Scoutmaster Podcast 34

This is Clark, and I want to take a moment to thank the hundreds of scouters all over the world who sponsor the podcast by being ScoutmasterCG.com backers and patrons. You can join them by going to ScoutmasterCG.com and following the support or be a patron links at the top of the page.

And now it's to you, Scoutmaster.

What manner of man are you that can summon up fire without flint or tinder? I am an enchanter. By what name are you known? Hey, this is Clarke Green, and welcome to the Scoutmaster Podcast.

Hey, it's just me. This is Podcast number 34.

Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Tim the Enchanter. Now, this is Clarke Green. I want to reach out to somebody who is a frequent commenter on the blog, Larry Geiger. Larry, you know, you have a lot of great input, and I really appreciate it.

And I just wanted to mention that. Larry was kind of tickled with the interview I did last week with one of our den chiefs. He said, you know, the question I asked was, has being a den chief been aggravating?

And he said, Larry, you know, the answer that the den chief gave was, no, it really doesn't interfere with my schedule. And Larry said, yeah, I think he missed the point of the question, which was, you know, do you find a bunch of copies that would aggravate somebody with the patience of Job to be aggravating? Yeah, Larry, I think he probably missed the intent of the question, too.

But, hey, if you haven't heard that, go back and listen. It's an interesting little interview there. We've got a lot to do on this, the 34th edition of the Scoutmaster Podcast.

We're going to begin with Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less with the first of an indeterminate number of podcasts that are going to center on youth leadership and the patrol method. And the reason we're going to center on these, well, I'll talk about it again in a moment, but this is like the most common question, the most common request that I get. So we're going to be talking about that in Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less.

Then I have an answer to an email. Who gets to decide whether you wear neckerchiefs or not? Well, you're going to need to listen, and this will tell you exactly how that works.

Then we're going to wind up with a Scoutmasters minute. So there's a lot on the table, a lot to get done. I think we better get started, shall we?

Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less. I get a fair number of emails in response to the blog and in response to the podcast. I get comments on the blog and comments on the Facebook page. And one of the most common questions that is the subject of these comments or emails is how to transition towards boy leadership in a troop that's being led by the adults or how to implement or, you know, people commonly say jumpstart the patrol system. Now, let me give you a little background here. I served on our camp staff for about 12 years, and two of those were as the camp director and most of the rest were in senior positions on the camp staff. And I say this because during that time, I got to see literally hundreds of troops operate for a week. And I understand why these are such common questions, because most of the troops that I saw as a part of working on camp staff probably were not led by the youth, and most of them didn't really fully utilize the patrol method. So these are pretty common problems. And I want to take over the next several podcasts the opportunity to try and lay out as many answers to these difficulties as possible. And I'm going to begin by saying what we have to do is realize why scouting is different from all the other stuff that we do with our youth. It's different from sports teams. It's different from, you know, clubs and things like that. It's different from church groups. And how is it different? Well, I'm going to boil that down to three basic ways that scouting is different. The first way scouting is different is that scouts have all the leadership responsibility and authority.

Adults are there to guide and to mentor, but not to lead in the purest sense of the word. Adults don't dole out responsibilities and authority to scouts. The program keeps authority and responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the youth leadership.

Adults aren't there to present a program of activities to a bunch of boys. The scouts develop and present activities for themselves. The second way scouting is different is that it channels the instinctive way boys form groups. Boys form clubs and gangs and cliques and groups without prompting or direction from adults. They do this all the time. They have done this from time immemorial. And our founder, Baden Powell, recognized this and decided it could be a really positive thing. But the rest of the world doesn't really like it very much. You know, schooling, for the most part, tries to break up those natural groups because boys can use them for good and evil. And to tell you what, most of the time, they use them for not quite so good stuff. The third way scouting is different is that while it has goals and method, it relies on the natural curiosity of boys, their natural desire to do good and to be good and to make good and to be accepted. Boys discover these things best when they have the autonomy to do so rather than when they are compelled to do so. How do these three differences affect what we do?

Well, these differences are somewhat antithetical to the rest of the way the world works. Corporations and schools and teams and clubs and the like have some pretty structured hierarchical leadership that comes from the adults who organize the team or the corporation or the school or whatever. They have highly focused goals and tightly defined practices. All of this is really our default setting as human beings.

And it's the default setting of boys. You put a group of boys in a room with an adult and they will default to the leadership of the adult. They'll sit and listen and be marginally cooperative because that's what they have been conditioned to do. I mean, they've been conditioned to do that in school. They've been conditioned to do that in home. And it's not totally negative. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing necessarily, but we have to realize that our mere presence has an effect on what boys do. It takes some real effort and time to overturn this default setting and develop the kind of mutual trust that's needed to make scouting work. So the first step in developing a scout-led troop with a strong patrol system is to educate adults.

Not scouts, but we need to educate adults. Now, I see this happen each year as new adults join along with their sons. Most of the time, they're coming from a position of leadership in Cub Scouts and they're used to doing the leading and setting the program and making the decision. It usually takes some time and experience for them to understand how patrols work and how a scout troop is led. I inevitably have to talk them through this as they often find it kind of difficult.

But in a year or so, they've got the idea. The first step then in educating adults is getting them to trust the scouting program. They can trust it without even understanding it because it takes some time to learn to understand it. When boys lead a troop or patrol, they do it imperfectly and haltingly and in small steps and it doesn't look right, mistakes are made, but they do it. Adults have to watch this evolution once or twice before they can really accept that it works.

