Scoutmaster Podcast 44

And now, for you, Scoutmaster.

Maybe you heard the name before. Ruhl Amundsen, polar explorer. He led the first Arctic expedition to reach the South Pole between 1910 and 1912. He was also the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. So this guy spent a fair amount of time outdoors, camping. In pretty tough conditions, you would have to admit. This is what he had to say about adventure. He said, an adventure is merely a bit of bad planning brought to light by the test of trial. An adventure is merely a bit of bad planning. Camping when the weather is clear and sunny, that's great camping. It could be adventurous, but it's just great camping. Camping when the weather is... interesting. Now that's an adventure. Hey, this is podcast number 44.

Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clark Green. Last time around, we spent a lot of the podcasts addressing an email that I received about patrols and patrol leader elections. And I got a couple of comments this week on it. The first one comes from Larry Geiger, and he said, that was just spot on. The whole thing. Yes, yes, yes. Maybe we should think of our troops as more parliamentarian. In other words, the Scouts form and reform their government or whatever you want to call it as needed. I think that is how Baden-Powell would think of it. Also, it was great that you said, we want things like this to happen. That is so true. And when we're talking about things like that, what Larry is talking about is, you know, there's a problem, a difficulty, an inefficiency, a challenge. We want those things to happen. This attitude makes some folks very nervous, but it's exactly what we are trying to achieve. Larry, quote, disciple of Clark, unquote, Geiger. Oh, my. All right. Let's end the disciple thing. I also heard from Alan about the same subject. He said, in every troop I've been associated with, and that's six, I have always seen the practice of having a set term of office for troop youth leaders. This applied to the senior patrol leader who's voted in by the whole troop and to patrol leaders who are voted in by the patrol. The patrol leaders were considered troop leaders. Every six months to a year, these troops would hold an official election to elect those youth leaders. This is the standard of practice of every troop I've ever heard of, but you're saying that we should train our scouts on the patrol level to elect a new patrol leader whenever they want. So if they elect a guy and then just two weeks later feel disappointed in the decision, they just do it again. This brings to mind a few questions. Do we lay any ground rules or set up a process for this to happen? If we think in terms of a parliamentary system, your idea seems fine. But in our constitutional democracy, there is always an agreed upon process that is followed beforehand that sets the term of office, a candidate's qualifications, a chain of command, an official steps down, etc. I know we should coach our scouts through the patrol building process, but it's very hard when you haven't seen it modeled very much. Well, Alan, those are excellent thoughts. And I got to say, these comments and questions keep me on my toes. If, as I suggest, scouts can elect a patrol leader whenever they want, it doesn't immediately follow that they're going to do this impulsively every two weeks. Well, I mean, while this could happen in theory, it's not my experience that it happens in practice. Now, I'm not so much concerned that scouts are learning about types of government and governmental systems as they are about the underlying principles of the autonomy tempered by responsibility, and that's the heart of any democratic process. In the situation that was described to me, it was clear that this no-show patrol leader needed to either start carrying his weight or to be replaced. The question was how one replaces a patrol leader. My answer was that the patrol elects a new leader. So the next question follows. How does this happen? My answer was that the patrol can elect a leader at any time. This does not necessarily mean they do it cavalierly. There's a common false dichotomy, I think, when we're discussing youth leadership. We think that if we give them full responsibility and authority, we're just going to stand by and watch the whole thing descend into chaos. The other extreme is that we're going to make all the decisions and plans for them. We're going to be coaching and mentoring them. Our older scouts are going to be coaching and mentoring them. And that's a check on scouts making impulsive and poor decisions. I think we need to invest our scouts with autonomy to make decisions, but this comes with the expectation of responsibility. Responsibility, autonomy, and authority, they're all tied together. As you note, Allen building patrols is hard in the absence of a strong model, but we're not really aiming at an ideal as much as we are taking our scouts through a process. And that's one of the more important things that we can do as scout leaders. Well, in this podcast, in Scout Mastership in 7 Minutes or Less, we're going to talk about the concept of fun. That should be fun. And then we're going to answer another email. There's plenty to do, so let's get started, shall we? Scout Mastership in 7 Minutes or Less. You know, there's a part in the annual planning process where the scouts sit down in the patrol leaders council, and they discuss what they did in the last year, and then they're kind of hammering out what they're going to do in the upcoming year. And I hear this a lot. Well, we want it to be fun. I hear this repeated often by adult and youth leadership in Scouting. Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. As if scouts are going to leave in droves if what they're doing isn't fun. But what kind of fun are they really looking for? That's a pretty good question. I contend that boys are in Scouting not because they want more bread and circuses. And bread and circuses are, that's an old saying, and it's meant to mean benefits or entertainments intended to placate discontent or to distract attention. I don't think scouts want that. They want an honest challenge. They crave an honest challenge. Listen, scouts love to learn, but they don't like to be educated. They like hard work, but they don't like to be driven. And they like to achieve, but they really don't like this kind of regimentation that is implied by achievement sometimes. Well, what is an honest challenge? Obviously, it's not a canned experience leading to some predictable outcome. An honest challenge is kind of an open-ended idea. And part of the honest challenge means that failure or disappointment are possible. These aren't dangerous or capricious failures or disappointments. It's always safe and measured, but honest. Boys are always going to find fun in meeting an honest challenge. They aren't looking for another source of entertainment or another program of activities. They'll stay in scouts as long as the integrity of the challenge is maintained. If they sense that we're simply trying to entertain them, they're probably not going to stay alone long because, to tell you the truth, we're not all that entertaining. There's a lot better entertainment out there. So what exactly is an honest challenge? Well, the heart of it, the heart of it, guess what? No big surprise here, is leading your peers with real responsibility and real authority. That's a huge challenge. And there's many ways that you could be disappointed and there's many ways that you could fail. But boys can be very successful in doing that and they love that challenge. This is what keeps older boys involved in scouting. This is what is at the heart of the whole thing. This is not, you know, I mean, of course, going rappelling and, you know, doing all these fascinating outdoor activities and things like that. Of course, that's part of it. But the real heart of it is this honest challenge of leadership. Of course, there's always the mental, physical, spiritual challenge of, like, putting a pack on your