Scoutmaster Podcast 366

And now it's the old Scoutmaster. This past weekend I headed up into the woods to see if I could get a good picture of a black bear, because this is the time of year where they're coming out of hibernation, they're beginning to move around a little bit.

So I drove up to one of the state forests and there at the side of the road was a sign that said bear left. So I went home because you know who wouldn't right.

Hey, this is podcast number 366.. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green and this is number six of our fundamental series. I had a couple people get in touch about our last podcast when we talked about the patrol system and the patrol method and contrasted those two terms, Talked about its place in scouting. I heard over on Facebook from Ryan Harris who said, yes, let's scouts run their patrols. However, getting to operate in patrols and not glom together is a big group is the real trick.

There's safety in numbers and they don't have to stick their neck out to actually lead. But this puts a strain on the senior patrol leader. Thoughts on how to break this cycle would be beneficial.

Well, I don't know, Ryan. I think if you observe what's going on. It's probably not a lack of Hutzpah and putting their neck out to lead.

I think that our scouts are pretty much used to that kind of bigger group concept. That's how most other things happen, and usually the senior patrol leader is a little more used to that, and so dealing with one big group of scouts is a much more efficient way of getting things done rather than trying to do it through patrol leaders.

And remember, you know, when you're that age you're kind of an efficiency expert. But I have played a little game with my youth leadership before: challenge them not to talk above a conversational tone.

So no shouting, you know, no yelling or anything like that. And frankly, if you're gonna work with a group of 20 to 40 and direct people, you're gonna be raising your voice.

So this makes them think twice. And then the senior patrol leader sees the wisdom of talking to patrol leaders rather than going around the room and trying to talk to each individual scout or waiting for the group to quiet down.

And then the patrol leaders work with their patrols and this has worked and it's a bit of a challenge for them, but it also is a bit of a game and it kind of gets them to understand how the whole thing works, because, remember, there's not a whole lot of other places where they're going to be doing this, so it's an unfamiliar concept to them and, you know, honestly, it doesn't seem like it's something that they actually need to do, because why would you, if it's easier, to do it another way? So I'd observe a little bit. I talked to your senior patrol leader, I talked to your patrol leaders. Tell them about what you see and what you think might be some ideas for them to focus more on working together in patrols.

And one thing I have noticed is there are definitely more times now when the scouts seem to be more comfortable just operating in that big group than they do in separate patrols. I don't think that's necessarily bad.

I think it's not great if they're doing it all the time. So another hint would be kind of focusing on the times where they do get it right, where they are working as patrols and, you know, observing to see if that's happening on a regular basis or if it's a real problem or not. Over at ScoutmasterCGcom there was a great comment about last week's podcast from Rich Morley who said: I agree 100% with what you're saying about chaos, because in chaos there is opportunity, and perhaps the back of the don't fix that t-shirt you mentioned should say they'll figure it out. And I did mention that in the last podcast. If you caught it, I said that scouts should probably wear a big t-shirt that says don't fix that and putting they'll figure it out on the back. That's not such a bad idea.

Rich went on to say I got some good advice early on when first teaching martial arts, which was: don't be a thief, and this was a stunning thought to me. But the idea was that I was teaching too much and stealing the thrill of discovery from my students.

So teachers should only teach what's necessary to set the stage for students to learn and then let them figure it out themselves. And you'll know that you've succeeded when they come back with the excitement of what they have discovered, which is probably what you would have taught them anyway.

But now it's their own knowledge, not yours, and never take that thrill from them. Well, it's an excellent way to talk about the discovery process. That's really at the heart of scouting, really and really at the heart of the idea of building character, learning to do for yourself, to get out there and to discover things and to strive to understand them is a huge thing that scouting can do for our scouts. This is number two of three podcasts where we're tackling some of the big major puzzle pieces of of the scouting game. Last week, as I said, we talked about patrols. This week we're talking about advancement and next week we'll talk about the development of youth leadership.

