Scoutmaster Podcast 4

And now for you, Scoutmaster.

There was a story in the news recently about an 8-year-old Cub Scout who shares the name of somebody who is on a TSA watch list. And the boy went to get on a commercial air flight and caused a little bit of stir amongst the transportation security people. And there was a little bit on the NPR show, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, about this particular incident. And, hey, it's Scout-related.

I thought it was funny. It really is. It's maddening because the TSA is spending all this time on this Cub Scout when Weebelos and Brownies are just gallivanting right through security. Terrible. They need to start profiling.

Anybody with a kerchief gets pulled off. I mean, it's the... Weebelos sounds like some call to arm. Weebelos wobble, but they never fall down. Weebelo, weebelo, weebelo. It sounds like some call to war.

So this is Clarke Green. Welcome to the Scoutmasters podcast. This is podcast number four. Hey!

Scoutmastership in seven minutes. Or less. Hey, everybody. How you doing? This came into the email inbox this week from Mark Bowie, Scoutmaster of Troop 531 in Orange, California.

He says, Hello, Clark. I enjoy your thoughtful blogs and podcasts. Well, thank you, Mark. And I'm interested to learn about your views on Merit Badge Days. Now, what I'm understanding is Merit Badge Day is kind of like a Merit Badge College or any kind of an event where multiple merit badges are offered with counselors attached. I know our local museum near us offers two or three merit badges a couple, three days a year. And Scouts can come in, and as a group, they can work their way through the Merit Badge.

He says, Your podcast item about Baden Powell's view on badge hunters versus badge earners was timely. And we have recently been having a debate in our troop about Merit Badge Days. One side says that the primary purpose is to raise money for the hosting troop.

And I don't really know how that works, but I'll accept the fact that somewhere out there a troop is hosting a Merit Badge Day and they might be doing it as a fundraiser. And not to ensure quality instruction for the boys and that they're only a shortcut on Merit Badge completion.

Others say that in today's busy schedule, it's too hard to find a Merit Badge counselor and schedule meetings with them to review progress. And that Merit Badge Days are the only practical way outside of summer camp to complete Merit Badges. What do you think? Well, I'm going to stand directly in the middle.

Because I agree. I agree with both sides to a certain extent. So let me explain myself. First of all, Merit Badges, there's a very simple system. And there's very simple rules about who gets involved where.

The boy brings you a blank blue card, Mr. Scoutmaster. He says, I am going to do a camping Merit Badge. And I would ask, who is your counselor? And I would say, is he a certified counselor? And if I needed to check up on that, I would use what resources I needed to make sure that this was a registered Merit Badge counselor.

And I would possibly review with the boy the youth protection specifications around Merit Badges. There are no one-on-one meetings with adults. In other words, bring a scout with you or there needs to be a second adult present. And then I would pat him on his head and send him on his happy way.

Several days, weeks, months later, he will bring me a completed blue card. I will tell him to take it to the advancement chairman or the troop scribe.

And then the troop scribe or the advancement chairman will hand me the blue card to sign at one point. And I will hand the Scout a Merit Badge at our earliest convenience and shake his hand and congratulate him for a job well done. Now, nowhere in there, nowhere in that very simple process, does the Scoutmaster interfere with who the counselor is, if it's a registered Merit Badge counselor, the rigor of the study of the Merit Badge, or the quality of the instruction of the Merit Badge, or the quality of work that a Scout does with the Merit Badge. I see only blue cards.

I see happy Scouts. I hand out Merit Badges. If, for some reason, I was to become concerned about the instruction of a given Merit Badge, or I was to become concerned that, you know, somebody was just giving Merit Badges away, which is a concern that's often expressed, but in 25 years I have never, ever seen anybody giving Merit Badges away, then I would take that concern to the people who are certifying Merit Badge counselors. Because it is not the Scout's fault if the Merit Badge counselor is not doing his job. It's the Merit Badge counselor's fault.

Who certifies Merit Badge counselors? Well, your Council Advancement Committee does, and your District Advancement Committee, and that would be the person I would take the concerns to. If you really think, if people are really thinking that these Merit Badge days, as you call them, are just shortcuts and take it to the next level and ask what kind of quality control is being done for the counselors that are operating there and things like that. Otherwise, keep your nose out and let the Scouts go and do and achieve.

A Merit Badge is not a certificate of completion of a course of rigorous study, I've got to tell you. A Scout with a Life Saving Merit Badge is not a qualified Lifesaver, nor is a Scout with a First Aid Merit Badge an EMT. Those kind of certifications require far more rigorous study.