back and hiking into the woods and spending a couple nights out there with only those things that you have in your backpack. And the skills that you have been taught or you have learned along the way. That's a great challenge. You know, getting into a canoe and paddling for a week through the wilderness. What a wonderful challenge. How about this? When you're 11, you have to plan a menu and go and buy food and then prepare it for your fellow scouts. I mean, that's a huge challenge for somebody who's 11 years old. Even just getting dropped off 20 yards from the road to set up a tent and go camping for the weekend. Big challenge. Those are the honest challenges that I'm talking about. Those are the things that we want to preserve. And those are the things that are at the heart of scouting. And keep a scout involved and engaged in it. And achieve the goals that we're looking for as scout leaders. making sure to see how important it is to play. On the stretch. We'll be right back. Write me a letter. Send it by mail. Email, that is, folks. And here's an answer to one of your emails. Well, here's a couple of emails that came in the past week. Here's one that says, I wanted to get your take on a problem I'm facing. I'm a Weebelos den leader, and we're looking towards bridging our boys into scouts next year. But I have one boy who's having a bit of a rough time. He's missed meetings, and I called his home to find out what's been happening, and there are some major upheavals in the family. He's begun acting out, often refusing to go to meetings and therefore missing them. His mother is at her wit's end on how to deal with his behavior, and was thinking of pulling him out of scouts. In talking to his mother, I extolled the benefits of scouting and how it might help them through this rough patch. My question is this. Am I doing a good thing by encouraging the boy to stay in scouting, or am I just going to create a headache for the scoutmaster of the troop if he decides to join? First of all, I appreciate you getting in touch. Secondly, you're certainly doing a good thing. And possibly you're creating a headache for a scoutmaster at the same time. I mean, you would be surprised how often good things are a bit of a headache for scoutmasters. I mean, we're scoutmasters because we want to help boys, and we need to accept them as they are and do whatever we can to see that their experience in scouting benefits them. And every boy has behavior issues of one kind or another during his years as a scout. Scouting can be a refuge for boys whose families are having difficulties. And what you describe isn't really all that unusual. Boys act out in many ways. Some very predictable ways, some less so. In the end, it's good that you care. And you're trying, and you're working with a family that's in a bit of a crisis. And do what you can. Often, there's not much that we can do. But I'm sure that whatever support you're able to lend them is appreciated. Here's another email. Clark, we have a troop of about 32 boys. At most events, campouts, meetings, community service, Eagle Projects, we have a turnout of about 40% or less, which is frustrating. Someone told me in the old days, a boy either played baseball or was a scout. Now, with all of the sports and outside activities and school requirements, the boys just don't seem to have the time to participate at a higher level. It's even difficult to get a call back from the senior patrol leader some weeks. They have little time to participate, let alone spend the time it takes to plan, communicate, and follow up on planning campouts and events. Have you any guidance or insight? Would you not advance a scout based on attendance and participation, even if they technically meet all of the other requirements? Thanks. Thanks. And that email came from David. David, I got to tell you, this is a pretty perennial complaint of just about anyone who has ever been a scoutmaster, starting it, you know, from 1910, when the Boy Scouts of America was founded, until the present day. We chartered a bus to take our scouts backpacking last weekend, and we took nine scouts out of 40. Talk about frustrating, right? After 26 years as a scoutmaster, I still haven't really figured out why scouts attend or don't attend a given outing. I don't buy the theory that in the old days things were much different because I was there in the old days, and I can tell you that they weren't. I still ask myself these questions. You know, did they decide to stay home because they don't like scouts? Did they have other things that they thought were more important or more fun? You know, what am I doing wrong? Well, here's my take about our low turnout on our backpacking trip. I would say about five or six of our scouts were somehow involved in football, and we just happened to choose one of those weekends when there was a lot of football going on. Ten had some kind of family commitment. Two were nursing an injury and just couldn't go, and another got sick the day that we were getting ready to leave. Two had some kind of other activity, you know, sports or something like that. And so if you add all that up, that accounts for 20 of my missing scouts. Add the nine that did attend, and that leaves 11 that I really can't explain, and I wouldn't expect to be able to. That's 11 left out of 40. If I had asked each of these 11 why they didn't go, I would probably find that five had some good reason, and six simply didn't want to go and found a reason not to. This was really an anomaly over past backpacking trips. I mean, we usually have a great turnout at these outings, like 20 to 30 scouts and lots of adults. But I don't think we've ever had 100%. I don't think we've ever had 100% at any outing. We also have a good showing on our other outings this fall, and I just kind of have to mark this one up as being a confluence of uncontrollable circumstances, and it led to a low turnout. Looking at it this way, you find that you don't have a big problem. You just have the same background level of frustration we all encounter from time to time. You know, you want to ask yourself these questions. Are my youth leaders really leading, or just following the plans I set up for them and attending the meetings I plan and present? Is the program a decision of the scouts? Do they have real patrols, and have a real patrol leaders council that's active and engaged in every aspect of leadership? I mean, those would be some key reasons that boys might not be participating at the level that you would expect them to. You note that your youth leaders aren't devoting a lot of time to leading, if I read things right. Now, if they aren't, it may be because somebody else is doing it for them. If no one else does the leading, then they really have to do it. That's a scary proposition, but sometimes we have to stop planning and leading for our youth leaders to be able to step up and take the reins. As for evaluating active tenure, we've got really very specific language that guides us, and it says this, and you'll find this in several different resources, but most notably the advancement guide for 2010. A scout is considered to be active in his unit if he's registered in his unit. He has not been dismissed for his unit for disciplinary reasons. He's engaged by his unit leadership on a regular basis, and that can mean a scoutmaster conference and that people inform them of upcoming unit activities through personal contact and emails and whatever. those are the things that define being active, and we are not to add or take away from that standard. So at a scoutmaster's conference, when it comes to that requirement of a rank that says be active in your troop and patrol, I ask the scout to go ahead and evaluate himself. I mean, how well do you think you've fulfilled that requirement? Do you think you've been active? And they are usually a little harder on themselves than I would be. David, I hope that helps, and do let me know, and if you want to email me with a question or a comment, I'm going to let you know how to do that. Just a minute.

