Scoutmaster Podcast 267

I'm Bill McFarlane and I'm the Scoutmaster with Troop 8 in Kittsville, Massachusetts. This edition of the Scoutmaster Podcast, sponsored by Packers Like Me.

And now to you, Scoutmaster. Now, camping can be full of misery and discomfort and challenges and rain and mud, and you know all of those things.

But, no matter what, it's all over much too soon, don't you think?

Hey, this is podcast number 267.. Hey, Hey, welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the last three podcasts about the Scouting Source Code And I've saved up a number of email questions for this week's podcast. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Let's take a look at the mailbag first. Shane Lehman. Shane Lehman is a troop scouter with the 63rd Ottawa Scout Troop in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, And he wrote in to say this: last weekend I completed my outdoor skill training and you might be happy to know that at two of the training stands at the event, your PDF material was used as training material.

Well, how about that? Huh, I remarked. Hey, I know this guy. You should follow his blog and podcast.

So this is evidence that you're making an impact up above the 49th parallel. Well, Shane, thanks so much for letting me know and for supporting the blog and podcast. I really do appreciate it And it's always heartening, humbling and honoring to know that people actually find all of this stuff useful And it actually appears out there in the real world.

So I appreciate you being in touch. Linda Lansford is with Scout Troop 17 in Nashville, Tennessee, And she said: thank you so much for posting the video about autism and scouting and one boy's personal journey. And if you didn't see that, that was a video that I posted last week that I found on YouTube, just kind of one of those serendipitous things that every once in a while you run across, And it's a wonderful story about one scout's experience in scouting and how the folks that were involved supported him and helped him through some challenges with autism And it's really, really great. But anyway, Linda went on to say: one minute in, I was literally in tears.

I identified with Chase's mother- and Chase was the name of the scout in the video- So much that her words could be mine. I'm the mother of a 12-year-old scout with Asperger's. When we first joined Troop 17 in Nashville it was hard for me to step back and let my son fully experience scouting.

I'm so used to managing his world for him. The Troop leader took the time to reassure me, telling me that my son was not the first autistic scout he'd worked with and that everything would be okay.

And it's so much more than okay. It's amazing. The Troop is teaching him to be self-sufficient and teaching me to have faith, trust and let go. We're starting our third year with Troop 17, and I have a very different child. Each time he goes away to summer or winter camp he comes home with a little more confident, a little more mature, a little farther down the road to becoming an amazing young man.

Thank you so much, Linda, for getting in touch, And that is a story that we are increasingly hearing about autistic children being able to draw a lot from their scouting experience. It seems almost as though that scouting was designed to address some of the challenges that they come up with, and it's just a wonderful thing to hear that it does so. And I know- I know from personal experience- it's very, very challenging the first time you go through this as a scouter and you learn a lot.

But, man, what an enriching experience for you as a scouter, as well as for the scout and their family too. So thank you once again, Linda, for being in touch.

I want to tell you that I was very honored to spend this past weekend in the company and a number of scouts from the Baden Powell Service Association, the BPSA. What wonderful folks.

I've got a lot of material to cover in this podcast, so I'll save that whole story for another time perhaps. I was very heartened to meet these wonderful people in the BPSA and I got to become a rover scout- How about that?

Yes, R-O-V-E-R rover, And, like I said, we have a lot to do today, so I'll have to save that story for another time, but it's a pretty good one. Now, from time to time during the week, usually on weekday mornings, we'll turn the live chat on over at scoutmastercgcom.

Check in, see if we're on and watch the Facebook and Twitter feeds, because we'll announce when we're going to be live And you know, come on, sign in, join in. We have some very serious and meaningful discussions and we have some that aren't so much. What it is is just a virtual campfire session with some of your scouting buddies.

So, in addition to a growing number of frequent fliers who check in on the chat regularly, we also got to hear from Paige Lawson, who's a roundtable commissioner in Kansas City, Missouri, and Jim Bresinger, who's a cubmaster from Midlothian Illinois, this past week, And I know there were a couple of other people that signed on for their first time and I was just, but I was as busy as a one-armed paper hanger a couple mornings this week and I missed getting names and locations and things. But welcome to the chat And do come in and check us out. Once again, I'll typically announce it on the Facebook feed and the Twitter feed and you can always get in touch with me via email at Clark at scoutmastercgcom. C-L-A-R-K-E at scoutmastercgcom.

