Scoutmaster Podcast 329

I'm Vince Hurnley and I am a Scoutmaster with Troop 73 in Indianapolis, Indiana. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by backers like me.

And now it's the old Scoutmaster Getting ready to go camping and we're on daylight savings time now, so the you know, shorter days, but the sun is really, really bright in the winter, especially when it snows. So in preparation I got myself some really dark goggles to wear, But you know, to tell you the truth, I can't see myself wearing. Thank you, Shane. Shane Adams gave me the idea for that one, If not exactly that one.

So let's not, let's not, blame Shane. Okay,

Hey, this is podcast number 329.. Yeah Well, welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look in the mailbag. Heard from Frank Rossmark, who listened to podcast 327 and said: I really do like the picture for that podcast. If you haven't seen the picture, you got to go back and look.

Go over to scoutmastercgcom, Look up podcast 327.. Look at the picture. Fred went on to say you didn't even touch on double secret probation.

Well, of course I didn't, Fred, because it's secret. Cha Heard from Paul Geisler, who is in the Laurel Highlands Council, And Paul has published a survey as a part of his work for the College of Commissioner Science. I'm going to have a link to the survey in the podcast notes. Go ahead and check it out, Help, Paul. Thanks Paul for alerting us to that.

We did have a live chat- I think it was Wednesday this past week And I can't say welcome to anybody new because nobody new showed up- but the good old frequent flyers were there And we discussed nothing important at all- Not that I can recall at least. But we'll solve that. We'll discuss many important things on the podcast.

I want to pause before I go any further, though, to thank all the folks who are scoutmastercgcom backers- And I want to personally thank Shane Adams and Jim Gilligy who have become backers since last week's podcast- And I want to thank all the folks who have subscribed via Patreon. If you'd like to become a backer or join our Patreon subscribers, visit scoutmastercgcom. You'll find links to follow at the top right of any page, And you'll also find links on how to make that happen in this episode's podcast notes.

Got a couple of email questions to answer this week, So let's get started, shall we? Find me a letter, send it by name Email. That is folks,

And here's an answer to one of your emails. So neither of these emails are going to have any names or anything associated with them. Sensitive subjects again, or people just requested not to have their name mentioned on the podcast Email number one says my son joined a great troop two years ago from Weeblows And I became the membership chair. Our Scoutmaster is a good guy but not a good listener. When you try to talk to him he talks over you and he never really hears what you're saying and has said himself that he does not delegate well. The result of this is that camping trips may get planned halfway but don't always happen.

Fellow scouters are frustrated trying to help out, So this results in fewer stepping up to help out, increasing the load on an already overloaded Scoutmaster. Programs starting to fray around the edges were a good size troop with as many as 70 scouts, But I worry the frustration is building and people will start leaving. I asked my son if he wanted to look around and, as you may have already guessed, he said no, he likes this troop, But that doesn't mean I'm not worried. He's a patrol leader.

He sends an email once a week, but what kind of training is he getting? I'm sure he should be getting more than that, And I sure that he probably is, And I want my son to be happy, but I also want him to benefit from the entire program too, and seeing that the program in this troop is a little troubled, I'm wondering what to do.

Can you give me any advice on this situation? Yeah, this kind of situation is going to need some leadership from the committee chair and the committee is going to need to back him up. I would say probably the first step is looking at the way things are done. If you have a new Scoutmaster replacing a long-serving Scoutmaster, there's almost certainly going to be problems because the long-term Scoutmaster probably did a lot more than they really should have and the committee kind of has little idea of exactly what's going on. Or maybe personnel on the committee changed, maybe have a new committee chair with an old Scoutmaster who doesn't really know what to do. But look, this is a pretty typical problem because the kind of person who's going to step up and be a Scoutmaster is going to be the kind of person who feels very responsible and probably somewhat controlling over exactly how and what should happen, and they're not likely to hand off responsibility or authority to other people.

I mean, I've seen that happen many, many times. So there has to be some collaboration between the committee chair, the members of the committee, the Scoutmaster and the other scouters involved. They have to come up with a plan, and that a plan involves first assessing what's going on and what's not getting done and what needs to happen. And if nobody's capable or unwilling to do things like that, things aren't going to get any better and you probably lose some scouts.

And then everybody wakes up and you go back and you do that process. But as soon as the red flags start going up, as soon as people get concerned about this sort of thing, you really need to sit down and do an evaluation of exactly where you are and where you're headed and how things are going to work. This is not something that we often do or we're very good at, mostly because the demands on your time as a volunteer you don't have time to step back and take a look. But it's something that's really important to do and it's a good process to go through on an annual basis. I mean, when's the last time anybody asked the committee chair or the Scoutmaster, how long they were going to be around, What their plan was for the next three or four years.

