scouts of America program, our discussion is usually pretty specific when it comes to policies and procedures.

I think, though, that many of the concepts are applicable, no matter what age scout you are working with, And, as you say, the main issue for cub leaders is channeling all that wonderful energy and excitement. I think scouting at any age level is making the most of the moment and responding to the interests and needs of the group that you're working with and focusing on their happiness. At the same time, there are things pulling us in another direction.

What do we teach our scouts? Are they moving forward?

Are they getting it? Are they progressing towards the main aim, And how do we know?

How do we measure that And what happens next? And is it really really that simple Part of the answer comes from experience. Once you've seen scouts progress through the many stages of development and growth, you're going to be able to better recognize the effect of your work Now.

I personally spent around 10 years working directly with cubs, and you may wonder if you're making much progress, because they do seem so disorganized and messy and unfocused and energetic. You sometimes wonder if you've made any difference at all. But if you train yourself to look closely, you'll see the small things that children see and that we tend to miss. When you put yourself into the mind and spirit of an eight-year-old and listen to what they say and feel what they feel, you understand that you're making a very big difference in their lives. Scouting, at any age, is almost never a giant leap forward.

It's always small steps forward and a step backward, and then running seven yards to the left and skipping 20 yards to the right. There's so much joy and fun and energy. We sometimes miss all the good things that are happening.

Now you come to have little real idea of what's going on and what will be like to be scouted. They know that moment, the moment that they're in right now and maybe, maybe may have some fuzzy idea of what will happen tomorrow. But you work with them where they are and you build in small steps. You train yourself to see progress because I guarantee you it's there. Every child needs good, caring people like you and the millions of other scouters around the world. What you do is incredibly important and the story will only be told as their lives unfold.

I have been around long enough to see this happen over and over again, so it's easier for me to be confident about the results. But thanks once again for your kind words and for taking the time to get in touch. Wayne Nemeth is an assistant Scoutmaster for troop 216 in Plymouth meeting, Pennsylvania, and he wrote in to say thank you for all you do for scouters. You re-energize my scouting spirit every time I listen to your podcast, and each episode is full of encouragement and inspiration and reminds me why I volunteer my time. In the end, I truly believe that your podcast has helped me be a better leader to the boys.

Well thanks, Wayne. I'm glad to hear that.

My question to you is this: what are your thoughts on becoming a merit badge counselor? I've been thinking of giving even more time to scouting and I'm thinking maybe being a merit badge counselor would be a good idea. I'd like to hear your thoughts on what makes a good counselor. Additionally, our troop currently has a number of adult leaders who are registered merit badge counselor and work with boys from our own troop. I'm trying to encourage my own son to branch out and work with counselors who he doesn't already know. Just wondering what you think.

Well, Wayne, thanks so much. I'm glad you're finding the podcast useful and helpful. I say: go for it. Sign up as a merit badge counselor and see what happens next. I'm sure it's going to be interesting. Personally, I counsel several merit badges for the scouts that are in my troop.

The number of blue cards I sign a year is pretty small- Maybe three to five, and sometimes a little bit more than that- but I don't end up counseling a whole lot of merit badges. I would say that the good merit badge counselor has the same attributes as any good scouter, but there are some specific things that I think help make a good merit badge counselor. They're encouraging, They stick to the requirements in a balanced way, without becoming overly demanding or overly permissive, and they get the spirit of the whole process.

I think it's important as a merit badge counselor to look for verbs in the requirements and then take them at face value. That seems to be the easiest way to get things right.

For instance, if a requirement says that a scout needs to tell you something, well, that means tell. That doesn't necessarily mean write it down on a worksheet. If a scout needs to show you something, that actually means they need to show it to you, not write it down on a worksheet. You kind of get my drift there. The ulterior motives of the merit badge program are at least equally important to the knowledge and the skill from earning a merit badge. And those ulterior motives are learning to learn, being able to use the discovery process to learn things about the subject area that we're talking about with any given merit badge, the opportunities to associate with adults and experts that you otherwise wouldn't be able to get to know, and getting a spark of inspiration that could turn into a career or a lifelong application.

So just to bring it all together, a good merit badge counselor is going to stick to the requirements in a balanced manner, work with scouts in an encouraging manner to complete the requirements and spark their inspiration and give them the opportunity they may not otherwise have to associate with someone who is an advocate or an expert in the subject matter and to gain some useful skills. Alex Keenan wrote in to ask this. Thanks for taking the time to do what you do. I love your blog and I've passed it on to several fellow scouts as a valuable resource. Here's my dilemma: I am a new Scoutmaster, about two months into the job and I have a senior patrol leader, a 14-year-old, who started a couple weeks earlier as senior patrol leader than I did as Scoutmaster. He ran for office and he was elected by the troop, but I honestly don't think he wants to be the senior patrol leader, and a few other scouts have made the same observation to me.

I sat down with him and one of our junior assistant Scoutmasters last week to ask him how he's doing and to make sure he really actually wanted the job. He says that he wants the position and that he's up to it, but when I ask about what kind of planning he's doing or how things are going, he seems to be very non-committal and doesn't seem to be able to capture what his responsibilities are. He seems to be kind of distracted and I often have to try and find him during meetings because he's usually just hanging out somewhere with one of his buddies.

How do I get him to focus on his job as the senior patrol leader and help our scouts? Well, Alex, thanks for getting in touch and thanks for your kind words of support. There are any number of reasons that you are seeing what you're seeing. Let's take a look at a few. It could be the way things are being done.

Are the scouts really making decisions and running everything, or are they just doing what they are told by the adults? You know that's an important aspect.

If a senior patrol leader is just working from a script that adults give for them, if they're not able to actually lead and to train and inspire their scouts well, they will lose interest in doing that. So that may be one reason. It could be that this particular scout doesn't apprehend exactly what the senior patrol leader job means. Or maybe there's something going on outside of scouts. Maybe he's running into problems.

Is he just not interested? Does he act like this in other situations? You may want to talk to him about that a little bit. Just be very honest with the kind of frustration that you're experiencing in the way that he is carrying out his responsibilities. You note that you've only been scoutmaster for two months and that's very, very new. Unless you're a brand new troop, I'm assuming that you replace someone else who was the scoutmaster before you.

So you represent a change And scouts, like every other human being on the face of the earth, don't always like change. They will identify you personally as the chains and it may take them some time to warm up to the idea that you are now the scoutmaster. You may be experiencing a little bit of resistance in that area. It's not a judgment of who you are as a person or your personality. It can hurt your feelings a little bit, but it softens the blow to understand that it wouldn't matter who took over for the old scoutmaster. That person is going to encounter a little bit of difficulty in the initial months of that change.

So, Alex, let me know if any of that seems to strike a chord and we can move on from there and maybe I can give you some more advice. If you have a question, you can get in touch with us and you're going to find out how to do that in just a moment.