Hey, before we go any further, let me take the time to ask you a favor, because I need your help. You know this whole thing- this crazy blog and podcast thing- started back in 2005.. I had no plan.

I had no idea what this would grow into, but now I hear from a lot of folks every week and this is where I devote my time and it's really heartening to know that people find this useful. So what I'm asking in return is that you support the podcast and the blog by becoming a scoutmastercgcom backer. It's very, very simple: Go to scoutmastercgcom, click the support link at the top of the page and you'll find a number of options on making a voluntary one-time kind of subscription payment to keep things up and running.

So let me take a moment to personally thank Brad Watts, Bill Blankowski and Bill McFarland, who have become backers since our last podcast. Once again, go to scoutmastercgcom, become a backer this week and I'll make sure to thank you during our next podcast.

Well, the remainder of this podcast is catching up on email questions and answers and that will indeed stretch out for a while and take up the rest of this podcast. So let's get started.

Shall we Find me a letter? Send it my name,

Email. That is, folks.

And here's an answer to one of your emails. So the first email- I'm going to hold all of the identifying characteristics of it in confidence, But this came from the scoutmaster of a newer troop and he said: we are having a discussion about the cooking requirement for tenderfoot and we're wondering exactly how we should judge that.

Does helping get lunch ready by, you know, just kind of helping them around with the condiments and getting the bread out and stuff like that to make sandwiches, Is that cooking? And if a scout is just kind of assisting with another person with the cooking, is that really cooking And we're having a tough time deciding exactly how a scout's fulfilled that requirement.

Well, I think it's important- not just on this particular tenderfoot requirement, right, But for any of the requirements that we use- is to step back a little bit and read the requirement carefully and you know what. Once you do it becomes pretty clear and you don't have to have a big discussion about how to do it. It's right there. This particular tenderfoot requirement says, quote: on the camp out: assist in preparing and cooking one of your patrol's meals. Pretty simple sentence, right.

And if you read that and then you go off and you start having a big broad discussion about it, you can get pretty far afield and kind of talk yourself into a corner where you can't find an answer. But if you just look at the requirement and kind of break it down, it's pretty simple.

So the first three words in the requirement are on the camp out, right. So that means on a camp out. It's very, very simple, not at home or anywhere else.

So we've got that right: Assist, preparing and cooking. So on the camp out, assist preparing and cooking. Preparing and cooking are obviously two different things, Otherwise we wouldn't need two words there.

So on the camp out, assist preparing and cooking one of your patrol's meals? Okay, so it's not just any meal, It's not just something for yourself, It's one of your patrol's meals.

So that wouldn't be a meal fixed by an adult or directed by one, It's your patrol, because you know adults have nothing to do with what happens when a patrol cooks. So the test for that particular requirement would be to say: number one: was it on a camp out?

Yes, Did the scout assist with both preparing and cooking, Which I guess you know? That could be a point of contention with a lot of people.

But hey, you know we're not building a nuclear power plant. Okay, We're trying to do something simple and fun with scouts. And if you come across something like this in a requirement that you're having a tough time trying to define, don't create a rule for it.

Ask the scout- So what do you think cooking is? And have that discussion.

And hey, the scout may say, you know what, I really didn't, don't think I cooked anything, And say, okay, well then let's wait until you've actually done that, Or they may have a very good argument for why they feel that they cooked something. But ask them, Get them into the conversation, Don't make it a totally adult decision. Make it something that the scout is participating in.

And then the final question in this requirement to me is: hey, who was the meal for? Was it for your patrol?

And if it wasn't, well, does it qualify or not? Probably not, right, It's very, very specific about those particular points.

So adults are not around when patrols cook their meals, necessarily. So the person who's going to sign this requirement off, to my mind at least, is going to be the one who worked directly with the scout, And that would likely be the patrol leader, correct?

So I'd expect the patrol leader knows the difference between preparing and cooking and let him figure out if the scout passed the requirement. And once again, these kinds of discussions are the ones that we want to be having with scouts. It may not sound right to you that I am suggesting that a patrol leader can sign off a requirement, But hey, they absolutely can. And usually when I suggest that that's one way of doing things, people get concerned that patrol leaders are just going to skip things over and things like that.