You know, those are the kind of questions that don't often get asked but that need to be The troops a little dysfunctional, the programs fraying around the edges, like you say. But consider this: that 90% of the troops I communicate with have one or more dysfunctions of some kind. I mean we only have to look at our own families to understand that everybody is managing some sort of dysfunction, major or minor.

Now it's safe to say that any scout in any one of those troops are probably not being harmed by participating. They're happy, they're with their friends, they're having a good time, they're learning some things along the way, but they're also reaching the aim, which is they're developing character, they're developing as a human being, Even if the program isn't hitting on all eight cylinders every single time. Like I say, scouts aren't being harmed, things are going along.

Are they getting 100%? Well, you know how important is that So far as the scout is concerned, I doubt they feel like they're missing out and there is a lot of pressure on parents to kind of commodify our children's experiences in attempt to upgrade right, I mean, if they're not going to the absolute best school, maybe we should find the absolute best school.

If they're not in the absolute best group, maybe we should find that You know what kind of soccer team should they be on? I mean, there's a lot of pressure and while we're involved in that kind of worrying, we're actually missing out on what's happening in their lives.

Could you find a better troop team, teacher, coach, scout, master, pastor, school, church, house to live in, town to live in, or set of parents even? Well, of course, you could, theoretically.

While we're concerned with all this optimization, our children are living their lives and being happy and growing right, And so let's not miss that. And it's not about giving up and accepting second or third best. I don't think that way.

I think it's more about growing where you're planted. We can't optimize absolutely everything about our lives or our children's lives, and making the best of where we are and who we are is a pretty important life skill, right?

So, that being said, I do often counsel people who are unhappy to look for another troop, and some do. But in this case you've asked your son. He seems to be fine. Your experience and his experience of scouting are two completely different things. If he's unhappy or uncomfortable with his troop, then it's time to look elsewhere.

If he's happy, I mean, you can do what you can to help the committee, but you can also do just so much, and then we need to, like, do the serenity thing right. There are things I can control, there's things I can't, but I can do what I can do to help make this organization better. In the meantime, my son is a scout and he's having a great time. Email number 2: Oh, this is the Marripadge one.

Okay, well, this gets into what could be a little dangerous territory. But- and this is the way the email begins- I volunteered to be a Marripadge counselor for a number of Marripadges. I have not been able to find or attend any formal Marripadge counselor training sessions, but I find I have two general questions.

Question number 1: What's the correct or the best way to handle requirements in a group situation? Some requirements look kind of like they're supposed to be done individually and some look like they could be handled by a group.

Question number 2 is: how much guidance or direction can a counselor provide? Do the scouts need to do all the research by themselves or can I provide all of the information? Two very general, very innocent questions, but ones that are perennial. I get these kind of questions all the time when it comes to Marripadges and Marripadge counseling.

So let's deal with number 1. The best way to handle requirements in a group situation.

Well, for that I'm going to send you to the Guide to Advancement and the section about Marripadges, and there is a specific section about groups and if you want the number of the section, it's 7.0, .3.2 and it's titled Group Instruction. How about that? I'm going to read from that section: It is acceptable, and sometimes desirable for Marripadges to be taught in group settings.

So we know that, yes, you can use group settings to counsel Marripadges. You read on a little bit further. It says: because of the importance of individual attention and personal learning in the Marripadges program, group instruction should be focused on those scenarios where the benefits are compelling. There must be attention to each individual's projects and his fulfillment of all requirements. We must know that every scout actually and personally completed them, Unquote.

Okay, so, groups are good, but remember, use the group setting only where it makes the most sense. So if you're going to have a group and getting them all together and explaining something all at once, well, that makes sense.

Let's go back to what the guide to advancement has to say. Quote: if, for example, a requirement uses words like show, demonstrate or discuss, then every scout must do that. It is unacceptable to award badges on the basis of sitting in classrooms watching demonstrations or remaining silent during discussions.

Okay, so that makes sense, right? So groups, yes, you can use groups. Only use the group setting where the benefits are compelling.

And then remember that everybody has to do the active things like show, demonstrate or discuss. They can't just be part of a group where a percentage of people are showing or demonstrating or discussing. Finally, the guide to advancement says this: there must be attention to each individual's project and his fulfillment of all requirements. We must know that every scout actually and personally completed them Unquote.