So let's say you're a scoutmaster who's been at it for a few years or a new scoutmaster and you want to make a commitment to having a real, fully functional, scout-led patrol system troop. Well, you need to understand and trust the program and then let it go to work. And to understand the program, you have to approach it free of preconceived notions and just look at it for what it is. This is especially difficult if you've been a scoutmaster for a length of time and you're used to doing things a certain way. You have to lay all of your experience and your preconceptions aside and look at the program with fresh eyes. That's where we're going to begin next time around in talking about how to have strong youth leadership and how to implement the patrol system within your troop. Boy Scouts! Boy Scouts! Boy Scouts!

So here's a recent email I received. And this is from an anonymous scouter out there.

They say, my scouts saw on the BSA uniform grade sheet, that would be the uniform inspection form, I think, if we were looking for the exact proper term, that the wearing of neckerchiefs was a troop decision. Now, I understand this to mean that this is the scouts call. And I told them so, trying to support the boy-led troop thing. Well, my committee chair says that the boys must submit the recommendation to the committee for consideration of a change to the troop bylaws. I tried to explain that this was not something for the committee to consider or approve or vote on, but rather to acknowledge and incorporate into the bylaws. And the discussion of bylaws is another issue. But anyway, what are your thoughts? Okay. So this is what I replied. And let me digress for a moment. Surprise. I'm going to digress. But I've been down the bylaws road before, and I don't think they're a good idea. I know that's a big surprise to everybody. But if bylaws and other big, giant organizational documents and things like that were useful to advancing the spirit and the goals of scouting, we would hear about them in training, and they would be part of our literature. There would be examples of good bylaws to have and things like that.

To my knowledge, we don't hear about them in training, and they're not in the literature. And to me, there's enough said. It's not something that we need, and it's something that tends to cause more problems than it solves. Here's chapter and verse on the neckerchief issue, and this is from the BSA Uniform and Insignia Guide. And this is easy to find at www.scouting.org. Look for the BSA Uniform and Insignia Guide, and you'll find that this is what it says. Boy Scout neckerchiefs are optional. The troop decides by vote, and all the members abide by the decision. That's from the guide, verbatim.

Here's another statement that you'll find in the Uniform and Insignia Guide. It says, the following pages contain our uniform policy as taken from the rules and regulations of the Boy Scouts of America. Neither of the rules and regulations of the Boy Scouts of America, the policy, nor the program applications may be added to or changed in any way, in any way, unless approved by the National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America through its Program Group Committee. These two statements obviously are not modified by troop bylaws or procedures or traditions. As your Scouts have discovered, they get to choose whether or not they want to wear neckerchiefs by voting on the question. And if the committee chair in this case wants to follow the rules, there they are. Things kind of go off the rails in Scouting when adults misunderstand the nature of authority in Scouting. And adults are only present in Scouting to offer their assistance to the Scouts in leading themselves, not to be their leaders. Now, I forgot exactly where I got this from, but if you look at the position badges in Scouting, which badges say leader? Not the Scoutmaster badge, not the Assistant Scoutmaster, not the committee.

No. All the badges of office that are given to Scouts are the ones that say leader on them. Senior Patrol Leader, Assistant Senior Patrol Leader, Patrol Leader. So that should be a hint. The authority in Scouting is not something that is given totally to the adults to dole out to Scouts at their discretion. The program puts the authority in Scouting right in the hands of your youth leaders. And that's where we need to keep it.

So there's your answer, and I hope that was helpful. Have you ever wandered lonely through the woods? And everything that feels just as it should You've bought of a life that you've bought of something good If you've ever wandered lonely through the woods If you've ever wandered lonely through the woods

That's right, it's time for a Scoutmaster's Minute I'm on my hands As we assembled for our Vespers observance one evening on a campout around our campfire I asked everyone to bring a stick with them Just a small stick Once they were seated, we gathered all the sticks into the bundle And I held them as I stood in front of the fire None of the sticks tried to jump out of the bundle None of the other sticks tried to shove the others out of the way They just made a bundle without complaining And I said this to the scouts And I said, when there's a job to be done We need to get at it without complaining We're together as a troop or a patrol Everybody is important No one is excluded I asked the senior patrol leader to pick a stick out of the bundle And see if he could break it into two And he managed to do this pretty easily Then I handed him the whole bundle And I asked him to break all the sticks at once And try as he could It was impossible A single stick's easy to break But a bundle of sticks can't be broken We're strong when we keep together We can stand up to greater challenges And bear more difficulties as a troop or a patrol Than as individuals The senior patrol leader then chose a stick And I asked him to bend it Some sticks bend Some sticks break Learning to adapt our skills in changing circumstances And tempering our strength with flexibility Makes us valuable members of our troop and patrol And then I took the bundle of sticks And laid them on the fire Warmth, support, and encouragement Come from working together Just as these sticks bring light and heat and cheer to the fire Once the sticks are burning I recovered one And laid it apart on the ground On our own The spark of intensity dims I said as the stick started to go out We need the support and encouragement of our troop and patrol To maintain our enthusiasm So let's spell the word sticks And think about what each letter can represent S means supporting each other Sustains our spirit T means together we can take on any task I means intensity increases when everyone is included C means combined courage combats challenges And K means keep flexible in changing circumstances And S is for stay at it And always remember To stick together