Scoutmaster Podcast 347

I'm Chris Coppola and I'm a Scoutmaster with Troop 301 in Ontario, California. This edition of the Scoutmaster Podcast is sponsored by Backers Like Me.

And now for you, Scoutmaster, Here we are, We're camping, The Scouts are cooking dinner. One comes across to the campsite, to me with a bowl and a spoon. He says: here, taste this stew, Tell me what you think.

So I taste the stew and I say: you know, it's not bad. And he starts walking back to his patrol and I hear him saying: you know, you guys are such wimps. I told you that the bugs would just add flavor. Oh my

Well, this is podcast number 347.. Hey Well, welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look at the mailbag.

Why not? That's what I always say, Why not? Let's just take a look.

Well, look, there's mail in there. And the first message comes from our friend Frank Maynard, Who is the author behind bobwhiteblathercom. I will have a link to it in the podcast notes. Frank got in touch after last week's podcast and said: I am afraid you muffed another Ohio town pronunciation: M-E-D-I-N-A is pronounced Medina, not Medina.

Okay, Frank, Thanks Got it. That's one of my specialities. Folks Send me the name of any town and I will mispronounce it. But anyway, Frank goes on to say I enjoyed podcast 346 and your chat with the guys on the trail.

I immediately recognize the name of their newfound hiking buddy Bear, Eric Hepanomy, And I probably mispronounced that, But the way that spelled probably gets mispronounced just about all the time, So let's just call him Eric, Eric's from the next town over, and his brother, Sam- I'm assuming it was his brother- was the Chippewa Lodge, Ottawa chapter chief. If you talk with Bear again, pass along a virtual left-hand shake and a WWW from the mighty Ottawa Will do. Frank, I did actually get your message over to Bear and he says: hi. Craig got in touch to say I can't tell you how much I enjoy Scoutmaster CG. Your podcast program notes the entire experience. I try to relay every Scoutmaster podcast email to my Scoutmaster core with a couple of notes from me.

Well, thanks, Craig. It's always good to know that this is working. Jeff Bierman got in touch to say: great podcasts with your former Scouts on the Appalachian Trail. Their laughs are infectious and they sound like a couple of good guys to know.

Well, you got that right, Jeff. They really are. It would be great if you could follow them as long as possible. I'm going to do my best.

They are really sailing now and I learned they just crossed the Mason-Dixon line within the past 24 hours. They did the- whatever it is- four state challenge. They're having a great time. If you keep an eye on the ScoutmasterCGcom Facebook feed or the Twitter feed, you'll see every once in a while we post that we are having a live chat. These are typically Tuesday mornings at 8 am Eastern Standard Time and we'd love to have you come join us. It's just a group chat for a couple of hours.

You can stop in, say hello, You can ask questions. We talk about very serious things and things that aren't so serious at all.

But this past week we were joined for the first time by Travis Anderson, who's a Cubmaster for PAC-4412 and Assistant Scoutmaster for Troop 433 in North Dakota. Adam Roth, who's a Cubmaster for PAC-423, joined us, as did Ben Long, who's a Den Leader and also a new Assistant Scoutmaster from Rochester, New York. Tuesday mornings, 8 am Eastern Standard Time. Watch the Facebook feed, watch the Twitter feed. We'll announce the live chat. Come on over to scoutmastercgcom, sign in, say hi.

Before we go any further, I want to pause to thank all the folks who make this whole thing possible. There's two ways to do that. You can become a scoutmastercgcom backer or you can become a subscriber through Patreon.

I want to thank Dave Hudson and Tony Cersei, who added their names to the list of scoutmasterscgcom backers since our last podcast, and thanks to Oz Osbourne- love the music Oz- who became a Patreon subscriber since our last podcast. This is pretty easy to do. Go to scoutmastercgcom, look at the top menu over to the right. On just about any page You'll see links that will explain how to become a backer or how to become a patron.

Well, that's all the standard stuff that usually happens during this time of the podcast, And I have some email questions to answer. So let's get started.

Shall we Send it by name Email? That is, folks.

