Scoutmaster Podcast 326

I'm Andy Preiser and I'm an assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 3 in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, And this edition of the Scoutmaster podcast, sponsored by backers like me. And now it's the old Scoutmaster. One of my scouts asked me a question before we left on the last camping trip.

He said: is it okay if I bring a piano along? I know They ask all kinds of questions, right?

I had to ask: why do you want to bring a piano along? He said: well, I think that if I bring a piano along, we won't have to collect any firewood.

And I said: you think you can get firewood out of a piano? And he says: oh, yeah, I think we can get several cords of firewood out of the piano.

That was a long way for not much, right?

This is podcast number 326.. Hey, Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look in the mail bag. Oh my, let's knock some things over on the desk. I heard from John Pollock on Facebook in response to an article that I put up.

Listen, what I did is I came up with like a flow chart, a little logic chart for first class rank requirement 1A, which is doing 10 activities, And there's like this little algorithm you have to go through about what activities apply and how many of those activities can apply, And it can be a little confusing- not terribly, But I thought well, looks like a good logic chart. So it's over at scoutmastercgcom Easy to find. It's in PDF format and it is available in the giant PDF package which has something like 60,, 70, 80 different infographics, PDFs, helpful things I hope that you can get at scoutmastercgcom. But anyway, the explanation is going to be longer than the message I could tell. But anyway, John read that And in it I referenced another article that I had written back in the beginning of the year. I did a series of articles about the new rank requirements that became effective back in January of 2016..

And one of the things I did was go on a bit of a rant- I guess it's kind of a rant- about Marripad's requirements. This is what John replied through Facebook. He said: I have to say I followed this article over to your take on how you'd rewrite the Marripad's program And I have to agree completely. I'm guilty of pushing my own son to complete as many badges of camp as he can And I've read many of the Marripad's books and found them kind of dry and wondered how any boy would connect what he learns with what scouting is about.

I know the idea is to introduce them to a wide range of things so their horizons are broadened, But that would be much easier if they were more than regurgitating the text in the Marripad's book, as you so aptly put it. First of all, I got to say you got to laugh, right, Because I think I know how to rewrite the Marripad's program.

I have a couple of ideas And it is, to my mind, way past time for us to actually start asking some questions about the way things are being done with the Marripad's program And maybe we need to make some innovations or changes. But let's not go into all that.

I'll have a link in the podcast notes so you can find the same article that John was talking about. And it's interesting because I had another email message about the difference between the hikes that you do for hiking Marripad's and the hiking that you do as a part of fulfilling backpacking Marripad's and why they were different. And if you could go backpacking and fulfill the hike requirements for hiking Marripad's And I decided I would look up how many scouts complete both hiking and backpacking Marripad's, because very few scouts actually do them.

And I find that disappointing because what do we do as scouts? We do, we do a lot of backpacking, We do a lot of hiking, But the way that the requirements are written for both of those badges, it kind of it just it doesn't seem to have like reference in the real world And you'd have to go into a very lengthy explanation to explain exactly what I mean.

But those are the kinds of things that I'm thinking about when I think about, hey, you know what, Probably time to ask some questions about the way that Marripad's are written and the way that they're presented and maybe rethink a few things. That's, that's all I'm saying.

And I should also note that, you know, in 30 plus years of being a scout minister, I don't recall maybe once or twice any of my scouts got either the hiking or backpacking Marripad's, And it's it's subject matter that scouts should be doing all the time, But so few scouts get them. It's not a problem of the scouts not wanting to get a Marripad's like that or we're not being interested in it. It's not a problem of the volunteers, It's just the way that they're written. They're just meh.

You know, I'd have to go into a very long explanation, But look, let's move on, shall we, Before I dig myself any deeper. It's been nice to get back to live chats. We usually have a couple of live chats every week.

What I do is I try and set Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning aside so that folks can come over to scoutmastercgcom. I'll be on there.

A lot of people sign on and we have a chat, sometimes about very serious things, but most of the time not so serious. And we have a number of people who I call frequent flyers, who sign on almost every time the chat's up and live, And you'll find out when those times are If you keep an eye on the Facebook feed and the Twitter feed.