My idea in these podcasts is to talk in very broad terms about big ideas and not necessarily in specific little bits of advice or how to this subject- advancement- has been particularly challenging in that wise, because it's all too easy to talk about how to do it rather than why we're doing it. But I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

I I think. I think this will be helpful. I hope it is, and I would love to hear from you. Email me, Clark at scoutmastercgcom. It's C-L-A-R-K-E at scoutmastercgcom. Let me know what you think.

And hey, let's get started, shall we?

Today we're going to be talking about the place of advancement in the in scouting, and we've been in our foundational series talking about scouting as a game. We've talked about our role, we've talked about our scouts, we've talked about playing the game and we've talked about the patrol system and the patrol method and the difference between the two, and today we're going to tackle what is a really potentially confusing thing. That is actually very, very simple. If you've been around for a little while and you've been through some training events, you've heard a lot of conflicting things about advancement.

If I look back over my early years of being a scoutmaster, I was focused on the idea that the more badges, the better, so we chased after that. We did a lot of very rigorous instruction, we did a lot of practice and you know, inevitably I was let down by the way my scouts performed, because they weren't performing to the standard that I had in my mind that they ought to perform to.

So we went through this whole period of being frustrated with that and then really wanted to make sure that they passed these requirements and they really knew their stuff, because you would do a skill or something like that and then you would go back in six months or a year and you would get an older scout who was a- you know, a star or a life scout, a pretty high rank, and you would find out that they had no idea how to do some of the things that they had once learned and that would set off alarm bells and you would go out, or we're just not doing a very good job of this, and this sets up this strange cycle: you either feel that the scouts are lazy and incompetent, or that they don't care, or you feel that you're just a poor instructor or there's something fundamentally wrong with the program that you're presenting, or both, and then you go about trying to figure out how to fix that. While that was my experience, I have found that it's not a very uncommon experience that scouts get really frustrated by this. They think they need a certain standard of performance that they need to hold every scout to, they need to be very rigorous about it, and this makes them either subtly or just totally outright aggressive towards their scouts.

It sets up this very weird dynamic and it never really comes out very well, because our scouts really don't need taskmasters and teachers. They need people who are focused on the actual goal of the scouting program. You've heard it off repeated during these podcasts: it is the development of character in the individual scout, by exposing them to opportunities which they can put the ideals of the scout oath and law into practice.

So where i've ended up after 35 years of being a scouter, that advancement for the idea of developing a set of skills and competencies and a level of performance in scouts is not important. It's not what you think it is. Advancement is a tool. Badges are indicators. They're not results. They just might indicate something.

Now, if the idea is, is that you feel strongly that you want scouts to perform to a certain level, that you want them to really know their skills- i mean, how many times have you heard that? Right, we, our scouts, really know what they're doing, because we're tough about it. We make sure that they know what we're doing.

We have rigorous instruction and boards of review. We don't sign requirements off unless they can perform at a very excellent level like trained seals.

So this chorus starts up, and one of the underlying themes in this little soap opera that scouts go through is those guys across town. Boy, they will just sign off anything in the, and becoming an eagle scout over in that troop is worthless because they don't make sure their scouts understand the skills. And it's all this stuff that goes back and forth and back and forth. It's incredibly tiresome, it drains all the energy out of the room and it reduces scouting to this zero sum game that has absolutely no resemblance to what it was actually intended to do way back when.

30 some years ago, when i was a new Scoutmaster, i took a course called Scoutmaster fundamentals- i believe that's what it was called. All that's changed now.

The way the training is done is changed now, but i was in this course. I got a xerox of a chapter of baton pal's book aids to Scoutmaster ship.

I will have a link in the podcast notes so you can find aids to Scoutmaster ship at scoutmastercgcom and what you do is you want to find the section called proficiency badges. I got that during this training. It wasn't an official part of the training, it was just a resource that somebody shared and i read it and it planted a seed that took a long time to grow, but it untied this gordian knot of advancement and helped me understand exactly what i ought to be doing and the place of advancement in scouting, and i'm going to read some of it to you now.