And here's an answer to one of your emails, The first email question I have. The sender is asked to remain anonymous, but they ask this question. Many past scoutmasters and community members want to be able to say they are part of our longstanding troop. Our membership coordinator registers them every year, but some are getting hard to track down and too old to remember to stay active on their youth protection training. We don't really see these people. It's simply something that they want to stay associated with the troop.

Is there a way to allow them to say they are associated with the BSA without us pulling our hair out every year, ensuring they have all the paperwork in order to re-register and keep their training current? Maybe they should just register with the district or the council? I'm familiar with this. We had the same kind of thing going on. We used to keep a couple dozen old scouts and volunteers on the books because they wanted to continue their association with our troop but with the institution of the youth protection training requirement and with the way that training factors into the annual journey to excellence evaluations, the workable. And the BSA does offer something called the Scouting Alumni Association and I'll have a link to that in the podcast notes And that seems to answer the need for people who want to say associated with scouting and you can even list the units that you were associated with and you can remain a scouting alumni.

So I hope that helps. Steven Smith got in touch with me. He's an assistant Scoutmaster and he wrote this: I'm an Eagle Scout and assistant Scoutmaster of a troop just celebrating our second year.

We have a relatively small group of young scouts, the oldest being 14.. Our scouts have come a long way, but without any older, experienced scouts it's hard to get them the program they need.

We have a great group of experienced scouts. We tend to act as teachers for our scouts. Lately we've noticed our scouts have a problem with teamwork. They all try to give each other orders and little gets done. You just noticed that lately. This coming month we're hoping to give them some kind of team building game or exercise each week in the hopes that in them failing one or two of these exercises, they'll have a light bulb moment and realize they have to work better together.

Any ideas on that and how we can better help them until they become older, more experienced scouts? Well, Steve, this sounds like as ideal a situation you can be in, as Annie And I don't really have any advice for program ideas and I know that's disappointing to people.

Sometimes They want me to tell them like some kind of key that will unlock the door to, you know, having older, experienced scouts or, you know, keeping scouts interested or something like that. Well, that key is not in some kind of magic program thing that you do. It's not something that you can present to them. It's not something that you can do for them.

It's different than that, and so this is my advice: Stop teaching, stop doing exercises, forget everything else and just do scouting. I think I want to repeat that: Stop teaching, stop doing exercises, stop doing program and just do scouting.

Why do I say that? Well, scouting is an iterative process. We repeat the same class of experiences over and over again. As our scouts go through them, They gain knowledge. In that knowledge, romance, growth, and this all goes in many directions and it's very deep, but the practice of it is very, very simple. Put yourself in your scouts shoes.

Why are they in scouts? If you ask them that question, I can just about 100 percent guarantee amongst their first answers will be because it's fun, and that's the depth of thought that they've given to the whole thing. I'm a scout because it's fun. If you tease that idea out a little bit, what you'll discover is that the fun part is going camping and hanging out with your buddies.

So, as I've said a number of times, boys are in scouts to go camping with their friends. That's it. They're not there to learn anything, They're not there to do exercises or anything like that. They think it's fun to go camping with their friends, hang out with their buddies. That's why they're there and, happily enough, Why they're there happens to coincide with why we're there, because we're going to make it possible for them to go camping and hang out with their buddies. The goal is going camping, that's all.

They aren't there to learn anything. They aren't there to do exercises. They aren't there to do some kind of a preset program.

All we have to do is make sure that we are going camping and we're doing it on a regular schedule, and all the other things are going to happen. The cognitive processes of scouting are going to happen because we're going camping. That is the program they need.

Steve, you said we can't give them the program they need because we don't have any older scouts. No, I don't think that's the case at all. You're giving them the program that they need by making sure they get to go camping and hang out with their buddies. That's the program they need.

We can't teach them anything. Now, stay with them. They can't teach them anything.

We can instruct and we can do things, but that's not what's teaching them. Our words and actions are not what's teaching them. It's the experiences of scouting that actually teach them the things, Not our words of instruction. I can talk until I'm blue in the face about how to set up a tent, but unless you set up a tent, the only understanding of it is going to be academic. I can tell you, I'm going to go camping from A to Z. I can over, explain every single thing in an academic way and you will have an academic understanding of it, but you'll learn nothing about it until you actually do it.