Okay, Because I'll always announce when I'm going to be on there with live chat. Like I said, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings usually. But in addition to all those frequent flyers that checked in, this week we also heard from Ed Wilcox, who's a Webelos too- Den Leader in PAC 248 in Colleen, Fort Hood, Texas. We heard from Keith Morgenstern, who's a committee member in Troop 853 in Maryland, And James Eaton, who is in Sugar Hill, Georgia. Thanks everyone for checking in. Watch the Facebook feed, watch the Twitter feed.

Come and join us for a live chat. It's a lot of fun.

Look, if you're a regular reader and a listener and the resources that we've created have helped you, I want to take a moment and ask you to return the favor, And you can support my work here at ScoutmasterCGcom financially by making a one-time kind of payment and becoming a ScoutmasterCGcom backer, Or you can do what a lot of people have chosen to do: You can make a monthly subscription payment via Patreon by pledging $5 or more a month. There are special premiums available to anyone who becomes a patron or a backer.

So what you do is go to ScoutmasterCGcom, look for backer and patron links in the podcast notes or up at the top of the page on any page at ScoutmasterCGcom, Find out what's going to work for you And this week I want to thank Michael Hart, Shannon Blair, Michael Willey and Andy Prizer, who've become backers since our last podcast, And I want to thank Mark Arnoldson, who's become a patron since last week's podcast. Please take a little time this week to figure out which of these two options work for you, And I'll be sure to thank you personally on next week's podcast.

Well, in this week's podcast I want to spend some time with an email discussion that I had over the past week or so with a very dedicated concern ScoutMom, who told me the story of her son's involvement in Scouts and asked me to give him some advice. That's going to take up the remainder of the podcast, so let's get started.

Shall we Music? Write me a letter, send it by name Email. That is, folks.

And here's an answer to one of your emails, Music. Well, as I shared before, this message comes from a very dedicated, concerned mother of a scout And it reads this way. It says: a while back, a friend shared a scoutmastercgcom post regarding the patrol method And it was a real ray of light. I had a frustrated introduction to Boy Scouts.

This was not like my wonderful memories of Girl Scouts And I wasn't so sure I wanted my son involved if this was the way the program was going to be. Most of what I saw in our troop at the time was kind of a military dictatorship. I didn't see how this system possibly had a hand in creating some of the good men I knew, And the patrols in that troop seemed to be just another bit of this ridiculously regimented and almost angry setup. I read the article over and over And the type of growth you were describing is what I wanted for my son. My entire attitude towards the scouting program changed And, by the way, in the podcast notes I'll link to that series of articles.

My son grew so frustrated with the experience he was having he decided to change troops. Tuesday night he was elected as the senior patrol leader in his new troop. The scoutmaster of his new troop has a lot of good intentions but he has a very commanding presence And because of the frustrations, over time he's taken to leading things himself because it's easier and it's less messy. I know that the other adults involved would like to model the troop more after the patrol method, but this change is really going to be driven by the scouts. My son is working his way through your back podcasts, absorbing all of the scoutmastership in the true sense of the word that he can.

I've asked him questions based on what he's heard so far in. His basic plan is to be as active as he can and try and encourage things to change. Which brings me to my question. You have a lot of content that will take a lot of time to go through and most of it is from the adult side.

Do you have a particular podcast or article that you could point my son to? That would be helpful for him and his fellow scouts as they work to bring about this change in their troop.

If not, do you have any general advice for them? I want to say thank you for your podcast and your blog. They've not only changed my view of Boy Scouts but enhanced my parenting efforts. I hear you in my head talking to other parents and quote you with credit often.

Well, thank you so much for the kind words. I'm glad that I'm able to help. You pointed out something that I really don't have, because I don't hear from a lot of young people.

I mostly talk with and communicate with other adult volunteers and scouting, so I don't have a lot of information that's aimed at youth leaders specifically. So we're going to take some time in this podcast and see if I can come up with a couple of ideas and some advice for youth leaders who might find themselves in the same position, And hopefully it'll be good advice for everybody. But we'll give it a shot. Presented with the situation as you've related it, I'm tempted to say the youth members of a troop trying to make changes to this nature are coming out of from the wrong end of things.

Now I believe there's a way to make things happen and to strengthen the patrol method that can come from the youth. You have to be willing to do some work first, and we've got to have adult volunteers who are going to be receptive to these ideas.

