Scoutmaster Podcast 78

And now it's the old Scoutmaster. There was a little bit of an upset in one of the patrols the other night- The clam patrol. The clam patrol. They were kind of disappointed in one of the younger scouts. Yeah, they told me it was a little shellfish.

It was a little shellfish, Alrighty? Hey, this is podcast number 78..

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

It's summertime and I'm traveling, So I've got articles and podcasts and things lined up to publish automatically while I'm out on the road, But I won't be online all that much to moderate comments or reply to email. So keep in touch and I'll catch up when we get back home. In our last podcast we talked a little bit about the Scoutmaster's place in the merit badge process And we based that on the story of a scout who was apparently being a little bit less than honest about what he was doing to earn a merit badge. And Stephen Jensen wrote in with this comment that I appreciated I thought was an interesting take on this subject.

He said: here's what I would tell the scout. One of the phrases I really hate is: crime doesn't pay.

Why do I hate it? Well, the implication is that somehow the choice between crime and honesty is a matter of who ends up with the most stuff at the end. Being dishonest often does pay.

If I find a hundred dollars on the ground and keep it, now I have a hundred dollars. If I cheat on a test and I get an A, now I have a good grade.

If I cheat on a merit badge requirement to earn the badge, now I have the badge. The question is not who ends up with the most stuff at the end of the deal, right?

The question is not whether or not crime pays, because it does. The question is about the kind of people that we want to be and whether or not dishonesty is the way to earn things, Whether we want to earn things honestly.

So I appreciate the thoughts. Stephen, Appreciate you being in touch This time around. On the podcast in Scoutmaster Ship, in 7 Minutes or less, we're going to do our second part of Adults on Scout Camping Trips. That's based on a very popular post from Larry Geiger, one of my contributors at scoutmastercgcom.

Then we have a Scoutmaster's Minute about an old TV show. That's right.

Well, I think that's enough for this podcast. So let's get started, shall we? Scoutmaster's Ship in 7 Minutes or less.

This is the second part of our talking about what adults do on Scout Camping Trips. This was a very popular post authored by my friend and contributor, Larry Geiger, who's a Scoutmaster down there in Florida. He says that there are 10 or 12 points that he uses to identify what adults do as a part of a Scout camping trip.

We left off with number five last time, so we're going to pick it right up. Larry has a Sunday morning reflection when his troop is out camping. This is something that we do on Saturday evening. I know a lot of troops have this built into their schedule in one way or another, But anyway, during that reflection time Larry says: no adults speak unless or until the senior patrol leader directs them, including the Scoutmaster, As is my prerogative. I might close the reflection time, but not always. I'm going to expand on that just a little bit, because the idea of this youth-led troop that we talk about all the time and working the patrol method is also one of who's up in front, who's talking and who's doing things.

You can make a senior patrol leader into a kind of a puppet by standing close by and feeding him phrase after phrase that he's supposed to say. You can give him a written plan of the phrases and things that he's supposed to say, or you can let him come up with it on his own and then you can stand way, way in the back and just listen. It may be an uncomfortable feeling to begin with, but being uncomfortable is a part of our role as Scout leaders, being adults and scouting. I like what Larry has to say here.

Adults have a particular set of self-imposed restrictions, especially when the troop is gathered or patrols are gathered and there needs to be a message put out or something like that. Adults should really do their best just to stay quiet and to recognize, in being quiet, the authority of the Scouts to administer themselves.

So these are self-imposed restrictions, but they're good for a good, healthy troop. If a scout asks an adult a question on a camp out, the adult is instructed to send the scout to their patrol leader. If the patrol leader asks a question of an adult, then the adult is instructed to send the patrol leader to the senior patrol leader. If the senior patrol leader asks a question, then the adult is instructed to send him to the Scoutmaster.

So I think that there- I mean I know that most of you probably follow some kind of a protocol like that. You might call it a chain of command, You might call it something similar. I don't particularly like calling it a chain of command. It's more or less just being polite And it's also respecting where the real leadership is coming from.

So if a scout says when are we going to eat dinner, What do you say? That's right. You say: go ask your patrol leader. If a patrol leader says can we start making dinner, You go.

What do you say? You say, well, I think you need to ask the senior patrol leader.

If the senior patrol leader comes and says: can I tell the patrols that it's time for them to make dinner, Then you say: well, I think you need to talk to the Scoutmaster about that. And having no answers is often a good thing for adults to do.

Another self-imposed restriction, Even though you might know the answer: Oh yeah, well, dinner time is now. Yeah, didn't you hear?

Everybody is getting dinner right now as we speak. You know don't have the answers.

Have another question? We're going to talk about that particular subject in another part of this podcast. Number eight says: don't find reasons to gather the troop together on weekend campouts. Everything should revolve around the patrol And I really agree with that. That's a really good point.

You know, when there needs to be a general piece of knowledge, needs to be spread around, the easiest thing to do is to, you know, tell the senior patrol leader, get everybody together, we have an announcement to make and then make the announcement If it is, get out. Of.