Let me go back over that ground one more time, because I think it might be a little confusing. Stop teaching, Stop doing exercises, Stop presenting a program and just go camping, because scouting is an iterative process. We keep iterating the same thing again. Hey, let's go camping, Let's hang out with our buddies. That's the process that foments the kind of development, the development of character, that we're looking for. Your actions trying to teach, Your actions trying to instruct- That's a fractional part of the learning process.

The experience, the iteration of experience, is what really brings results. So, to go camping and to hang out with your buddies, you got to know some stuff and, interestingly enough, that stuff corresponds to the requirements needed to advance as a scout.

How about that? So, no matter what their age. If you start working with your scouts in the idea of suggesting that their stuff, that they need to know to be able to go camping and hang out with their buddies, you'll find them working to figure out what stuff that is.

Do you understand what I'm saying? Rather than just sitting them down and say, turn to page 46 of your scout handbook, suggest that the scout handbook exists and it might have useful information in it when you go camping and see what happens. See if they don't open the book themselves and start looking around. Be specific: talk about starting a campfire.

Is there any information that you would need to start a campfire? Where do you think you could find it? The tough part of this is that, yes, there is instruction involved. Yes, there is program involved. There are even exercises involved. But you can't build a scouting on instruction and exercises and program.

Scouting is something different. Scouting is that experiential, iterative process.

Now, Steve, you mentioned that they are giving each other orders and arguing and each of them is headed in a different direction and if that's happening, you can be pretty certain they are happy boys doing what boys do, naturally. Now you can suggest some ideas about how they could solve some of those difficulties, but I wouldn't attack them as difficulties. You can give them some coaching and the latitude to do things for themselves. They will begin to work things out. Watch them from a respectful distance and try not to say too much. Pretend you are driving through one of those wild animal parks.

Keep the windows down and don't get out of the car. Just watch what happens and every once in a while you'll see a chance to share a useful tidbit of knowledge. But don't make a habit out of it. What I like to suggest is that you just ask questions that direct them to the discovery process of finding that knowledge for themselves.

Now, if you take up this observers post and you watch carefully, you'll see signs of leadership and skill and cooperation. They may be very small, but you'll see those signs, that little bit of initiative, that little bit of skill- that little- and build on the least little bit of evidence of what you want to see grow by mentioning it in a positive light. Because if you don't talk your head off and you're not always trying to explain things or instruct or put on some kind of a program or do exercises, when you speak the scouts will listen to you and when you mention someone of their actions directly in a positive light and you praise them for that, they are paying very close attention to that and they will begin to do the type of things that earns them that kind of praise and recognition over and over again in the same light. Don't spend a whole lot of time talking about things you don't want to see.

So the greatest skill a scouter can develop, to my mind, is learning to ask questions that make scouts think. Challenge yourself to make as few declarative statements as possible and ask as many questions as you like. Get them to discover what they need to know and how they ought to act.

Make them believe you've forgotten a lot of things, so they have to find out those things for themselves. Pretend you don't know anything about advancement or requirements. Pretend they don't even exist. Just go camping and have fun. Ignore things like organization charts and job descriptions and value initiative, cooperation and leadership. Scouting has an incredibly powerful natural energy when you let it do its work.

Unfortunately, we've created any number of organizational assumptions- instructors, based on the way 50 year old men think boys ought to be scouts. But given some latitude, boys know much better. They get it right right off the bat. Our job is mostly getting out of their way and letting them get with it. They know where you are. They'll ask questions if they need help.

In the meantime, you observe, you ask them questions and enjoy watching what happens. Steve got back to me and said that totally helps. We spend a lot of time camping and I've worked hard lately at letting the scouts forget about things. As a parent, it's hard not to fix things they forget about and let them fail a little, but we've been working on it. At times we really see how these scouts are going to do great things when we try to share our love of the program and spirit and the spirit of scouting with them.

