Scoutmaster Podcast 330

I'm Jonathan Brower and I'm a Scoutmaster with Troop 19 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by backers like me. Thank you for all your insight and your experience. You helped me be a better Scoutmaster.

And now for you, Scoutmaster. Sensitivity is an important character trait. It's part of being a good person- being friendly and kind and courteous and respectful, And as much a part of a good, strong character as sensitivity is. It's not going to do you much good if it's not backed up by some resilience.

You also have to be resilient, don't you? It's just something I was thinking about.

Hey, this is podcast number 330.. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Last week we talked about maripazes and I predicted that a lot of people would get back to me, and a lot of people got back to me.

So let's go to the mailbag and replies to last week's podcast. Jim Hilliard said: too many maripages feel like school Scouts are already in school all day and the last thing they want to be doing on a weekend night is sitting down in classroom formation doing more schoolwork, unless it's a topic that really interests them. But even then, let's put the fun back into maripages. Let's learn by doing, experiencing and practicing. Christian said. I find myself torn on this whole thing.

Some of the scouts are truly motivated by the badges and the work that goes into them. Some could care less about the industrial complex that maripages have become. Every scout is motivated differently And in the end, as you often state, Clark, the goal is to build character in the boys. I would rather work with the system as it is and try to motivate all the scouts in their own way.

Well, Christian, it is a conundrum And I want to go back to what Baden Powell had to say about advancement and badges and things like that. What we're looking for is a way to get all the scouts along, Everybody along. And yeah, And of course scouts are motivated by different things. But my whole argument about maripages is they've just become something that doesn't look like scouting anymore. Evan got in touch and said: I recently started counseling maripages. I became an eagle in 2006..

And I see how the focus on maripages detracts from some of the benefits of summer camp. I like what you talked about in the World Organization, the scouting movements wrap program. I agree that changing that kind of system is highly unlikely, but I wonder what your thoughts are about how a change like that could be accomplished. And, Evan, I got to say I don't have any thoughts. The organization that most of us are members of, the BSA, is solidly run by adults And most of them are men. Most of them are over the age of 30.

And I think basically there's zero chance that there's going to be any substantive change to all this. If we had any kind of youth government as a part of our organization above the unit level, I think things might be a little different. But that's not going to happen. And I know I'm sounding really negative, but I don't really see a way out of the situation or seeing any sweeping changes being made.

It's so baked into our concept of scouting that I think it eclipses reason. Philip got in touch to say maripages have become the tail that wags the dog. In order to get them, a scout has to do the opposite of what the program is supposed to do. That's a very good thought, Philip. Instead of being part of a patrol in a troop, he spends his time working alone on requirements. Instead of being outdoors, he's indoors writing reports and building displays.

They should be de-emphasized. And Philip notes that will never happen And the emphasis put on part of being in a patrol or a troop, leading and following, learning to work with people And, more importantly, the emphasis put on fun. Good memories are one of the best assets to own.

I'm going to say that again because I think that's a great thought, Philip. Good memories are one of the best assets to own. I don't think that all of this has happened purposefully. I just think that when people think of Boy Scouts, they think of a sash full of maripages. It's something tangible that can be measured.

Well, Philip, I appreciate those thoughts. Dennis Unger got in touch and said the soapbox moment in the last podcast was really inspiring. These are things that need to be addressed. I was a scout in the 1980s and we focused on skills and maripages were second. Bill Daniel commented: summer camp has seemed wrongheaded to me for some time.

Are there any camps that make advancement or maripages the almost accidental byproduct of a great adventure? Not to my knowledge, Bill. There are probably isolated parts of camp programs where you have a set of counselors that really get that.

The idea is to go out and have fun and then maybe look at the fun that you had and say, oh, we earned a maripage too, But what's baked in is just this approach, that is, a school approach, because that's what everybody knows. It's the easiest thing to do, isn't it? It's the least challenging way to get all this done. When we look at the mountain of work, of maripages that you have to do as a scout if you want to become an Eagle Scout, The easiest way to get it done is just to set up a school. Makes sense. I don't like it, but it makes perfect sense.

So the most sensible approach is not always the scouting approach, is it? You may quote me? Oh hey, we had a nice live chat session this week and, in addition to all of the frequent flyers, they checked in- we heard from Don, who is a Wolf-Dan leader with PAC 791 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, Scott, who is a Scoutmaster, Elaine, who is working with a BSA troop in London, England, And Mike Summers checked in during the chat and he's a Scoutmaster with Troop 89 in Wilson, North Carolina. If you want to join us for a live chat, keep an eye on our Facebook feeds and our Twitter feed, because I'll always announce when we're going to be live at scoutmastercgcom for a chat. These will happen most of the time on Tuesday and or Wednesday mornings.

I want to take a moment and pause here to thank all the folks who are scoutmastercgcom backers, especially Ed Graytricks and Constance Ryan, who added their names to the list of backers since our last podcast. I want to say thanks, too, to all of you who've added their support, to the many folks who helped make the blog and podcast possible through something called Patreon.