You know, we got to get out of this field because there's a lightning storm coming. That's an appropriate time to do it. If it's just a general message about something that's going on or something like that, that can be disseminated to all the scouts through the patrol leaders, use the patrol leaders, Absolutely use the patrol leaders and just get into the habit of that is the way things happen And that will help an awful lot.

Adults on a camping trip: never, ever, you know, except in the case of an emergency, of a dire emergency, that is, you know, immediate threat to life and limb- do adults step in and say: get everybody together. I have something to tell you Outside of camping trips, adults who are participating in different things.

There are a couple of key concepts, a couple of things that Larry writes about that I want to share with you. Number one. As Baden Powell said, never do for a scout what he can do for himself.

Now, no adult leader will ever instruct a scout or a scout patrol if there's a competent boy leader available. Now, most adults aren't going to mind this too much because they really aren't teachers at heart. The problem comes when they want to jump in at the end of an instructional session and fill in what the boy leaders forgot. I've seen that happen a number of times.

You know a scout patrol leader, senior patrol or whoever will show a group of scouts a skill. Adults might be nearby, they may see this and they may decide: hey, you know what you missed this. Or when you are doing this, you want to think of these three things and things like that. Adults tend to over instruct And it's all out of being helpful and it's all out of being nice. But yeah, don't jump in and put your three cents in.

Boys don't instruct as well as we do. They don't, But that's fine. I've had a lot more practice at instructing and doing things than my best scout instructor has.

So we just let them go, let them do what they're going to do and then zip it, keep it shut and let things move on. So we want the scouts to move on from instructional sessions to other activities without the adults helping.

The Scoutmaster is responsible for the quality of instruction, but we need to be more interested in the scouts doing the instruction than the instruction being perfect. So long as scouts are getting instructions without you know losing limbs, before someone being poisoned, we should learn to leave well enough alone.

Number two: this is another thing. In preparing for camping trips, Scouts do their own shopping for food for camping trips, And this one is very hard to do.

I mean, we can do our best to tell parents to let scouts shop for food by themselves. You know, just drop them off at the supermarket and then let them call you or just stay out of their way.

It's very, very difficult, isn't it? Once the boys get the idea, they'll attempt to maintain their autonomy, but you've got to often help them out in the beginning.

I think the idea of letting them do their own shopping for things is also letting them do their own packing, And you know, once parents get the idea of this, they jump right on it because they see it as an opportunity to expand the autonomy of their boys, And that's usually a pretty welcome thing. So that's another good point.

Now, all of these things that we've talked about in this podcast and the last adults sometimes respond to those methods with a fair amount of skepticism or disbelief. So we need to have lots of reassuring stories.

We need to tell about scouts that succeeded because they learned to be self-sufficient, about scouts who solved their own problems and that no scout ever really starved to death on a weekend camp out And boy- yeah, I've heard that a number of times. Larry says I'm old now so I have lots and lots of stories right there with you. Brother, If you are younger, you can borrow our stories or make some up.

All right, so don't make up stories, but you can stretch them to make a point. And you know it really is true You have.

If you're listening to this podcast and you're a fairly new scout leader- a fairly new Scoutmaster, let's say- and you're really invested in this idea of youth autonomy and them running their program and doing things and the patrol method and all this great stuff that we talk about, You know, what I hear a lot of times is: wow, now I have to convince the other adults. Well, it takes time to get experience.

So you see how this works and then you are sure of it and then you can pass that assurance to other adults through the stories that Larry's talking about. You know well, yeah, I know it doesn't look like this is going to work at all.

But you know, let me tell you a story about when the senior patroller did thus and so and it didn't look like it was going to work. And they figured it out and they, you know, changed their strategy and then things did work and he went on to become, you know, a Nobel Peace Prize winner or something like that. That's yeah. Once you've seen the evolution of how this whole kind of adult scout relationship works, how the youth leadership thing works, a few times, man, you have a real confidence in it, and developing that confidence and being able to share that with other people is a big part of the puzzle for us.

The other thing is adults who want to be more involved with their sons while they're camping may feel a little short-changed by the way scouts do things. So Larry suggests that you could follow his idea of having a family camp out once a year, and the family is the broadest definition of family. During this camp out They get to go out for a weekend and they get to do everything wrong.

It's not really a, you know, it's not a patrol camp out, it's not a troop camp out, it's a family camp out with everybody there, And this kind of helps some of the dads and moms, you know, get the things worked out that they would rather do, like cooking and setting up camp and stuff like that for the boys, and that we keep them from doing. We have something similar.

We have something that's called a father and son weekend. It's called a father and son weekend because it's been around for enough years that you know it was strictly a father and son weekend at one point.

But we of course invite uncles and grandfathers and moms and aunts and whoever you know, whatever adult can come with a boy, And we have a big weekend where the adults get to play scout and that could be a good way of managing, kind of scratching that itch for a lot of parents. There is usually some kind of decisive event that gets people involved with scouting, where they become convinced about it. A lot of times it can be going on a camping trip like this. Larry relates a story of going on a backpacking trip with a dozen adults and a couple of them making a decision on that trip to become more involved in scouting.