Well, no, that doesn't necessarily follow, especially if you are working along and mentoring patrol leaders to understand requirements and be able to sign them off effectively right. So what I read out was just the first part of that tenderfoot requirement. There's another part to it. It says: tell why it's important for each patrol member to share in meal preparation and clean up and explain the importance of eating together.

And what I want to point out about that that I feel is very important is the active verb in that particular sentence: tell. Tell means telling, not writing, And the patrol leader, once again, can ask the scout some questions and sign off that part of the requirement too.

Now I kind of paraphrased the email that I got because I wanted to preserve the sender's anonymity, but they discussed in there that the parents of the particular scout in question were kind of getting themselves involved with this. Well, I want to tell you that mother and father have absolutely nothing at all to do with any of this. This is something that their scout is doing.

So they're not allowed on a soccer field when the game is on and they aren't allowed in a patrol campsite when scouts are working together as a patrol. Parents don't make the referees call at a soccer game or keep score. They're spectators, And that's the same thing when scouts are camping, You can be a spectator, You can watch from an appropriate distance, but you may not tell the referee or the scorekeeper.

So you know, in my little allegory here that would be the scouter or the patrol leader- How to do their job. You can be there and you can observe, That's fine.

So after I answered the initial email that I got, I got this reply. So the parents are saying that the way they read the requirement is that the boy assistant preparing and assistant cooking. They feel that the actual cooking is not required.

Well, you know what. Parents are often trying to be helpful and they're trying to advocate for their child and that's fine And I understand their concerns. But there's a judgment call involved here and that's a call for the scouter to make and not for parents to make. And I would very politely tell them.

You know I understand your concerns and please understand that I am thoroughly invested in making sure that your child is treated fairly. But in this part of the scouting process, this is really my call and my call is going to stand. It's not set a precedent where we're going to argue over every single little thing. Let's just have fun and be in scouts and do these things.

And I ask you to give me the benefit of a doubt here, And I typically advise scouts that if they acquiesce- just because there's a lot of parental pressure- to something that they feel is unreasonable And the way that the parents are putting this- cooking not being actual cooking, you know, I think that's a good example of being unreasonable. If you acquiesce to something like that, they're going to question and complain every single thing.

From now on, Let's make it clear from the get go Who will be doing the interpreting and deciding. Okay, Parents' input is always important. We always want to listen to their concerns, But we also want to understand the way that the process works.

I heard from Mason Turner and he said I want to jump right in and ask: how do I get troops to give me den chiefs for my Cub Scout pack? We don't have any kind of great relationship with our neighboring troops, So how can we initiate those relationships?

Do I offer them a presentation on the new Cub program or something like that? Do you have any ideas for me?

Well, this is kind of frustrating, Mason. I wish your pack was down the road from us. I've also had a lot of challenges from the troop side of the question in forming relationships with Cub packs And I feel kind of like.

Sometimes we go to the dance and we ask them to dance and they just keep turning us down. What a sad, sad allegory that one is.

But you know what, Mason? Here's what I suggest: Get on the phone with the Scoutmasters in the troops around you and ask them if they're willing to help you out, that you'd like to get some scouts to serve as den chiefs.

Put the ball in their court by saying something: like you know, we'd really like to get better connected with the troop and we'd like to have den chiefs involved with us on a regular basis. And the first Scoutmaster who responds with an actual plan of action is probably the one that you're going to end up working with Now. I asked to visit their next troop meeting and see what the general vibe is and talk to a couple of scouts And if it seems like a pretty good bunch, move on forward. My bet is that if you were to call five Scoutmasters, at least one is going to get back to you with a plan of action, And the ones who are put off or pass you off to somebody else I wouldn't really be bothered with. But often getting that connection is really as simple as that.

Now the next email. I'm going to leave the sender's name anonymous And the reason for that will become apparent as we go through it. It's time to move to a new troop. We've visited our new troop and I've talked with the Scoutmaster.

What's the best procedure for informing our current troop that we plan to move? Do I write a letter to the troop committee chairman or the Scoutmaster?