Well, it sounds like you're on the right path. The final thing I'll mention on the subject is this: failure is not failure. Failure is data. Failure is learning. It's a good thing. It's a process of self discovery: how to do things for yourself, how to learn.

That's the most important part of the whole thing. That's the real spirit of what we're after. Scouting is an iterative process. Iterative processes encounter actions that are not fruitful.

Okay, rather than saying you know that's a failure, well, no, that iteration didn't work, so it's time to move on to the next one and try again. George cloud is the Scoutmaster troop 406 in nearby Royersford, Pennsylvania, and he got in touch to say this: I'm meeting with a life scout this afternoon to review his eagle project proposal and he hints or tips on what to look out for.

Well, George, the process of proposing an eagle project and getting that proposal approved is a little confusing and, I believe myself, overly complicated. If you're not familiar with the process, the first thing to do is to sit down with the project workbook and do it thoroughly and do your best to understand it. You'll probably make a couple mistakes the first few times through, but don't worry, it happens to most of us. The points I usually find most useful when I have this kind of discussion with a scout is to point out that a proposal is a proposal. It's not a fully developed plan. They're seeking approval of an idea, not necessarily a list of materials.

They should have an estimated idea of some materials and things like that, but they don't need a fully defined approach yet. What they want to do is to get the idea approved. That's why it's called a proposal. I counsel my scouts to imagine they're explaining that proposal to a young child and to assume that that child knows nothing.

So drawings and pictures are always more effective than words to my mind, especially when it comes to this sort of thing. So the more visual references they have to explain it, what their idea is, I believe the better. And the other piece of advice that I usually give life scouts working on their ego project proposal is the difference between a goal and a plan. I ask them, when they will be presenting their project to the troop committee, when they'll submit it to the district, to discuss those other things and encourage them to think in dates rather than hazy eventualities, because frankly, most of the scouts that I speak with want to put some of those dates off as long as possible.

So they just push them into the hazy future and I encourage them to try and nail it down to a date. Certain Steve Cottrell got in touch and said: I'm curious about the quarterly program. It sounds like a good idea.

Do you still hold an annual program planning conference with your patrol leaders council? Seems like having the year outlined is a good idea.

And if they're not setting all of the specific dates, well, Steve, yes, we do have an annual planning meeting. I don't know that I would call it a conference, but you know, I guess one man's conference is another man's meeting.

One thing we realized is that we have four cornerstone events, and they just happen to conveniently spread out into the quarters. In the fall quarter we have backpacking.

In the winter we have a father and son weekend. In the spring it's typically a canoe or a bike trip, and in the summer, of course, it's summer camp and our high adventure trips. And what we really do aim at in the annual planning meeting is getting the dates exact rather than having the program ideas exact. We already know what four of the program ideas are, but getting the dates seems to be a more important thing. We look at the calendar. We work around major holidays and school functions that we know of, and we aim to have the camping weekends on the same weekend each month.

This past year it was the third weekend of the month. This spread the outings and events apart so that there were sufficient time to prepare for them in between. We managed to do that. What I've learned over time is that there is no way to avoid every single major or minor conflict in our calendar. It seemed to be more valuable to us to be able to camping weekends on the same weekend every month, and that has paid off because people were more prepared for it. They didn't have to look at the calendar.

They knew that we were going camping the third weekend every month. The other note I would give you is that I have learned not to put a high premium on scouts coming up with ideas or worrying about them repeating ideas that they have enjoyed.

The point is, as I said earlier, getting out camping and not much else. That's the point. We're having an event. We're doing it once a month. It's camping. What the theme of that particular thing is is to me of secondary importance, and when it gets really down to where the rubber meets the road to the scouts, it's of secondary importance.

We have some idea of what will happen every month, but the real planning usually happens two or three months in advance of that particular trip. That's where we nail down more closely the exact activity that we're going to pursue while we're out camping.

So that was for pretty quick email questions this week. I have some more to answer. Next week I would love to answer yours. You can get in touch with me. It's fairly easy to do and I'll tell you how to make that happen in just a moment: