Scoutmaster Podcast 67

And now it's the old Scoutmaster. So we went camping last month- Springtime can be unpredictable. We lined up to stand a cabin down at our camp, Had a nice warm fire going and everything like that, But it just kept snowing, and snowing, and snowing. It was horrible outside. It was windy and cold, Snow blowing all over the place. All the scouts could do is just stand there and look through the window.

They did that all day and then kind of late in the afternoon I said to my assistant Scoutmaster. I said I wonder if we should let him in the cabin now. Hey, this is podcast number 67.

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

So from the Great White North, Tom Hawkeye Brewer writes in from the 3rd Orleans Beaver Colony in Ottawa, Canada. Honestly, we come up to Algonquin Park every summer and I love being up in Canada. I love the folks up there. Anyway, Tom wrote in and said this: I'm a second year beaver scout leader from Canada, That's ages five to seven And I have some experience with all of the questions that you asked last time and I wanted to answer one. I was a new leader and the person I was replacing wasn't excited about my new program, Year one. I ran the program my way and she was still involved and I tried to accept some of her feedback.

You know it went okay but I know I made a number of mistakes. The second year our numbers doubled and I was able to involve this leader to help in areas where I knew she was a lot more capable and that was crafts and working with the special needs scouts, And this has really improved our colony.

Now next year she's going to move on into our scout section after seven years in the beaver colony and if we continue to grow, next year that old leader who now is giving advice might be me. I hope I'll be able to counsel and direct where required and do it as graciously as the leader who's moving on. Thanks for the podcast. Even though my youth are way younger, many of the lessons still apply Well. Thanks for getting in touch, Tom. I know there's a number of people that listen to the podcast up there in Canada and who read the blog, and I'm always interested to hear from folks.

Tom is working with what would be Tiger and Wolf Cubs in the BSA, So that gives us a little bit of an idea of the group that they're working with and I'm happy to hear that a lot of us manage to apply across the program. Thanks again, Tom, for being in touch.

Now I'm catching up on emails and comments and messages and things like that. Well, I'm working away on the blog and the website.

So be patient with me. If I didn't get to your message this week, make sure to get to it next week. You can get in touch at ScoutmasterCG at Verizonnet.

That's the email And then the website in the blog is ScoutmasterCGcom. C-G Clarke Green, C-G.

There we go This time around at Scoutmaster's Ship in seven minutes or less. We're going to talk about a very simple yet effective way of training and mentoring youth leaders and then we're going to answer an email from the Golden Empire Council out there in Placerville, California, about service hours.

So that's enough for this podcast, I think, Do you? I'm glad you agree.

Let's get started, shall we? Scoutmaster's Ship in seven minutes or less.

So here's a picture that forms in my mind when I look at most of our attempts at youth leadership training. I see a claw machine.

You remember these? I know they're still around. They're there at the department store or the pizza parlor or the amusement park and you got to throw quarters in the darn thing.

And then they have this set of controls, that controls like a crane-like claw that goes in and catches the big prizes and you know, then you win a prize. You never win the 17-joule boulevard watch. More than likely you win the little plastic skeleton, And if you perfectly understand what I'm talking about, you're probably pretty old. But anyway, that's kind of the impression that I get when I watch us try and use formal training events and syllabuses and all that type of stuff to train youth leaders. Training at one remove from the actual situation- I mean where they're going to actually use the skills that they need- is about as effective as the controls on that claw machine. Most training tends to favor this kind of abstract explanation and remote analysis over direct action.

If we sit in a room and we look at videos and PowerPoint presentations and we listen to the Scoutmaster talk, there's not going to come a whole lot of that. A whole lot is not going to come out of that, Not anywhere near as much as actually being in the moment and having the responsibility of leadership and giving it a go.

You know you can't teach a child to ride a bike by showing them a video and a PowerPoint presentation or by just talking them through it. You know they have to sit on the bike and a dad runs along or mom runs along with a hand on the back of the bike, keeping them steady for a while.

Well, just steer that way a little bit. You know how it works.

Have you ever taught anybody to ride a bike or drive a car, which is a whole other animal? You know what I'm talking about.

There's just so much that can be done abstractly. Most of it is down to action. They've got to give it a try, Given the opportunity to go out and do really compelling, interesting things. Scouts train themselves in leadership. They don't need to be manipulated by the points of this and the 11 steps of that. They need to get out and give stuff a good, honest try.

That's what they're clamoring to do. That's why they joined Scouts. They didn't join Scouts to sit in a room, listen to you talk and watch another video. They want to do real stuff, And when they do real stuff, that's how they learn to lead. And this process is pretty simple. It's action, reflection and discovery.

Action, reflection and discovery. And it's the best way to get complex concepts understood Because it's very experiential.

So this is how it works. You act, you have a very basic knowledge of what you're doing. Hey, those guys need to line up.

So they go and they give that a try And they either succeed or they fail. And then you do a little bit of reflection on that.

Well, how did that go? Not real well. Nobody listened to me.

Well, why do you figure they didn't listen to you? I don't know, But maybe because I'm about the same age as they are and they don't appreciate things.