Is there a typical way that this is handled? So if you've been listening or reading for a while, you will have heard email questions where issues arise where there's basic disagreement with the way things are going in one scout troop, And I typically advise the parent or the scouter, if things just aren't working for them in one troop, that, hey, it's a good idea to look at others and make a decision And to find one that more closely resembles what you hope to have for your child or your experience as a scouter.

And then just change troops And I don't think this has to be a big deal at all And I think good starting place is the scout himself. Talk about making the change with them, Ask them how they want to handle it, And they may be in a position where they would want to do something like go and talk to the Scoutmaster or something like that or not. I would allow them to define exactly how they were going to handle the move, within reason of course, And I get the idea of sending a letter or something like that.

But a letter also has a way of backfiring on you, because sometimes these changes are not totally amicable And sometimes they're caused by pretty sharp disagreements or difficulties, And so a letter or an email about it may backfire on you, because any letter or email is going to get the fine tooth comb treatment, And if it's a sharp disagreement or a conflict of some kind, it's very unlikely that the troop that you're leaving is going to read that and say, ooh hey, we were wrong all along. They're more likely to brand you as a troublemaker and let everybody else in scouting know exactly the way that they think of it.

Now isn't that unfortunate, but it happens In most situations that I hear about. I would roughly suggest shake hands and say thank you very much, We've enjoyed our time here, but we're going to be changing troops, So this will be our last time here and then we'll be doing scouting over in the other troop across town or whatever.

If you're asked to explain- well, you can explain or not- I would say maybe don't. I would just keep the whole thing on as high a plane and make it as amicable as possible, because there is plenty of needless drama in scouting and in life in general, and your son's interest is the most important interest here.

So let's make the elements of this change that you can control, which is your attitude and the way that you're going to do it, as drama-free as possible. Robert got in touch with me with this question. I wanted to get your thoughts on the policy manual I was planning on creating that explained our troop rules and traditions and note the origin of each in scouting literature.

I'm a fairly new Scoutmaster and I think having this defined for everyone would be helpful. What do you think?

Does this seem reasonable? I know that you don't recommend writing policy manuals.

Well, Robert, I think writing things out like this may be useful for you to kind of think your way through things, but I would suggest that it will only be marginally useful for parents in the committee and it's not really going to be very useful for your scouts. Now, is this a reasonable idea?

Well, of course it makes perfect sense, right, That you would have this document that kind of helps define things for everybody. But is it really a great idea?

Not to my lights, and I want to explain why. I know how strong the desire is to explain everything to our scouts, but my normal advice is to resist the temptation to explain and participate in the cooperative process where scouts discover these things for themselves. Few if any of the scouts that I have worked with read manuals, job descriptions, policies, procedures, and few adults do that either.

They usually go off of what they are told and what they are used to have happening, And I think we could ask anyone on the end of any customer service line whether or not people actually read directions and manuals, and we'd find out that for the most part, no, they don't. That's why we have customer service lines, right. The other aspect of this is, as soon as you create a list of rules or procedures or policies, you're really kind of limiting yourself to the rules and procedures and policies that you've written. If you give a scout a printed copy of his job description, that might be helpful to what's on that piece of paper.

So what I typically suggest is that process that I referred to earlier, which is explaining things as they come along by asking questions. So take something really really simple: What does an assistant patrol leader do?

So you get to a meeting and the scouts come to you and say our patrol leader isn't here. So you ask the question: who becomes your patrol leader if your patrol leader is absent? And they look at you and they say, ooh, I don't know.

They say so, who do you think that person ought to be? And they are staring at you with blank faces saying, what do you mean? I guess we could pick somebody.

Well, do you guys have an assistant patrol leader? Oh, yeah.

So have you checked in the scout handbook? Who takes over when the patrol leader's not here? No, Maybe there would be something in there about that.

So you get the idea: Instead of answering that question with a declarative statement or having it instituted in a piece of literature that you created somewhere, well, they have a scout handbook that explains all of this- It's already written- and getting them into the idea of taking a look and answering their questions themselves, you get them in a process that begins to self-replicate and really leverages that process of discovery that you want to see happen in scouts. So when it gets down to things like: well, what are our rules of conduction?

We have some rules of conduct. How will these scouts know how to behave if we don't have rules of conduct?

