Scoutmaster Podcast 47

And now for you, Scoutmaster. So listen, I've been doing a little research and I think Santa Claus might be a Scoutmaster. He has a beard. A lot of Scoutmasters have beards. He always wears the same thing.

I mean, when do you not see him in the same clothes? He drives this old beat-up vehicle that's been around for years- I mean, he's had it for ages- And finally his clothes are all tarnished with ashes and soot.

You know, I think I might be on the side. Hey, this is podcast number 47..

Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green.

So the last podcast, number 46.. We talked about the process of Scouting. Larry Geiger sent this in. He said: Great show, Just a process.

Well, it sounds so simple. Yeah, Yep, So simple. Scouts don't behave like a product. That's classic.

You'll know that it's working when a mom comes to you and says What happened to my little boy? He's been so mature and grown up since she started Scouting. Yeah, Yeah, That's. And I should say, if you get on the blog, take a look at Larry's comment there, especially if you're interested in Courts of Honor, because Larry has some good notes about that From Phil Clark. I anxiously await my drive home from work each Monday, as I know I'll be able to listen to your podcast on my long commute.

Thanks so much for all the time and efforts you put into the show. I use them in my own unit and share them with others. I plan on burning a bunch of shows to your CD and handing them out at my next roundtable.

Wow Well, Phil. Thank you. CDs at the roundtable, That's a good idea.

Might not be very popular after you've handed those out, but Oh well, I'm sure it'll work out for you. A couple of new reviews over on iTunes, and I just wanted to thank Jim and Jaluz for leaving reviews. Jim says that my jokes are not world-class comedy, and I'm glad he pointed that out, because the package on the jokes when I bought them had a label and it said world-class comedy, and I am returning them.

So in this podcast and Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less. What is Scoutmastership anyway? Yeah, A little talk about that. Then I've got an email question to answer and a post that went on the blog this week that got several good comments that I wanted to talk about.

So that's a lot to do. Let's get started, shall we?

Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less. You know whenever I type the word Scoutmastership into my computer, the spell checker underlines it in red.

It's just not a common term, is it Scoutmastership? My best guess is that it was probably coined by Baden-Powell in the title of his little booklet Aids to Scoutmastership. Dictionaries don't recognize that word, But Scoutmastership the word.

I like it because I think it embodies an important concept that differentiates the work of Scouting in general and Scoutmasters in particular from other forms of leadership and administration and management. You know we can find some inspiration and practical advice in the study of business management and you know leadership books and things like that, And we can certainly adapt a lot of those concepts into the unique practice of Scoutmastership. But, as we've talked about before, we're not responsible for the production of a product or the management of easily quantified numerical goals And we're not charged with administering a program or maintaining a set of standards.

I think Scoutmastership has elements of teaching and parenting and mentoring and leading and managing and administering. Yet it defies definition of any one of those single fields. The term Scoutmastership sets us apart and sets the role apart as a pretty unique endeavor. Scoutmasters mentor Scouts through a variety of experiences in such a way that they learn for themselves and they weave together all the various influences in their lives.

We're given a more general inspiration as Scoutmasters than a lot of specific directions, And purposefully so, because each one of us will have a slightly different way of carrying out the work. A great revelation for Scoutmasters is the discovery that there's no universally adaptable, step-by-step plan for scouting, but rather well-expressed yet potentially frustrating generalizations.

Here's an example: Is every Eagle Scout identical in character and deportment to every other Eagle Scout? Does every troop operate under a universal, specific method of administration?

Well, you can say yes, but you know everybody's going to handle it a little bit differently. Is every Scout equally talented?

Do they all share the same disposition and outlook? Well, there's a lot of common points, but every single one of them is different.

I think what might help understand this is something expressed by the diplomat Carl Schurz. He said: Ideals are like stars: You will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but, like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, You choose them as your guides and following them you reach your destiny.

This reminds me of a story of some years ago, when I was on the Chesapeake Bay and we were steering a replica of a 17th century ship, the Half Moon, the Henry Hudson ship, down from Wilmington, Delaware, down to Washington DC. Now, this ship didn't have a steering wheel, like most ships. It didn't have a helm, like you're familiar with seeing. It had this kind of devilish old, primitive device attached to the rudder called a whip stave, And the steersman stands in this little doghouse on the after deck with no view of the water at all.