And then we have a period of discovery, which is all right. Well, if that didn't work real well for you, what are you going to try next time? Or maybe you should give this a shot.

Do you see what I'm saying? And a thousand little instances, a thousand little instances of mentoring through this action, reflection and discovery process, or what is going to make a real leader? There's some uncertainty involved in this, And we often talk about the fact that scout leaders. We don't like a lot of uncertainty, But that's what the process is. It's uncertain. It's a little more difficult than doing the training event, But the training event is going to result in about 3% of what this kind of active training is going to do.

So how does a newly minted patrol leader learn his job? I think it's basically the same way that you learn how to repel, If you've ever been repelling. What happens is there's a little discussion, It's very brief, 5 or 10 minutes, Safety points.

Here's how you put on the harness. Wear your helmet, don't turn upside down, you know, wear a pair of gloves. Then you climb up on the wall.

You know you're reminded of a couple of commands. You put on the edge and say: go for it, Go ahead, Start letting a little rope out, Go down There. You go, Try jumping out a little bit, Jump out right, And you might be petrified the whole time, but somebody's kind of mentoring you through it. But you're doing all the actions, You're the one who's making it happen And you get down to the bottom of the repelling board and you might think, wow, that was kind of fun, I'm going to try that again. I bet you I can do it better next time.

And so you automatically fall into this acting, reflecting and then discovering mode. I think it's pretty easy to understand.

We need to watch out as adults, that we observe all this from a respectful distance, because our presence changes any situation. For a scout leader, That's right. For a youth leader, it changes any situation they find themselves in.

And here's why Adults, you know, in the world of boys, in our culture at this moment, are the default leaders, no matter where they are. If it's sports, if it's school, you know scouts, whatever things they're occupied with at home or at church, If an adult's in the room, they're the default leader.

So our observation post has got to be a fair distance away. We need to be watching carefully And then we need to teach and to inculcate in each one of our leaders this process of action, reflection and discovery: Action, reflection and discovery- And it doesn't need to be called that and don't you dare turn it into a PowerPoint presentation for them. Just actually do this, Actually do this and they will pick it up. Actually do it with them and they will pick it up. None of the scouts in my troop has any idea of the action, reflection, discovery method, because it's just something that we do. Naturally, If I asked them to explain it, they wouldn't be able to explain it in those terms, But they would know.

Well, I try something and then we, you know, we sit down and we talk about it a little bit and we discover better ways to do it. And it doesn't take long before they catch on.

And now they're training themselves. Now they're making things happen themselves and they're also exercising this with other scouts.

So action, reflection, discovery, It works. It's a good way to train youth leaders And I challenge you to go ahead and put it to the test. Ooh, ooh, ooh. If you've ever wandered lonely through the world, Write me a letter, send it by name Email, that is folks.

And here's an answer to one of your emails. So there you are. You're at a troop meeting, Your things are going just fine.

A scout comes up to you and says: you know I need to do a service project for second class And you think you do. Oh right, Yeah, of course you do. You can't really remember the requirement verbatim.

So you take a look in his book and it says this: For requirement number five, it says: participate in an approved minimum of one hour service project. And he's asking you to tell him what the service project is and who approves it. And you might be caught a little flat-footed.

Now I heard from Tim Aiken, who's a Scoutmaster in troop 88 in the Golden Empire Council in Placerville, California And Tim wrote in asking a question about this. He said: just wondering if you could say a few words about service projects and service hours. As a Scoutmaster, I get to field all the questions about what qualifies and what doesn't. I apply a basic test. I mean, do the hours better for the community, or just the BSA, or just one family, et cetera.

Do you have any thoughts on this? By the way, I've enjoyed all of your 66 podcasts. Keep them coming.

Well, thanks, Tim. Thanks for being in touch, And that's a really good question because I think this is one that comes up really quite often.

So the service projects we're talking about are for second class and for star and for life rank And before we read the requirements, these requirements are really simple and open-ended for a very good reason: They have to be surmountable challenges for every scout, no matter where he lives in the country, no matter his family situation, no matter where he goes to school, whatever. So that's why these requirements are very simple and open-ended. When most of us encounter something like this in scouting- one of these really open-ended general statements- we start to look for definitions.

You know, the simple answer just doesn't seem right And we're left with two options: Either accept the simple answer or you come up with a set of definitions and rules that provide a complex and slightly more satisfying answer. Let's just accept the simple answer in this case.

So let's just read the requirements very, very briefly here, because they are very brief. Second class, requirement number five: participate in an approved minimum of one hour service project. And for star and life ranks, they're both requirement number four and they're both worded exactly the same, except for star says while a first class scout and life says while a star scout take part in service projects totaling at least six hours of work, These projects must be approved by your Scoutmaster. That's it, Very few words. The only other official advice or definition of either of those is on page 27 of the advancement committee guide, which you will find a link to a PDF version of said guide in the post that contains this podcast, And it says this: for star and life ranks, a scout must perform six hours of service to others. This may be done as an individual project or as a member of a patrol or a troop project.