And you know he says that we had two campsites, an adult and a scout campsite. We had two campfires gathered around their fire ring. At almost midnight They had a great time after hiking all day And the scouts put their fire out around 10 am or 10 pm and went to bed.

And he says I think sitting up around that campfire was a part of the experience that convinced four new adults to become more involved in scouting. So, just to you know, offer a couple of thoughts and conclusions about the subject.

We have a different role from scouts when we go camping. Our idea is not to make camping easier, not to make it, you know, enhance it and make it better. Our idea is to be there to observe and to assist every once in a while.

Our idea is not to be the center of attention and not to be the leaders, But you know, to watch from a reasonable remove, watch the scouts make things happen. And you know that is a pretty important thing to be able to share As a parent. That's a pretty important thing to be able to share with your son, Even though it might not be directly participatory.

It's something that you are witnessing, something that you are seeing, So I'd love to hear your ideas on the subject. Get in touch with me at scoutmastercgnet. That's the email, scoutmastercgnet. We're back and you are listening to Clark Greene on the Scoutmaster Podcast.

That's right, it's time for a Scoutmasters Minute. The paper chase.

Does the paper chase mean anything to you? If it does, you're a certain age. The paper chase started out as a novel, And it became a movie and finally a TV series in the 1970s, And what the paper chase is is the story of a law student in his first year at Harvard Law, And he has kind of this interesting professor, Professor Kingsfield, if you remember the television show or the movie or the novel, And Kingsfield is pretty much the student's nemesis.

He has a reputation for brilliant, dispassionate relentlessness, does Kingsfield? Kingsfield is not, you know, a warm fuzzy person. He has a bit of an off-putting demeanor, And at first he appears very indifferent to his students and their problems. What he knows, though, is that his relentless attitude actually serves the interests of his students. He knows they must possess the same intellectual relentlessness to be successful lawyers.

So one piece of dialogue that is in the novel and the movie and the TV show is a speech with which Professor Kingsfield opens his class every semester. He says this: the study of law is something new and unfamiliar to most of you, unlike any schooling you've ever been through before. We use this Socratic method here. I call on you: ask you a question and you answer.

Why don't I just give you a lecture? Because through my questions you learn to teach yourselves. Through this method of questioning, answering, questioning, answering. We seek to develop in you the ability to analyze that vast complex of facts that constitute the relationships of members within a given society. Questioning and answering: At times you may feel that you have found the correct answer. I assure you that this is a total delusion on your part.

You will never find the correct, absolute and final answer. In my classroom there's always another question, another question that follows your answer. You're on a treadmill. My little questions spin the tumblers of your mind. You're on an operating table. My little questions are the fingers probing your brain.

We do brain surgery here. You teach yourselves the law, but I train your mind. You come in here with a skull full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer.

Now that speech is. I wouldn't try to imitate the delivery of the actor, Don Hausman, that gives that speech in the movie and in the TV series, but it's very, very memorable And I call attention to it here because it is a very succinct description of the Socratic method And it's a basis of the way that I approach scouting.

And I encourage you to give it a try, because spinning the tumblers of the mind of those scouts, trying to help them unlock their understanding, trying to get them to learn how to think for themselves, is one of the key things that we can do as scout leaders. Now they're not in their first year of law at Harvard.

They're, you know, middle school and high school students. So I temper the relentlessness with a little bit of humor and empathy. Unlike Professor Kingsfield, I don't tell them they have a skull full of mush, even though I'm pretty sure that they do sometimes. But we use this method, We use this treadmill, We spin those tumblers and we keep them going.

So what's going on right now? Well, we're getting ready to set up camp.

So how do you figure you're going to set up camp? Well, we're going to take the tents and put them in a line here.

So you're going to put them in a line there? Yes.

Is there anything about that area that you thought was especially indicative to putting the tents in a line there? No, Is there anything.

Now that you're looking at it with a fresh set of eyes, Is there anything you see there that might, you know, indicate that it's not a good idea? No, not really.

Was that a low-lying area or a higher area? It's a low-lying area.

Do you see any evidence of what happens in this area when there is a rainstorm? Oh yeah, it looks like the water goes down there.

So are you going to put the tents in a line in that area? Wow, maybe we should move them.

Do you see what I'm saying? So it's just defining the idea, not by you know. The alternative in that little example of a conversation was: hey, water's going to gather down there and you've got your tents all lined up down there. Move them.

So instead of going and just making a simple declarative statement like that, what I'm doing is I'm picking it apart and I'm trying to get the young man to learn to think for himself, to learn to look at the situation around him and to give it some shape by defining the outline of that situation with these different questions. So we do that and we do it, and we do it and we do it, and then every so often the light comes on And if you've seen it happen before, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But it is almost a physical phenomenon. The light comes on, they brighten up, the lock is open, the tumblers have all lined up and the lock is open, and they've done more than just learning the right answer: they've learned to teach themselves.

So Socratic Questioning- Question Follow Question- defining the thing that you want to get across- is a great way to help Scouts begin to discover the answers that they already know and to discover how to think for and to teach themselves.