Now i should explain that proficiency badges are known in the united states as merit badges, but i think it's not too far a stretch to replace the word badges in baton pal's writing here with the word advancement, and it makes a lot of sense. Quote: the badges are merely intended as an encouragement to a boy to take up a hobby or occupation and to 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 of the craft he is tested in. If, once we make scouting into a formal scheme of serious instruction inefficiency, we miss the whole point and value of scout training and we trench the work of schools without the trained experts for carrying it out.

We want all of our boys to get along through cheery self-development from within and not through the imposition of formal instruction from without. But the object of the badge system in scouting 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.

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 outdistance and so rendered hopeless in the race of life. Baiting pal is very dramatic. It is for this reason that the standard of proficiency is purposefully left undefined. Our standard for badge earning is not the attainment of a certain level of quality of knowledge or skill, but the amount of effort the boy has put into acquiring such knowledge or skill. The examination for badges is not competitive, but just a test for the individual. The Scoutmaster and the examiner must therefore work in close harmony, judging each individual case on its merits and discriminating where to be generous and where to tighten up.

Some are inclined to insist that their scout should be first rate before they can get a badge. That is very right in theory. You get a few boys pretty proficient in this way, but our object is to get all the boys interested at the same time. We 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 description, keeping the main aim in view. There is always a danger of badge hunting supplanting badge earning.

Our aim is to make boys into smiling, sensible, self-effacing, hardworking citizens instead of showy, self-indulgent boys. The Scoutmaster must be on the alert to check badge hunting and to realize which is the badge hunter and which is the keen and earnest worker. Thus the success of the badge system depends very largely on the Scoutmaster himself and his individual handling of it.

So there's a lot to unpack there. But this is a very simple message. And, as i said, while baton pal is writing specifically about proficiency badges, you can apply this to advancement in general. But let's just unpack a couple of the things that baton pal says here. Advancement is merely intended as an encouragement to take up a hobby or occupation and they're assigned to someone that that's exactly what a scout has done. They're not intended to signify that they're a master in what they've been tested in.

Not by any stretch of the imagination. This is the way popular culture and this is the way people assume.

You know that if you get a merit badge and something, you're an expert in it. Well, you're not. You've just explored the subject.

Maybe you've gotten really good at it, maybe you explored it? Meh, i really didn't care about that all that much, but at least i learned something about it at. Baton pal then goes on to say: if we make scouting into a formal scheme of serious instruction and efficiency, we miss the whole point and value of scout training. And we try and reinvent schools without being trained teachers.

The point is is we want all the scouts to get along through what he calls cheery self-development from within and not through the imposition of formal instruction from without. And then he says the the whole advancement thing in scouting gives you an instrument or a tool to work with every scout where you find them, and if you apply this tool with understanding and sympathy, you are going to help all of your scouts make progress. The idea is not a certain standard, the idea is progress.

So scouts of a particularly athletic meant can do certain things really really well and scouts who are not really athletically inclined find them a lot more challenging. Scouts with a real good academic focus can do certain things really really well. Those who aren't really focused on academics very much, they don't do them very well.

So they all have a different starting point. They're not all even on a starting line and what we want in scouting is to see them progress forward. That's all. Not everybody is going to hit the finish line at the same time. Not everybody's going to make it to the finish line.

But if they've extended effort and they've progressed, we want to recognize that. In the end, what are we looking for? We're looking for development of character in the individual scout. We're not looking for a certain level of skill or performance. In the scouting program that i am most familiar with, the Boy Scouts of America- there's two basic streams of advancement. One is advancement in rank and one is merit badges.

Let's talk about advancement in rank for a moment. If you look at the rank requirements, these are all designed to develop character.