Okay, so there's the advice from the guide to advancement. So, while there's a lot of instruction that could be done on a group basis, the evaluation has to be done on an individual basis. I don't counsel merit badges anymore- I used to- and I recommend against group instruction if at all possible. And your second question about how much should I share with the scouts, Should I get them to research things or something like that.

Well, your best guide as to how you should handle that sort of thing is in the requirements themselves. Take them literally. If the requirement says you should go and look this up, the scout should go and look it up. If it says, ask your counselor about, that's fine. The idea of merit badges is not limited to the completion of the requirements as a benefit for the scout. The actions that they have to take to complete the requirements are also a benefit to them.

And what I mean by that? If it says, talk to somebody in such and such an occupation about what they do, Well, the counselor might be the person in that occupation or the scout might have to find somebody. And that is a pretty big life lesson right there, For a scout to have to find somebody, contact another adult whom they don't know and be able to question them and be able to walk away with some kind of understanding.

I think that's a good idea, Of course, all the time keeping the matrix of our youth protection practices in mind. So you think you know everything.

Why don't you just tell us What? Oh, so you don't have any opinion about it at all?

Right, You, really? You don't want me to start on that, do you? I don't know everything. All I have is a microphone.

Okay, I get to talk into it and people listen to it. You're just going to read off of what you wrote to get ready for the podcast. That's it, huh, Nothing else. Oh, I definitely have some opinions.

Wait, have we met? It's only going to royal the waters and I people don't want to hear all that. I don't know about that. You haven't been on the soapbox for a while. Get out the soapbox.

Nobody wants me to climb up on a soapbox and tell them what I think about merit badges. Yeah, really Go ahead.

Why not? All right, All right, It's your fault. You asked.

So here I'm going to go. I don't like merit badges. I like the idea of merit badges, but I here. Look, let's start with this.

Why do we have merit badges? You ever think about that? I mean, they're there and they're a hollow tradition and they're part of the culture and all that.

But do you ever have to stop and think: why are we doing this? I think it's important to ask those questions personally.

So who invented them? Let's go back and look at what Baden Powell had to say. He wrote a book called AIDS to Scoutmastership. You can find the whole thing on my website at scoutmastercgcom. Look in the library link in the menu. You'll find AIDS to Scoutmastership.

It should be required reading for every scouter. All right, So this is what Baden Powell had to say. He said: proficiency badges- that's what they called merit badges at the time- are established with a view to developing in each lad the taste for hobbies which may ultimately give him a career and not leave him hopeless and helpless on going out into the world.

So Baden Powell thought that these proficiency badges would be a lot of fun and you'd get exposed to different hobbies or handicrafts, and it may. It doesn't have to, but it would expose you to the world of work and you may find your career in having done that. That's really great and that's one of the intentions. But it's only one of them, because he goes on to say this: the badges are merely intended as an encouragement to a boy to take up a hobby or an occupation or make some sort of progress in it. They are assigned to an outsider that he has done so. They are not intended to signify that he is a master in the craft that he has tested in.

Okay, So this is a pretty casual setup. This is so that you can investigate these different things- not master them, you know, but just investigate them and to have fun doing it right, I mean it makes sense.

So let's go on and keep reading what Baden Powell had to say. He says: if we at once make scouting into a formal scheme of serious instruction inefficiency, we miss the whole point of value of scout training and we trench the work of schools without the trained experts for carrying it out.

We want to get all our boys along through cheery self-development from within, not through the imposition of formal instruction from without. Ah, now we see the contrast between how maripages were intended by the person who invented them and what we do today, because we have made them into a formal scheme of serious instruction inefficiency and we are trenching the work of schools without the trained experts for carrying it out. And we kind of ignored the point of getting all of our boys along through cheery self-development from within by imposing formal instruction on them from without.

Okay, that's a problem, but there's another reason that we have maripages. The object of the badge system in scouting, Baden Powell says, is also to give the Scoutmaster an instrument by which he can stimulate keenness on the part of every and any boy to take up hobbies that can be helpful in forming his character or developing his skill.

Oh okay, so there's more benefit to it than just finding out about the world. It's also a good way for a scouter to encourage scouts to spread their wings a little bit and to challenge some things and to develop their character and skill.

Baden Powell goes on to say: it is an instrument which, if applied with understanding and sympathy, is designed to give hope and ambition to even the dullest and most backward who would otherwise be quickly at distance and so rendered hopeless in the race of life. It is for this reason that the standard of proficiency is purposefully left undefined.