Thanks for listening to another edition of the Scoutmaster Podcast. You can read the Scoutmaster blog at scoutmaster.typepad.com. You can follow us at Scoutmaster blog on Facebook and ScoutmasterCGCG on Twitter.

As you well know, you can subscribe to the Scoutmaster Podcast on iTunes, and when you do, feel free to leave a comment or a review or a rating. If you have a question or a comment, you can email me, ClarkGreen, at ClarkGreen at gmail.com. C-L-A-R-K-E G-R-E-E-N at gmail.com. The Scoutmaster blog and the Scoutmaster Podcast are not official publications of the Boy Scouts of America, nor are they endorsed or sponsored by the Boy Scouts of America. Oh, no. No, no, no. It's just me talking into a microphone, trying to lend a hand to Scout leaders, and perhaps have a bit of fun along the way.

Adventure. Adventure's a bit of bad planning. I'm going to remember that one. Yeah. I've had some adventures that I did not plan. Well, listen, before we go, we want to hear from the founder, Sir Robert Baden-Powell. Sir Robert? Good luck to you, and good camping. Why, thank you, Sir Robert. Until next time. Matt池 Paul's Bye. I'm going to remember that one hour and have a big… so none of the vibes Pew gefähr terror can hear and even throw guitar solo guitar solo