How do we do that? And so, thinking about our series here, our series on fundamentals and foundations, how do we do that?

How do we develop character? We do it by going camping in patrols.

So you need to learn some things to go camping and then you need to demonstrate that you've learned them. And, as we've previously said just a moment ago, you don't need to demonstrate that you've learned them at an absolute expert level. You need to progress in them.

So the point of advancement is the recognition of things that you've done in the course of being a scout. Unfortunately, what ends up happening in some instances is that we do that approach backwards. We aim at the indicator rather than actually doing what scouts do.

So instead of, hey, we're going camping. There's some skills involved in that that you'll need to learn. A lot of fun. You'll practice them while you're going. Then at some point there'll be an evaluation of them and you'll get credit for them towards a rank. But that's not the most important thing.

The most important thing is we're going camping, and let me paraphrase what bedan pal said: the object of advancement in scouting is to create opportunities for the formation of character and the development of skill. The only way that i can measure whether or not we are successful in the development of formation of character, in the development of skill, is to look at each individual scout on an individual basis, to see where they began and where they are now.

Are they progressing? Are they learning?

Are they developing character? Are we reaching the aim, as bedan pal said, to help scouts become smiling, sensible, self-effacing, hardworking citizens?

Are we using this set of tools that the scouting program provides us to those ends? And it really is just that simple.

Remember when we were talking about our scouts, the players of the game, and why they're involved in it. They're involved for a very simple reason: because they get to go camping with their friends.

So in order to go camping with their friends, they need to learn and apply a certain set of skills and knowledge, and then we have this advancement system that recognizes they've done so. If you make it more complicated than that, we risk missing the point of the whole exercise.

Over time there's built up this incredible matrix of policies and procedures and rules and assumptions and legends and things about advancement that tend to warp our perspective on it, and i will work within that matrix, in that system, but i do it with a level of dissatisfaction because i think we've gotten incredibly distracted by it. I can explain it this way perhaps: i'm a woodworker and i like working with hand tools and i would go to auctions and sales in search of really good old antique hand tools and was often frustrated by the fact that people who weren't actually using the tools but were collecting them, putting them on a shelf somewhere, would pay a whole lot more than i would be interested in paying for them. And i kind of feel like advancement is like that.

I want a simple set of tools that i can use effectively to build character in my scouts and you know, you go to access those tools and you're confronted with a 100 page manual and interpreting how to use these tools. It just indicates to me that perhaps it's time to dismantle some of these things into a simpler approach.

But i'm not going to be able to do that, you're not going to be able to do that, so we're going to work within this vast forest of policies and procedures. So what we need to do is to keep our eye on the ball, and if you do that, things become a lot simpler and our scouts are the beneficiaries of that simplification, in that kind of perspective.

So we need to talk about two more things, about advancement. I need to talk a little bit about merit badges, but before i do that, let's talk about the evaluation part of advancement.

So i've gone camping, i've learned the skills, i practice the skills. Now i'm going to be evaluated.

Well, how does that evaluation work? Well, cheery self-development from within.

Remember that's what bedan pal said, right? So we have the opportunity at every step along the way to advance towards the goal of cheery self-development from within.

Because when we evaluate a scout, what we want to do is call upon their own internalization of the ideals of the scout, oath and law, and we do this very simply by asking them to evaluate themselves. And this is a process that the first few times you go through it with an individual scout, they will be unfamiliar with it and they will probably think maybe it's some kind of a trick. Let me explain this very simple process.

If i am going to evaluate a scout's performance on a given rank requirement- let's say i should say parenthetically- it was my practice as a Scoutmaster to only do that if i absolutely had to, because what i focused on was was training the older scouts to evaluate these things, because when you do that now, you're playing the game on several different levels and you're creating more opportunities for development of character. And this is the way i told them to approach this.