I mean you really you can't see what's ahead of you, You can't see what's beside you And the directions have to be relayed by an officer conning the ship above the doghouse to the steersman who you know will be watching a compass and swings the whip stave around to adjust the course. It's not an easy system- You can tell why ships are not built today with whip staves- And it's not a system that lends itself to pinpoint accuracy. Staying on course in that ship was not really about following a line, It was occupying a position in a wide path. I mean ships don't respond quickly.

The con has to anticipate adjustments to course far ahead, accounting for currents and winds, and you know whatever is happening out there. A skilled mariner doesn't fight with the conditions that he finds. He learns to integrate them into the art of steering his ship. And scouting is a lot like that. It's a wide path with plenty of room for course correction and plenty of allowance for leeway.

Scoutmastership isn't the job so much as directing, as kind of coaxing things along, Not so much as arriving at a point but as traveling, achieving and getting there. It's not so much what we end up with as what we do. Scoutmastership integrates the influences of society and family and school and church to make decent human beings while they're in one of the most chaotic periods of their lives. Potentially We're not working towards goals, We're shaping destinies. Scout music, Scout music, Scout music, Scout music. Help me, Help me, Help me.

Grow them up for the BSA. Grow them up for the BSA. Three fingers salute. There ain't no doubt about it. I'm gonna jump up and scream and shout it, Looking good in my uniform, Cause, baby, I was born to be a scout. Cause baby, I was born to be a Here comes Scoutmaster.

Drive a job. The scout will be a little faster Step on the gas.

Are we there yet? I wanna build a bridge for my Eagle Project.

So I had this email from Phil. Phil says Our troop is only two years old and I'm the second Scoutmaster in as many years. Our senior patrol leader is a young star scout and is one of those who will do anything scouting just for the sake of it. He's a very driven young man but lacks the skills of a true leader and has not learned to really serve his troop. He's a bit on the bossy side and he doesn't like it when things don't go his way.

I went to my second patrol leader's council meeting the other night, Set up a Scoutmaster chair off to one side and so I could just observe the happenings of the patrol leader's council and offer some coaching from the sidelines without being disruptive. I did all the things you've talked about. I let the patrol leader's council problem solve and I quietly just sat there and took notes.

The problem is the troop is relatively new and the patrol leader's council, in my opinion, hasn't been planning programs that will keep scouts coming to meetings. Towards the end of the patrol leader's council I asked some leading questions and talked about meetings a little bit, and they talked about fun and well structured meetings that had a purpose, but then they proceeded to plan some really boring meetings that will not keep scouts coming around. They lack instruction and purpose or something exciting.

Now the patrol leader's council even admits that this is the case, but they're okay in settling for something that is easy and boring. What advice can you offer me on how to guide them into building a program that scouts won't be able to turn down for other activities?

Well, Phil, from what you're telling me, everything is actually going very well. The key elements for a successful troop are in place. You have a motivated youth leadership and adults have an appreciation for the process and respect the autonomy of the scouts in the troop.

So let's look at some of the concerns you express individually. You say the meetings lack instruction and purpose or something exciting. Borderman excitement are kind of both matters of perspective.

I think if I had to sit through my troop meetings as a scout I would be pretty bored. But I'm no longer a teenager And the things that I think are really fascinating and interesting and engaging they would bore most of my scouts to tears. Sometimes boys, they're not all that creative in our eyes. They tend to do what the last guy did. Every once in a while someone will come up with a hot idea, but boys like routine and familiarity to a greater extent than we think. I try to respond enthusiastically to the least little indication of initiative and working along.

But remember it's a trick of perspective. If you have 60% or more of your scouts showing up at meetings on a regular basis, you're doing probably a little bit better than most of us. I'd be concerned if you're seeing a big downturn in attendance over many, many weeks because you can't really look at, like the past three or four weeks. They're not enough of a trend and I'll tell you just from experience: three or four weeks there can be a series of competing events or convergences of unusual circumstances that keep boys away from meetings. I've seen lots of different reasons.

You show up at a meeting and you look around and there's a third of the troop is there, or a quarter of the troop is there and you think, oh my god, we've lost it and you find out that six guys are out because they were out of school, because there's some bug going around school, or there's a big football game or something is going on that they had a cross commitment to, and it's not necessarily time to ring the emergency bell and change everything around. So look at it over a long time and if you've got 60% or more showing up, you're doing real, real good. In my book you also say this: Phil, our senior patrol leader, is a young star scout and he's one of those who will do anything scouting for the sake of it.

Okay, so he's pretty motivated. You even say he's a very driven young man, but he lacks the skills of a true leader and he hasn't really learned to serve his troop. And you add that he's a bit on the bossy side and he doesn't like when things don't go their way.

Well, if he's a young star scout, you're describing a boy who's maybe 13 to 15 years old, and when you're describing your senior patrol leader, you're describing most boys who are 13 to 15 years old. Yeah, nothing special going on there. He'll get the idea. Watch for the slightest little indication that he's understood something and encourage him. Ask questions that you don't know the answer to, and this is important. If you're going to talk to your senior patrol leader and you're going to see if you can pull some information out of them, you're going to ask questions that you honestly don't know the answer.

To be honestly inquisitive, I catch myself using questions to coerce a given response sometimes, and that's that's not fair. So you want to check with him about things that you honestly don't know the answer to, and it might- might- give you a real in on what he's thinking and what he's doing and help you coach him along. There's a couple other things that are important. This is a pretty young troop. You say you're only two years old.

You're a new scoutmaster and there's already been a change of scoutmasters in this troop and you know, regardless of what the last guy did, he was the guy and now you're the new guy. And this is your second patrol leaders council meeting and I know you're anxious to do the right thing and you seem to be headed in the right direction.

So I'm going to encourage you to be a little more patient with yourself and your scouts and your troop. It takes months and years for some of these things to prove themselves to you and to your scouts.

You'll look back and see it was all worth it and you'll also see that it didn't happen quite as quickly as you would have liked and there were times when your data- with any of it would work at all. In the end, you got to trust the process even in the absence of evidence that it's succeeding. In short, you have to have faith in what you're doing.

Really, as soon as your youth leaders that you have right now begin to get experienced and mature and they show some real competence and understanding of the job, guess what's going to happen next? They're going to move on and it's going to start all over again. It's a great process and once you've been through it a couple of times, you'll have a lot of confidence and faith in what you're doing.

Be a little more patient and I think things are going to work out fine. Have you ever wandered lonely through the woods? Everything that feels just as it should. You're part of a life there. You're part of something good if you've ever wandered lonely through the woods. The founder of scouting, Baden Powell, once said this: scouting is a movement because it moves forward.

As soon as it stops moving, it becomes an organization and really isn't scouting. I think there's a relationship between the creative, visionary force and the great ideas behind scouting and the formal framework that facilitates their application, and sometimes it's not an easy relationship.

In scouting we have this vision, these ideas that define scouting, and then we have policies and procedures and an organizational framework to put this all together. We make a mistake if we look on the policies as being real restrictive and chafing and difficult, and we make we equally make a mistake if we look on the policies as being the be-all and end-all of scouting. I don't think that they're either. Every once in a while you run against a policy or procedure that you find maybe distasteful or difficult and unfortunately sometimes we in training overemphasize policy and procedure procedure.

We can't really comprehend the vision of scouting by just knowing policies. It's really the other way around.

We have to catch the vision for those policies and procedures to make any sense. We need an organization, we need definition, we need guidance, but we need a vision and inspiration of a movement to enliven those things.

Now, when this post hit Facebook, I got three very interesting comments. David said: people with scouting in their hearts use policy to support the scouting vision. People with scouting in their heads use policy to support their own vision. The first kind use it as an enabler or facilitator. The latter use it as an opportunity for control.

Well, that was very well put, David, very well put. Greg said this here here. I find some of the adults I encounter in scouting to be overly focused on the policies. That seems to be what they most enjoy about the program. I know we've all encountered them, but policies are not an end in themselves. Too many of us think that they are.

And finally, Timothy said, a lot of adults seem to forget it's boy scouts, not adult scouts. So let's stay with the vision. Let's keep with the vision and let the vision inform the policies and not another way, not the other way around.