First Aid Merit Badge and a Life Saving Merit Badge are valuable, and they're a valuable set of skills. But we would never depend on them as a sole indication of somebody's skill level, maturity, and their ability to handle a situation that a Life Guard or an EMT would handle, would we? Now, I am going to differ with the others that say, in today's busy schedules, it's too hard to find a Merit Badge counselor and schedule meetings and things like that. Well, we have things like email.

I have done significant parts of Merit Badges that I counsel with email. My inner drill sergeant would like to see more rigor in study and more rigor in the instruction of Merit Badges, but understanding what Merit Badges represent, what they're supposed to represent, and how Scouts will have learned a little something about a given field of study or endeavor.

I'm quite satisfied with the way that the system works. I will have a little internal dialogue with the internal drill sergeant, and I will say, you know, it's not that big a deal. Baden Powell said something about the jolity of Scouting.

Jolity is not a word that you hear a whole lot, but, you know, Baden Powell was born in 1857, so let's cut him a break. That indicates to me a certain amount of lightness and fun and intensity and excitement surrounding the work of Scouting.

I wouldn't be too upset about the Merit Badges days. I kind of agree. I'm a little suspicious of the whole thing. I'm suspicious of, you know, 30 guys and a 16-year-old counselor trying to complete swimming Merit Badget camp. Just how rigorous and complete can the instruction be in that kind of a situation? But it's been going on for years, and, you know, I'm satisfied that the guys have gotten out of it what they need to get out of it. These are not my badges to protect. They're not my standards to protect. I have yet to embroider, hand-embroider a Merit Badge and hand it out at a court of honor.

We go and buy them from the Boy Scouts of America who own the Merit Badge and who own the program. And I will assent to the way that they're going to administer it, even though the inner drill sergeant may have some difficulties with it. So I hope that helps you, Mark. And if you need more clarification on that, do drop me a line.

This has to be the truth, folks, because there is no way anyone could make this up. So I've been a Scoutmaster long enough that my career stretches back to the Beavis and Butthead age.

If you don't know what I'm referring to when I speak of Beavis and Butthead, consider yourself lucky and move on. Thank you.

Beavis and Butthead were characters in a cartoon show. They were your quintessential teenage kind of dopey kids. And they had catchphrases and spoke in this kind of adolescent code. And I never really cared for them, personally. I mean, I see, you know, it was Mike Judge and the guys.

And they were, of course, very good writers and everything like that. But Beavis and Butthead, for one reason or another, just drove me crazy. Now, it's important to realize that it's the job of each succeeding generation to drive the older folks a little nutty, right?

You did it and I did it. So I'm not making a blanket condemnation of anybody here. But I had a couple of guys in the scout troop and God bless them. They were the biggest Beavis and Butthead fans you would ever want to be. And they assumed the characters of Beavis and Butthead.

And they just were pretty much 24-7. They did not break character. They spoke like them. They acted like them. And it just got so very tiresome to hear all little catchphrases and the attitude and things like that. Well, we struggled with that for a couple of years. And, you know, the worst thing you can do with something like that is draw attention to it by telling them to stop. You know, they have to live their own lives.

It wasn't improper, but it was just aggregating. But I'll tell you something. I found a secret and I found out how to make them stop forever and ever. We were on a backpacking trip. And these guys were doing the old Beavis and Butthead thing.

And I had a younger assistant scoutmaster along with me. And we were sitting there kind of, you know, saying, oh, they're at it again. They're doing these voices and they're using all the catchphrases.

You know, I'm pretty sick of this. And for whatever reason, we just decided to start to adopt the Beavis and Butthead attitude and the catchphrases and the sayings ourselves. And it worked like a charm. Because as soon as myself and my assistant scoutmaster started using these catchphrases and adopting the attitude and everything like that, the scouts dropped it like a hot potato. Oh, I can remember very clearly the look of utter disgust and dismay that I received from the Beavis and Butthead adherents, the two of them, when we started using their holy phrases and attitude and the tone of voice.

It's a good way to stop things like that. Just adopt it and say that it's the coolest thing you ever heard. And the boys will drop it and never go back. Never, ever. And they didn't. For the entire time they were in the truth, they never went back and did the Beavis and Butthead thing.

My father was a wandering man. And it's not a good thing. I'm going to walk around, so long I can. And I'm going to walk around. All the way. All the way. All the way.

All the way. This is installment number four in our podcast feature, Instructional Methods for Scouts. I'll remind you one more time that you can get all of this information on a PDF at scoutmaster.typepad.com. One of the methods that I find pretty useful in instructing scouts is called the coach and pupil method. Some people will call this like each one teach one. I think we have now the edge method that's talked about in the way of instruction. But the coach and pupil method is basically something that I have lifted from the National Rifle Association because I served for several summers as the field sports director at our scout camp, which means I ran the rifle range and the shotgun range and was responsible for the fellow who was working on the archery range. And we used this coach and pupil method all the time because it was something that was taught to us in gaining the certification that we needed to run these rifle ranges.