Now, 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 on the website and links in this episode's podcast notes. And, speaking of this episode, we've got a bunch of email questions to answer. We're still chipping away at the giant backlog of email questions.

So let's get started, shall we? Oh, Mr Johnson had troubles of his own. He had a yellow cat that wouldn't leave his home. He tried and he tried to get a cat away. He gave it to a man going far, far away, but the cat came back the very next morning. Yeah, the cat came back.

The very next day. The cat came back. They thought it wasn't gonna, but the cat came back. It just couldn't stay away. Away, Away, Away,

Email, that is folks. And here's an answer to one of your emails, Email question number one. This one will remain anonymous. The author wrote: I am a unit commissioner and our Scoutmaster called me and told me his senior patrol leader had sexually harassed a teacher at school and had been suspended for holding a broom like a machine gun. Wow, Okay. The young man apologized to the teacher, accepted his punishment.

The Scoutmaster then proceeded to tell me he thought he should fire the senior patrol leader for conduct on becoming a scout. What's your take on the situation?

This sort of situation is something I get asked about quite often And forgive me if you've heard answers to this sort of thing recently, but since the question keeps coming up, I think the answer can keep going out: How do we react to events in a scout's life outside of scouting? Now, if those events, if they've done something that evidences a real and present danger to their fellow scouts, we're gonna have to handle them differently than the things that were described in the question asked in this email. And in the event that there is something that puts the question of whether or not it is safe to have a given scout involved in our activities, then the best thing to do is to back off, tell the scout and his family.

Until all of these issues are resolved and all of the processes play out around them, we're really we're going to ask you not to actively participate at this point, And I've had to do that before once in 30 years, so it's not a very common thing. What's more common is something like this: A scout has some kind of trouble outside of scouting, is dealing with the consequences of those we take notice of and we say: well, you know, how can this guy be a senior patrol leader? It's conduct. I'm becoming a scout.

Well, you know, look, we do our best when we go back to the simpler principles involved. So what is our job?

Our job is to help young people grow in character, And there's a number of associated issues in accomplishing this, but any action we take should be aimed at getting our job done, aimed at the growth of character. A Scoutmaster is not the boss of a company. I will say that again. A Scoutmaster is not the boss of a company with youth leaders who are his or her employees, whom we discipline or hire and fire. They are scouts selected by their fellow scouts to lead them.

So the idea of firing- quote unquote- a senior patrol leader is silly, because that's not the relationship that we have with our youth leadership. A Scoutmaster is not the commanding officer. Let me say it again: A Scoutmaster is not the commanding officer and his youth leaders are his soldiers, who he can discipline for- quote- conduct unbecoming a scout unquote. That's an equally foolish idea. Let's get that out of our heads as well. Scouters and Scoutmasters hold a unique role in a young person's life.

If they understand their job properly, They are part parent, part coach, part counselor, part mentor and friend. We are not a boss. We are not a commanding officer.

If an event like the one that was described in this email comes to our attention, how should we approach it? Understanding our role and understanding the goal of our work? We're dealing with people at an inherently unstable time of their lives, and a young person's actions can certainly be out of sync with their own highest and best. And I bet you, if you think about it for 30 seconds, you can recall an instance in your own young life when this was the case, when you did something that you regret it Now. How the people in our lives reacted to those incidents is a key part of the formation of our character When you're talking about the administration of a school. They have a limited spectrum of responses to this sort of thing.

They have rules and regulations that they're obligated to follow. On the other hand, in scouting we have a set of guiding principles in the oath and law that we can apply with compassion and friendship and kindness to individual situations. Of course, as I said when we began talking about the answer to this particular email, there are policies and procedures to follow when the actions of a scout rise to the level of concern for the safety and well-being of other scouts. But that's not the situation we're talking about here. We're talking about a young person who's gone and done something inadvisable and stupid, probably really deeply regrets having done it, has already apologized for it happened outside of scout.

So what are we going to do? Well, given that kind of a scenario, I would sit down with the scout and I would ask him some questions. I would ask him what happened. I would ask him why he thought this happened. I would ask him what parts of the scout oath and law bear on the situation. I would ask him how it affects their ability to maintain a position of responsibility and be a leader by example in the troop.

I would ask them what actions they're planning to take, so far as the scouts are concerned, in resolving this issue. Does he think there's anything he needs to say to people?

Does he think that this whole thing necessitates some kind of explanation to the scouts and their families? And none of these questions are rhetorical. They are true, open-ended questions.

I want to know what's going on and I believe the resulting conversation would suggest some ways forward with the scout, and I know it certainly would get them exercising that internal standard that we call character. That's based on the scout oath and law.