Well, they have the scout oath and law. That's their rules of conduct. You really don't need to write anything else. You have the scout oath and law. It's already there. The scout handbook and the senior patrol leader's handbook explain everything anybody needs to know about the mechanics and you really don't have to rewrite those.

If you want scouts to learn how to do much of anything or how things work, you have to let them actually do them in real time and then you talk about what they did and you can introduce all kinds of ideas this way and you can ask all kinds of questions And rather than setting yourself up as the authority, they have a broader authority to go to. They have a handbook to go to, they have places where they can find information and you become their partner in discovery rather than being the source of everything.

Now I heard back from Robert and he said: thanks for your reply. I'm still a little unclear. It says specifically in the Scoutmaster handbook that rank and age requirements to be senior patrol leader are determined by each troop, as is the schedule of elections.

So my troop has generally said that the senior patrol leader needs to be at least life rank and the election schedule is after summer camp and right after winter camp. So where do we record the election schedule and the troop rules for senior patrol leader qualifications?

Do we just keep this as an unwritten rule, kind of tribal knowledge? And my reply was: that's an excellent question. I understand I'm kind of pushing you around a little bit here, but play my little game for a moment. I'm not trying to consciously frustrate you, even though it might seem that way. Let me answer your questions with more questions.

Why do you need an election schedule And what happens when you need to have an election outside that schedule? What happens when a scout who hasn't reached life but would make an excellent senior patrol leader ask you why you have such a requirement?

What happens if you have no life scouts interested in being the senior patrol leader? What happens if you have a scout who isn't interested in advancement at all and wants to be the senior patrol leader?

So you can see what I'm saying In those situations if you've already instituted a set of rules or a policy manual. There's a lot of unintended consequences out of that because you've kind of written yourself into a corner. What I like to see better is that when stuff happens, the patrol leader's counsel sits down and discusses their way through it. If you create a bunch of rules or qualifications, you kind of limit the number of possible resolutions to the situation at hand. A policy manual like this, outside of the couple of million of policies, tends to fence you and your youth leadership in, And by rewriting what's already written you're really in danger of significantly skewing and distorting what really ought to be happening. This is all a little unsettling, I understand, But if you understand what I'm trying to say, 99.99% of everything that you need in writing to describe what you do in playing the game of scouting is already in writing.

You don't need to recreate it. I heard back from Robert who said: I think I understand, although I'm not sure I agree. It seems to me that unwritten rules are more pervasive and harder to change or even recognize than they are if they're written down. The more organic, informal approach that you describe may be something that I have to grow into. Who knows, maybe my policy and procedure manual will be really, really short, Or maybe I'll get through writing it and realize it's mostly worthless and just throw it away.

Well, Robert, now we're getting to the point where we're in agreement. Okay, I think writing the manual is a great exercise for you yourself and maybe for the other adults who are involved with you, Because it will help you think your way through things.

You'll go to the scouting resources, you'll find these things, and then you'll find that, hey, what we're doing basically is recreating something that already exists, so we really don't need it. But now we know where to find all this information. And I'm not really suggesting any kind of unwritten rules or tribal knowledge. What I'm saying is is that everything you need is already written.

You don't have to recreate it in your own specific manual, That doing that really has a lot of unintended consequences, And that if you go to the resources that already contain all the information anybody needs and you make a habit of that with your scouts and with your adults, well, you're going to be in a lot less danger of following habits or traditions that don't reflect what you actually want to be doing. So it's not really a matter of unwritten rules and traditions taking over, It's making sure that you're going to the resources that are already there and defining what you do according to what you find in them. Scott Peterson is the Scoutmaster of Troop 626 in Spring, Texas, and he says: I've been a Scoutmaster for three years. I'm just starting to realize how really little I know about scouting and I'm anxious to learn more. I found your site a few months ago and I can't thank you enough for sharing your experience with us.

How do you suggest scout leaders should be addressed by scouts? I was watching some of the videos you made at summer camp last summer and you walked up to talk with your senior patrol leader and he said: hello, Clark, and that kind of surprised me. Maybe I'm a little fashion, because I always referred to adults- teachers, parents, friends etc.