And I found it really, really useful. So shooting a rifle or shooting a shotgun or shooting archery, there's about eight different things to think about for each shot. And what we would do with these is we would instruct all the scouts in them, in the eight different things as we demonstrated them. And then we would put them into pairs and say, okay, so now you're going to go ahead and one of you is going to be the coach and one of you is going to be the pupil.

And what's going to happen is the pupil is going to move through these eight different steps of getting off a good shot and the coach is going to watch. And the coach may have a merit badge book or, you know, a list. I think we pretty much had this on a poster up on the wall.

And it would be the coach's responsibility to make sure that the pupil took all eight steps and was mindful of them. And this was really, really useful. And then we would do that for two or three evolutions and then the coach and the pupil roles would change.

And so watching somebody and coaching them through a skill is incredibly helpful in learning the skill yourself. You know, at the first go-around, you have no idea what you're doing.

You know, the coach is not as effective as you will be when he's been the pupil and then he gets to be the coach again. So how do you use this in a scout troop? Well, for just about anything that is a manual skill.

For knots, using a compass, orienting a map, pitching a tent, building a fire. Just I can, you know, apply this to almost any skill that's taught in scouts. And a couple of, you know, other things like more amorphous things like memorizing the scout oath and law and being able to say them from memory, you know, or any set of facts, you know, like for wilderness survival or a merit badge or something like that.

This coach and pupil method really works well. So that's another excellent method to apply to scout instruction. One of the other ones that I use less frequently but I think is also very, very helpful is using Kim's game. Now, do you remember Rudyard Kipling's book, Kim? Maybe you didn't read it.

But Kim's the story of an orphan son of an Irish soldier in India. And he was trained for government intelligence work by showing him a tray of precious stones for a minute and then covering it up and asking him to name all the stones and what kind they were. And this is the way he developed his skills of observation and memory. And this was one of the things that was adapted out of Kipling and into scouts by Baden-Powell. And we call it Kim's game.

So now you know where it came from. And commonly the game's played with, you know, about anywhere from one to two dozen articles of different kinds. They're placed on a table. The table's covered with a cloth. The cloth is removed for about a minute while the players look on and try and remember all the articles underneath the cloth. The cloth is replaced and then usually the player or the group writes down what articles they remember and they're tested against what is found under the cloth. Now this is a really terrific instructional method. It really is. So let's say we are talking about the rank requirement where guys need to identify a number of plants. So we get either pictures or actual samples of the plants and we put them under the blanket and we show them to the guys for a minute and then they need to come back and tell us which ones they saw and they recognized. Okay? And then, you know, we can play this so many different ways. We can put the names on the pictures or next to the samples or we can just do the samples or pictures without names. We can use the scientific names of the samples. And this now becomes a game and it's not so much of a slogging kind of a thing.

And this really excites the guy's curiosity and interest. You can do this with so many different things. With the symbols on a topographic map. You can just draw them on a 3x5 card and put a number of 3x5 cards under the blanket.

And again, you can put the name on them or not have the name on them. You know, you can do this in progressing from easier ways of memorizing to more difficult ways of memorizing things.

But it does make an interesting game for the guys. Animal tracks, animal pictures, knots. First aid supplies. There's just an endless number of variations that you can use in this Kim's game.

Next time around will be the final installment in this series. Installment number 5. And we'll be talking about how to prepare for instruction and who should be instructing in your scout troop. That's right. It's time for a Scoutmaster's Minute.

A scout is trustworthy. A scout tells the truth. He's honest. He keeps his promises. He can be dependent upon. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, Trust men and they will be true to you.

Treat them greatly and they will show themselves great. Trustworthiness is a reciprocal kind of a virtue. A stable life hinges on unconditional trust in a lot of things. As a minor, as a bus schedule, or as significant as the daily path of the sun through the sky, we trust the predictability of things and events. A trustworthy person is dependable, but not merely predictable. We trust people who have consistent ethical judgment, whose actions spring from intellectual integrity.

Trustworthy people are less concerned with appearing to be honorable than actually being honorable and doing the honorable thing. They don't compromise ethics under pressure.

A trustworthy friend is a real treasure. They're both faithful and honest, and they seek respect before approval, and win confidence through sincerity, not flattery.

Trusting others tends to engender their trust, as Emerson said. When we're honest and dependable, it's much more likely that others are going to be the same.

And I think we see it a lot in scouts. We see the reciprocation of trust. When we trust the scouts, they trust us. That kind of trust circle is something that's hard to break, because a scout is trustworthy.