Oh wait, a minute, now let's unpack that. It is for this reason.

Alright, what reason? So that everybody can give this a shot, challenge something and be successful at it.

Yes, Baden Powell 100 years ago was saying: this is an instance where everybody gets to win, no matter how well they do. We're judging them not against some standard we've defined, but against their own personal effort. He goes on to explain this even more by saying: our standard for bad earning is not the attainment of a certain quality of knowledge or skill, but the amount of effort the boy has put into acquiring such knowledge or skill. This brings the most hopeless case on a footing of equal possibility with his more brilliant or better off brother.

Wow, that's kind of interesting, isn't it? It's not about the attainment of a certain level or quality of knowledge or skill, but the amount of effort put into acquiring the knowledge and skill, and it's something that boys get to do and succeed in as a model for the other challenges that they're going to meet in life.

Ben Powell says a boy in whom the inferiority complex has been born through many failures can have his first win or two made easy for him so that he is led to intensify his efforts. If he is a trier, no matter how clumsy his examiner, can accord him his badge, and this generally inspires the boy to go on trying till he wins further badges and becomes normally capable.

Okay, so let's think about this for a moment. Ben Powell said he wanted these badges to be a gateway into the world of work in one way, that he wanted them not to have a certain standard of proficiency and that they had other ancillary benefits for scouts, because, rather than having one set standard for proficiency, there is an instrument, a tool in this badge system that can be used to encourage taking on challenges and improving your idea of yourself.

The way we evaluate how well you've done is not, according to the other guy, your achievement against some set standard, but the effort that you've put into it. Ben Powell says some are inclined to insist that their scouts should be first rate before they can get a badge, which is very right in theory. You do get a few scouts pretty proficient in this way, but our object is to get all of our scouts interested and active at the same time. He goes on to say: I do not recommend the other extreme, namely that of almost giving away the badges on very slight knowledge of the subjects. It is a matter where examiners should use their sense and discretion, keeping the main aim in view. Use your sense and discretion and keep the main aim in view.

How about working with each scout on an individual basis, tailoring the experience so that he gets the most out of it? Keeping the main aim in view, which is what the development of character goes on to talk about the danger of badge hunting, in other words, just earning badges for the sake of earning badges and badge earning right.

So the idea of scouting is not that it's all about earning badges and that you should be on this continuous badge hunt. No, it's about earning badges as a result of the things that you do naturally as a scout, while you enjoy the outdoors with your fellow scouts.

It's all very simple, isn't it okay? So that's what Baden Powell had to say about why we have merit badges.

What I have to say here's what you can do. You can choose to keep on listening to this- I'm standing solidly on my soapbox and I'm preaching about this- or you can just skip to the closing. You might want to just skip to the closing.

Here's the problem. There's actually little hope of achieving the aims that Baden Powell laid out when he started the whole thing and what we have now, which I call the merit badge industrial complex. The merit badge industrial complex that we've created- has three major problems. We think the idea of merit badges is to get as many scouts merit badges in the shortest time possible.

Now, nobody will tell you that that's what they're trying to do, but for the most part, that's how we've engineered the system. Everybody should get as many badges as they possibly can, and you should get them all the time, and we should focus huge blocks of the effort that we spend in the program on getting merit badges.

From what I observed personally and what people tell me, I think that's a reasonable statement and that's how we've engineered the system. It ought to be telling that we call the people who facilitate scouts getting merit badges a counselor rather than a teacher. I mean, each merit badge should be an individual quest, not a group exercise. Each person working with a scout on a merit badge should be counseling them, helping them along the way, working with them on an individual basis, not teaching big groups of scouts and not having tests and examinations at the end of things to evaluate everybody based on a mean.

No, it should be very highly individualized if we want to get it the way Baden Powell intended it. But that's really difficult to do because the requirements for merit badges have proliferated and they've become incredibly restrictive about the ability of a counselor to shape the experience for an individual scout. There's really no joint adventure in following a set of 10 or 20 requirements that are written more like an engineering spec right than a doorway to exploring interesting subjects. I mean the way that the badges are written, the way the requirements are written seems like it's intentional to take all the fun out of it.

You know, I mean, it's so closely defined exactly what you have to do that you have to grab the merit badge book and you have to look at the merit badge book and say this is exactly what you should do- and here's exactly the words that you should say- to fulfill the requirement of these badges. That's why I kind of look at it as an assembling line, as kind of merit badge industrial complex, right. The other problem is we require specific badges for ranks and we eliminate what Baden Powell was thinking, and that is merely intending them as an encouragement, and we make them into a set of standards that must be adhered to in the purposeful attempt to standardize the achievements of all of our scouts.