Let's talk about understanding the adults involved and your relationship to them as a youth leader, and how you offer constructive criticism that's aimed at resolving problems and kind of moving the ball forward. Now, before I go on, this advice assumes that you have a pretty good grasp of the patrol method. I'm not going to go into an explanation of it here, because it is something we've discussed many, many times. The series of articles about the patrol method I mentioned earlier would be a good place to start. I can also recommend a book called Working the Patrol Method and The Old Patrol Leaders Handbook by Green Bar Bill. I'll have some links on ways you can find both of those books in the podcast notes.

So once you have a pretty good idea of what the patrol method ought to look like and you want to share this with adults and you want to kind of change the way that your troop runs, how are we going to go about doing this. You're trusting the adults involved with your scout troop to provide you with leadership, And adults volunteer their time to scouting for any number of reasons, but I don't think many of them would say that they were there to be guided by the scouts.

So let's think about that for a moment. If you take the initiative and start talking to adults about these things, you're going to need to be prepared for them to react with surprise. It's almost like jumping out and yelling Boo, This is going to be surprising to them that a youth will take the initiative to really start discussing these things and to ask for changes to be made. This is not generally the way things work. It's not generally the way things work at your school, or if it probably doesn't work that way in most families, Adults are expected to lead and children are expected to follow, and scouting tends to turn that on its head a little bit. And while I know youth members in scouting are usually very quick to pick this up and to make it happen when they're allowed to, adults find it really, really difficult.

So I'm going to ask you, as a youth, as a scout who has got a position of responsibility and is a leader. You're going to have to be pretty patient with these adults, because they may never have tried anything like this before. They're not going to have a whole lot of confidence in that this is going to work. I would just say from all the people that I talk to in general, that's the way that it is.

So I want you to have some very measured expectations about exactly what kind of reaction you're going to get. I mean, they could get upset, they could be a little scared, they may be distressed because they feel they are supposed to be leading, And when scouts take the initiative, it can upset them sometimes, But that's not everybody.

Now, if the adults who are volunteering for your troop are good leaders, they will accept and respect feedback from the people who are their leading. They'll listen carefully and they'll make changes if they're wrong.

And if they are willing to listen well, that's a pretty good indication that you're in the right place. If they're not willing to listen, you know, if you can't even get started, you might have to consider that you might not be working with the right people, Because if you do not have genuine respect for those who are in authority over you and who are leading you, because I know that it's a little confusing to say that, because adults aren't supposed to be quote, leading unquote, But you understand what I'm saying. They're there to help, guide and instruct and mentor you.

So that's a form of leadership. If you don't have genuine respect for the adult volunteers, you might be in the wrong place. If you can't find anybody, you may need to consider a move.

Now, that's general advice. I know the story that I heard about. They've already moved troops. I understand that, But that's just general advice. This is one situation in your young life where you get to make the choice about this. You can't necessarily choose which school you're going to go to or which teacher you're going to have or who's going to coach the school team that you play on or direct the school play, But with scouts, you get to make some choices about that.

If what is going on in one troop doesn't work for you, you can move, You can go to another troop and you can basically shop around until you find adults who are willing to work with you. So let's talk about the matter of respect for a moment, because respect is a pretty weighted word. I'm talking about genuine respect When I say that.

I'm talking about respect that is not meaningless or perfunctory, because you know you're a young person and so everybody older than you, especially adults- you're supposed to have this profound respect for them. And some of that is just about courtesy and being polite and things like that. I'm talking about a genuine respect. You should be able to look at the scouts that you're working with and say: these are people who have my best interest at heart and I really respect that and I'm willing to work along with them.

If you're looking at them and you're going, you know this is all I've got to work with. Like I said, consider a change Now. Genuine respect is definitely a two-way street. You cannot expect to be respected if you're not willing to show respect.

Right, I think we all understand that. So to show some respect for the adults who are volunteering to help you, you have to kind of understand where they're coming from- and they can be coming from all over the map, But for the most part, other adults that I've worked with in scouting are really motivated by a sincere interest in helping youth. They may not understand exactly how to do that all the time, but that's what they're motivated by.

So you have to assume goodwill on the part of the adults who are working with you, And if you truly and genuinely respect them, then you will find that they will reciprocate by truly and genuinely respecting what you have to say. Now let's talk about what you have to say.