Star and life service projects may be approved. For scouts assisting on Eagle service projects. The Scoutmaster approves the project before it is started. Same page, same book says this: For the second class rank, a scout must participate in a service project or projects approved by his Scoutmaster. The time of the service must be a minimum of one hour. This project prepares a scout for the more involved service projects he must perform for the star life and Eagle scout ranks.

So all three say something like participate in or take part in. That's simple. This is something the scout does as a participant. It doesn't say that he has to plan or lead these projects. He could, but that's not a requirement. All three mention service projects.

There's no real modification of the term to indicate it must be a certain type of project or who benefits from the project. If you got a hold of the advancement committee guidelines book and you read about the fact that if you didn't read carefully you might come away with the assumption that they have to participate in an Eagle project, Well, that's not so. It's just suggested that, hey, there's one possible way of fulfilling the requirement. And all three give a minimum number of hours that must be completed to qualify to have the requirement fulfilled. And all three require that the Scoutmaster approve of the project before they're started Now.

Why is that? Well, we don't want scouts participating in activities that are unsafe, you know, like roadside cleanups, with no safety consideration comes to mind, or inappropriate.

So we're asked to vet the project before they're started. I have several standing approvals for projects, Eagle projects, a guy participating in an Eagle project- my scouts know that that's good and that will fulfill the requirement for you. A service role in school or church is good too.

You know, maybe they're an altar server or an usher at church, Maybe they're a member of the student council at school or something like that. Or a family organized project. I will sign off on any of those and I have kind of a standing approval on those. There's no real reading between the lines or looking for modifying statements with these. They just don't exist.

So these service hours can be fulfilled in a wide variety of ways. The only real restriction to note is that we're not allowed to modify or take away from any advancement requirement, So we can't go in and make modifications to those.

We have to take them at face value. It's understood that the service being rendered benefits others. Those others could be the scouts' family, specific groups, specific individuals, organizations or the general public. The service may be rendered as a part of an organized project, like an Eagle project, or as part of a regular commitment, like, as I said, being an altar server or an usher at church or something the scout comes up with, like picking up trash around his neighborhood.

We want our scouts to serve all the time to benefit the community throughout their lives, And the very minimal service requirements for these ranks are a pretty good start. We want it to stay simple and rewarding and we don't want to overlay it with tons of rules and regulations, And that's why this requirement is a good open-ended requirement. When a scout asks me what he can do for a service project, I try and turn the question back on him and I ask him what he has in mind If he says that.

Well, how about if I take out the trash once a week at home? And I'll ask him: you know what's the difference between that and your mother making dinner every night?

Does your mother get service hours for making dinner every night? No, Well, why not?

Well, that's just something she does. Well, it's part of her responsibility to the family, right? Yes, The trash is a good service project. Oh, no, I see, I see.

So what would be a good service project, And you know we kind of poke around with questions like that until they arrive at a good conclusion. Maybe we can make some suggestions along the way.

But if you need to be able to, if your interest is being able to judge what is a qualifying project and what isn't, I think that's pretty simple. It's going to be something voluntarily, it's going to be something that he does not get enumerated for, It's not something, you know, that's part of a paid job or something like that.

You know, and as far as the direction of the service, there's no qualifying statements anywhere that I can find. So the direction of the service, if it seems appropriate to you, go for it.

We want Scouts to develop a habit that will become part of their lives, And I think any active Scout will have a lot of difficulty identifying and carrying out these very minimal service projects, And I think most of them will have several to choose from Now, before we stop. There are a number of urban legends about service projects that just seem to come up again and again, And they seem to stem from some of the rules for Eagle projects- And we're not talking about Eagle projects right now Because that's a separate conversation. But there are some rules around Eagle projects that seem to somehow. People kind of look at those and they assume that they apply to these other service projects And they don't. They don't. For instance, service projects for Eagle can't be directed at the Scout camp or the Scout property.

It can't directly benefit Scouting in that way. But there's no such stricture for the second-class Star in Life projects. It doesn't restrict you doing a workday at camp or something like that to fulfill the service project requirement. Eagle projects have to be planned and carried out by the Scout, But not for the other projects. That's not mentioned anywhere. There's this idea that it would be a good idea to have a Star in Life Scouts formally plan and carry out their six-hour service project to prepare them for the Eagle project.

You can't do that. It's not a good idea. But it's not a good idea because it's not a requirement and we don't add to or take away from any of the rank requirements. It's not allowed. The other myth that sometimes gets handed down is that all the service hours have to be dedicated to a single project, And that's not true either. They can be accumulated over participation in several projects.

I think we get the point. Sometimes there are things that not defined very well in Scouting.

The reason they're not defined that closely is because they need to be open-ended enough so Scouts all over the country, in all these different types of conditions, can meet them. They're also simple, because we want them to be simple. We don't want to put a lot of hoops in front of our Scouts to jump through.

We want them to go ahead and get the requirement taken care of. Especially with this one, I think the central thing, the central goal that we're trying to establish, is rendering real service to the community and also inculcating in our Scouts this habit of service to others.

So, Tim, I hope that helps And if you out there have any opinions or additions or disagreements about what you've just heard, make sure to get in touch.