Why do we need that? I don't think we need that. I don't think that helps us achieve our aim.

And while I'm on the soapbox, I'll note, as I have many times, perhaps not quite so vocally: the whole merit badge industrial complex has totally ruined the summer camp experience and I think it's been that way for quite a long time. As a past camp director and somebody who's been involved for 20 or 30 years in camp programs and working with counselors at camp. I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of staff members. I've worked with thousands of scouts and probably tens of thousands of scouts, and you are helpless to try and change anything about this, because there's one reason that scouts go to camp and one reason that scouts take them and that is to get as many merit badges as possible. And I know people will say, oh no, no, no, that's not the way that we do things. I'm telling you in general.

I don't think you can argue with that conclusion. If there are more merit badges at camp A, then there are. At camp B, scouts are going to go to camp A. If scouts can come home with more merit badges at camp A, then they can. At camp B, scouts are going to go to camp A.

Now I won't say that this is absolutely everyone. Of course it isn't, because I've talked to some of you and corresponded with some of you who don't like this whole merit badge summer camp thing any more than I do. But there's tremendous pressure on scouts.

You know our hollow tradition: we go to summer camp and knock off three to five merit badges and you spend all your time sitting on your butt in an air-conditioned lodge somewhere, just like you did at school all year, and it just makes me absolutely crazy. You're at summer camp.

What are all the marvelous things that you can do here that you can do nowhere else? You know? Certainly not sitting in a classroom somewhere.

But now I'm beginning to rant, so I will back off a little bit and stop ranting. You ask: do I have an answer for all this? I do.

I found what looks to me like a really good way to handle things, and I only mention it here because it's soapbox time, not because I think we should start a movement that goes out and makes this change, because I don't think this change will ever happen, because it would be a massive sea change in our organization. But I'll tell you this: some years ago the World Organization of the Scouting Movement published a document called Renewed Approach to Program. If you go online you can probably find it.

It's called the RAP- Renewed Approach to Program- and Scouts Ireland and Scouts Canada and, to my understanding, Scouts Australia- are kind of spearheading program changes driven by that document, and I think that's a lot of the things that they're doing are brilliant, and I think Scouts Ireland is probably the farthest ahead of any Scouting organization in the WOSM implementing the ideas in that RAP program, and I could go on to explain it. But look, they took all the important everyday Scouts skills right, all the important things that Scouts do. They put those in groups of adventure skills and each one of the groups has- oh I don't know- a dozen to 20 different levels in that skill that you can pursue as a Scout based on your interest. If they haven't eliminated ranks, they've greatly reduced emphasis on them, while they have highlighted the idea that Scouts should learn, practice and have fun with these adventure skills. And they have something called special interest badges. I don't think any.

I don't think they ever called them merit badges, frankly, in Ireland, but they have basically what we would call a merit badge to that is called a special interest badge and there are five broad areas defined and you as a Scout can do up to three special interest badges in each one of those five areas in a given age group and Scouts. So when you're a Cub Scout you can do up to 15 special interest badges, three from each of the five groups, when you're a Scout, when you're a Venturer, when you're a Rover, etc.

So the special interest badges encourages you to diversify because there are five different interest groups so you can't spend all your time in just one interest group. And then the requirements for the special interest badges. I know that you're curious about how they do requirements for all these special interest badges.

Well, I'll tell you. It's one sheet of paper that says: you choose an area of interest, you find somebody who's willing to counsel you in that area of interest and then you and the counselor write up the requirements that you're going to do to get that badge.

And I think that is much more in the spirit of what Baden Powell was trying to achieve when he established proficiency badges. Then we are experiencing with the Merit Badge industrial complex. Let me get down off of my soapbox. Please definitely get in touch and let me know what you think. If you think I'm a nutcase, that's fine, because you're not alone. If you think that some of this sounded reasonable, that's fine.

I'm not going to lead any giant revolution on this. What I'm interested in is starting to ask questions and starting to think about exactly how we're doing things and asking ourselves: you know, maybe a system that has accreted over the past many, many decades bears some examining and some changing. That's what I suggest.

I think that would be a good starting point, don't you, hey, listen? If you have a question or a comment- and I'm going to get a lot of comments this week, I imagine you can get in touch with me. It's pretty easy to do and I'm going to tell you how to do that in just a moment.