So, like I said before, if you have a good, solid understanding of the patrol method and you don't think some things are working in that direction, then you need to talk to the adults who are volunteering for your troop and you need to be very plain about the changes that you would like to see. And when I say very plain, I mean very plain, Without being aggressive, mean you know, or complaining. You need to state exactly what you think needs to happen and be willing to listen and have a discussion about those things.

Now listen, you have heard people say things like: with all due respect before they say something, or no offense, but or don't take this the wrong way. But let me give you a bit of advice: Don't ever, ever say those things.

Perfectly nice, well-intentioned people say those sorts of things all the time and they're a huge mistake because we all know exactly what they mean When somebody wants to talk to you and they begin a sentence with, with all due respect, that means, basically, I don't really have a whole lot of respect for you, So I have to mention it right here at the beginning of what I'm going to say. If they say no offense, it means that they realize what they're about to say is offensive, Right.

And if they say don't take this the wrong way, that means what I'm about to say is so profoundly disrespectful you will not be able to take it the right way. If you want to show genuine respect for someone in authority, you will state what the problem is and you'll make it clear that you want to help make constructive change, And this is called constructive criticism. Offering a solution is the difference between constructive criticism, complaining or making accusations.

Now, this kind of approach requires courage, but is infinitely more respectful than beating around the bush or slathering people with disingenuous praise or- the worst possible approach- trying to work around someone. So what am I talking about precisely?

Well, how about this? You will go up to your Scoutmaster and you say: I don't feel I have the kind of authority I need to get my job done as a senior patrol leader or patrol leader or whatever. That's an example of a direct, unambiguous and therefore, to my lights- respectful statement And it would take a fair amount of courage to be able to do that. But a scout is brave.

It's easy to say okay, But truly, you can follow that statement up with. I would like to discuss and agree on how and who makes decisions so we both understand what's going on, or something like that. And that's a good follow-up statement because it offers a solution.

Do you see what I'm saying? A complaint is saying you don't let me do X, or I should be able to do this, or I should be able to do that. That's kind of a complaint. You are also referring to the other person in it. You see the difference between that and I don't think that I have the authority that I need to get my job done.

It doesn't really mention the other person does it? And then you want to offer a solution right there.

I'd like to discuss how we can figure this out. I have some ideas about how we could make this better if you're willing to talk about it.

The other thing to consider is that there's a difference between criticizing a person and assessing a situation and offering constructive criticism. With a little practice, you learn how to separate problems from people.

Now, this is not easy to do and most adults are not very good at it, because people do cause problems. But if we're going to solve problems, if we're going to meet challenges and reach goals, we have to understand that you, as a youth leader, and the adults who are volunteering are not two separate teams competing for a win. You are a single team competing against a challenge or a problem or working towards a goal. I mean, imagine there's a big pile of stones that need to be moved from point A to point B. You have a group of people to move them. Even if you think the stones are at point A because somebody made a mistake or acted out a malice towards you, there's little to be gained by talking about that or assigning guilt or trying to make somebody feel bad about the fact that, hey, all these stones are over here.

How about you put everybody's energy into the problem by saying: how are we going to move these stones? It doesn't really matter how they got here, We have to get them over to point B.

How are we going to make that happen? Because the only way you're going to move things forward is if you're working together, And to do that somebody has to begin by kind of picking up stones and carrying them and encouraging everyone to do the same. It takes courage, which is another way of saying being brave. It takes sensitivity to the way other people feel, which is being friendly and courteous and kind, And it takes someone willing to build a sense of team, because it's never us against them, It's never the youth leaders against the adults or the adults against the youth leaders.

It's a case of all of us against it, It being whatever the problem is that we need to resolve, whatever the goal that it is that we need to reach or whatever challenge it is that we need to overcome. So there's my best advice for you. You're a youth leader and you want to work effectively with the adults who are volunteering for your troop, and especially if you want to make things change within your troop. It's all about respect. It's understanding where the adults are coming from. It's about the courage of learning to say things plainly and always attaching those things to some form of resolution, Some suggestion of how things can be better.

Most importantly, it's about listening on both sides of the equation and keeping a cool head and trying to understand where the other guy is coming from. All of this not only works in the very specific situation that we're talking about. It will equip you with skills that you use for the rest of your life. I hope that helps. Hey, I'd love to have you get in touch with me and I'd love to answer your questions about scouting. Getting in touch is pretty easy to do and you're going to find out how to make that happen in just a moment.

Music