I said the first thing you do is make sure that the scout reads the requirement to you. That way you have a shared understanding of exactly what you're talking about. Then break the requirement down into phrases and look for the verbs in those phrases, because that's what you're going to evaluate. For instance, something like: go on a camping trip with your patrol and help choose the campsite.

So the scout would read that and they would ask them what they think it means, and then i would ask them to judge themselves on whether they fulfilled the requirement or not and tell me whether or not i should sign it off. And sometimes it was as simple as that and they would say, yes, i would tell you to sign it off and i would say, well, from what you've explained to me, i agree, and i would go ahead and sign it off because you know it would only take a minute or two.

And then it would be other times where it would open up a broader discussion about exactly how the thing was done, and maybe do you think that it was actually how it ought to be done or do you think that you could do that better? And sometimes it would be: wow, you really did that. You really kind of went above and beyond from what you explained to me. That's pretty cool, but we would leave that conversation with either the requirement fulfilled or a plan on how to do it next. I would have called on the internal standard of the scout, based on the scout oath and law, to evaluate themselves, and that kind of self-awareness and self-evaluation is a very valuable piece of character development.

So if i could get an older scout to do that with a younger scout and do it skillfully, i had the game playing on a couple of different levels there, because then i could go and ask the older scout about how they did the evaluation and what they talked about and how things worked, and all of this would touch on the ideals of the scout oath and law. It would give them the opportunity to look inward at themselves, evaluate their skill set, and it was just one of my favorite things to do.

So that's a brief, uncomplicated overview of the evaluation process that you might find helpful. Then the last thing i wanted to say was about merit badges.

I commonly hear a lot about merit badges, about the quality of instruction, complaints about merit badge fairs and universities and events given at museums and and whether or not you know, as a responsible scouter, should i send them to these things because i don't know what's going on, i don't know if they've got instructed well, or you know, i had some scouts come back from one of these things and i could tell they hadn't really done the work required, and we went to summer camp and this happened and that happened with a merit badge, and on and on, and on, and on, and on and on, and i've got to tell you over the years i've developed this attitude about my scouts and merit badges: it's none of my business. Think about it this way. Think about your own children. Think about their circle of friends. I'm going to assume that you did not choose their friends for them but as a responsible parent, you're going to be paying attention to who those friends are and you're going to accept the fact that any number of concerns could arise about this and you might ask your child about those things. But as your child grows and matures, it increasingly becomes less and less of your business because hopefully, as a good parent, you form some character in a set of ideals that would help them vet the various influences of groups of friends and things and whether it's advisable to follow their friends into certain activities or things like that.

But you understand what i'm saying. That's the same approach i have with merit badges.

You want to do a merit badge? Here's what my job is. My job is to assure that you have a registered counselor and that registration assures me that they understand what they ought to be doing, that they understand youth protection. You go and do the merit badge. When you come back i'll ask you how it went, whether you enjoyed it or not, whether you thought they were a good counselor or not. 30 seconds to two minutes of a quick conversation, but as a responsible scouter.

My antenna will be up. I'll be looking for any indication that there was a problem somewhere. But basically it's none of my business. It's between you and your friends, it's between you and the merit badge counselor. I will be sensitive to signs of trouble or difficulty, but i'm not going to assume that it's going to be troublesome and difficult.

So when i say that what merit badges my scouts do and how they do them is really none of my business, that's what i mean because to my life it's one of the really great things about the merit badge program is the level of independence that scouts can exercise in pursuing them, completing them and working with counselors outside of the other adults that they normally associate with. And i think i'll keep it just that general, because if i start going into specifics, we could be here for a very, very long time and i'm always happy to hear from you if you have questions, concerns or comments about any advancement related subject.

The point i want to make in this particular podcast is the simplicity of advancement, that it is not to be all an end, all of scouting. It is simply a tool that we use to help our scouts towards, as baiden Powell said, cheery self-development from within. Please do get in touch with me, always like to hear from you, and you're going to find out exactly how that happens in just a moment.