As Mr or Mrs and my coaches- rather than Mr or Mrs I would use the word coach and then their name- and I'm curious to hear what you think about this. Well, so far as I can tell Scott, the literature I've looked at is pretty silent on this. I can tell you just from my own experience. I was a very young Scoutmaster at the age of 24, and my scouts called me by my first name at that time because it just seemed to be the comfortable thing to do and it stuck for the next 30 years.

I think another part of this is I worked on camp staff for about 12 years and everyone called me by my first name, as they did with our previous camp director who was much older than me and who had been there for 29 years. First names- I don't think they're necessarily improper. Calling people Mr and Mrs, I don't think that's improper. I guess it's just whatever everyone feels comfortable with doing.

My personal answer to the question is: I don't really care what manner of address scouts use. As far as I'm concerned, I am not a particularly important person or in a position of grandiosity that I think needs a title. I mean, I'm in a position of service and provisional authority when needed. Whatever form of address works for them works for me. In other words, I really value the idea that I'm on the same level as my scouts. In many ways I like being called by my first name.

I don't have to demand respect or be placed on a pedestal and what they call being never really affected things one way or the other. And in our sixth and final email in this podcast, I got this question recently. Our committee was urging the patrol leaders council to plan a supertrip for spring.

That would be something like we have done in the past, which is basically a road trip that features visits to historic sites and museums and the scouts may be camping out, but you know we're eating in restaurants and going on tours. To me these seem like school or family trips, not scouting trips. I'd rather go backpacking or canoeing or something like that involving the outdoors, rather than do something like this.

Am I off base? I mean, do I have a leg to stand on if I go to the committee and ask them to stop promoting this type of trip?

Well, that's an excellent question, because the supertrip you describe is one activity. It's certainly not prohibited by any procedures or policies that I could find.

I think this is looking at possible activities and deciding whether or not they are in the spirit of scouting and whether or not they're going to achieve the aims of scouting. So I have a long established rule of thumb, which is kind of a little three-point test, that I apply to activities.

If the activities pass all three of these questions, we can safely say that they are optimal scouting activities that will achieve the aims of scouting okay. So the first question I would ask is: does the activity achieve the aims of scouting?

Does it result in opportunities for personal growth? Now, a lot of activities would definitely do that, even the one you describe. I can see how you could justify it in that it would advance the aims of scouting, of personal growth, physically, mentally and spiritually. In all of that okay.

But now let's go to question number two: does the activity encourage the development and the strengthening of the patrol system? Now we're getting down into a couple of other things that may suggest there would be better activities than the supertrip you describe. Sure, patrols could divide up and go on the tours and eat in restaurants that way and things like that, and that would help support and develop the patrol system.

But is that really the optimum kind of environment for that, or is there a better one? And my third test is asking whether the activity is a preplanned kind of canned event that is presented to the scouts, or is it something that they actually make happen for themselves?

And I think this is where you kind of have to cross the supertrip off the list, at least in my estimation. This is something that where they go through an evolution that's pretty much planned for them and it's not really something that they're making happen for themselves.

But, Clark, you say what if they plan the outing? You know what if they planned what museum they were going to go to and everything like that? Once again, hey, folks, these are rules of thumb.

Okay, what's optimal for us to participate in a scouts and what's maybe not the best thing in the world for us to do so? Simply comparing the two alternatives that you've posed here- the supertrip, museums, staying in hotels or campsites, eating in restaurants, touring museums and things like that- is it a terrible thing for scouts to do? No, absolutely not.

Are there better things that scouts could be doing that would maybe be more optimal towards achieving our aims? Yeah, in my personal opinion.

Yeah, I think so. I think camping or canoeing or backpacking or something in the wilds, where they're encountering a number of challenges along the way, where they're, where they're placed in an unfamiliar environment, that where they have to function well as a patrol in order to get through the activity and have fun and be comfortable with it. My personal take would be that camping or backpacking or canoeing, hey, that would be much better.

So maybe, I hope- I hope I'm not muddying the water, but you know, if you were asking me to choose between the supertrip kind of road tour or doing something in the woods, I'll take the woods every time, but that's not to say that the tour is totally useless in and of itself. There were an improper thing for scouts to do.

I just have my personal preferences that I think huge closer to the line of playing the game of scouting. Well, that was a lot of email questions. I hope you found my answers useful. If you have a question and you'd like to get in touch, it's very easy to do and I'm going to tell you how to do just that in just a moment.