Now, if I reacted to the situation as you described by issuing a judgment and I thought that I was the boss of the scout and I could fire him, or I thought I was the commanding officer of the scout and I could bring him up on charges for conduct, I'm becoming, I would deny the scout and myself the significant opportunity to better understand exactly what the scout oath and law mean. There are situations where our response is defined by various policies and rules, and those are rare and serious situations, but the one that is described in this email, I think, is clearly a judgment call. I've never been disappointed when I apply my judgment to the best interest of the individual scout by seizing the opportunity to help them examine and develop their character. And the fringe benefit of this is examining and developing my own character and my own skills as a scouter.

I got this email from Jim Manson and he asked: do troop fundraisers count as service hours? If our troop has a booth at a local event to sell refreshments and scouts work at it, does it count as service hours?

Well, so you need to fill in a little more information here. Who's the service being rendered to and where will the funds be spent? If their troop has a booth at a local event and they sell refreshments and you keep the profits, it benefits the scouts themselves.

So that's not really service to others, is it? If you have that booth and the profits are being given to a community organization, that's service to others.

So Jim replied: what if a scout does trail maintenance for a Boy Scout property? Should that count as service hours?

Again, you ask the same question: who does the service benefit? Is the benefit limited to just his troop, to the scout himself or to the wider community?

So if you go out and you raise funds for your troop, part of that fundraising accrues directly to the scout's personal benefit, right, and so I would not count that as as service to others. That's self-serving. I guess you could probably say that doing the trail work accrues to the benefit of the scout in some ways, but it also accrues to the benefit as his member of a broader community, a scout.

So I say, yeah, that that sounds like service to others. To me, The bigger issue here is the idea of doing service work is not getting credit for it, but forming habits of service to others that will follow a scout throughout their lifetime, right?

So hopefully, service to others is emphasized in each troop to the point where there's no real question of fulfilling the hours required, where there's no real question of a scout having to go. Geez, you know, I need three hours of service to get my next rank.

What can I do? Well, no, this is something that we do all the time. If a scout for some reason wasn't able to participate in different service projects that a troop was doing, he could certainly go out and do his own, his own service hours. He could go out and do something nice for other people. He can grab a trash bag and a pair of gloves and a high visibility vest and walk around his neighborhood and pick up trash. He can go across the street with a rake and rake leaves for that older couple that has a little trouble getting around.

He can volunteer for any number of community organizations to help them accomplish their work. Service is not something that you get credit for as a rank. Service is a way of life. You look after other people, you take care of their concerns, you help.

You know that's that's being a scout. Our scout should be good, active, contributing members of their community right now. We don't have to wait till their adults. They can be that right now.

So the question of service hours: that should be the easiest one in that whole set of requirements. I heard from Brian Kerner who's asked: can you provide a definition for the life rank requirement which requires conservation related service hours? I can't seem to find any definition published by the BSA.

Aha, well, Brian, I wrote about this a while back when the new rank requirements came out. I'll have a link to the post that I'm talking about in the podcast notes for this episode.

Here's what the life requirement reads. It says: while a star scout participate in six hours of service through one or more service projects approved by your Scoutmaster, at least three hours of this service must be conservation related. I noted at the time when I first read this that specifying three hours of conservation related projects is a good idea, but it will become one of those questions that are going to come up all the time and the probably the source of some argument. I would have worded it differently. I would have said three hours of service and three hours of conservation work, and I would have provided definitions. But there's no definition that I know of.

So it's pretty simple, right, if we read the requirement, who approves these service projects? The Scoutmaster does, so whatever the Scoutmaster defines as conservation related is going to be approved work towards that requirement.

Here's the fourth and last email question for this episode of the Scoutmaster podcast. Boy, we're setting them up and knocking them down today, aren't we? And this comes from Robert Grimes, who says: I'm a new Scoutmaster for a BSA troop in Madrid, Spain.

I was wondering: should scouts use the mister honorific when addressing the Scoutmaster and assistant Scoutmasters? Scouting is one of the few places that manners are observed. Scouting is one of the few places that manners are observed.

I hope that's not the case, however, Robert goes on to say: I want to be approachable, I don't want to hinder interaction with authority figures. I am I am aware that respect is something that is earned and not bestowed simply by a title, but the scouts are addressing their elders and I wonder what you had to say about that.

Well, I you know, I began as a fairly young Scoutmaster and the scouts always have called me by my first name and it hasn't changed in 35 years. I have had other nicknames when I was a camp counselor and when I was a coach.

You know, it all worked for me. Manners and respect are a two-way street. If you want to be called mr Grimes, address all the scouts the same way.

Mr Jones, mr Smith, you know things like that. I would also have the grace never to correct anyone on a matter of manners, because that to me is unmanorly. I mean, I would just model the manners that you expect. If you model the behavior in the manners that you expect, your scouts will reply in kind.

And if you don't set yourself up as a constant judge in a pain about exactly how things ought to be in your mind, you will be modeling the gracious, good manners I think that you intend. In the end, I don't have a whole lot of preference about what my scouts call me. Some of them do use mr, some of them just use my first name.

It doesn't really matter to me, just so long as they don't call me late for supper, right, hey, if you have a question or a comment, you can get in touch. It's very simple to do and I'm going to tell you