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Rethinking Summer Camp Merit Badges

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summer camp merit badges

What are your expectations for summer camp merit badges?

To most of us and to nearly all of our Scouts the central feature of the week at camp is earning merit badges.

But what if it wasn’t?

What if Scouts exchanged earning summer camp merit badges for learning and doing the things that actually interest them, the kind of things that Scouts do, instead ?

Want to take your patrol on an overnight hike in some remote part of camp? Want to learn to swim, shoot a rifle, how to identify plants, learn about the stars, cook in a dutch oven, learn to tie a dozen knots, cut and split a half a pile of fire wood, make a sheath for your ax, a belt, or a candle lantern? How about studying the interrelationships of the natural environment or how to find your way with (or without) a map and compass?

I could go on and on, but you get the idea, right? I served as a camp staff member and camp director for a dozen years and I’ve spent nearly thirty summer camp weeks as a Scoutmaster. Like most troops we’ll be headed for summer camp soon.

What if  our troop of 25 Scouts came home with  ten or fifteen completed merit badges and a big pile of partially completed ones. What would happen then?

Calm down, now, play along with me for a bit.

We adults have pretty much decided that anything less than ‘x’ number of completed badges is a failure on the part of the Scout, the camp, the counselor or all three.

Scratch the surface of any conversation about a camp’s merit badge program and you’ll hear the same old chestnuts that have been topics of conversation for at least the last thirty years I have been around (and I would guess even more);

  • There aren’t enough Eagle required badges to attract older Scouts.
  • There aren’t enough ‘easy’ merit badges for younger Scouts.
  • Younger Scouts shouldn’t be allowed to do some merit badges.
  • Younger Scouts should be required to do some merit badges.
  • Counselors are too young, too old,  too demanding, too easy, don’t know the subject well enough, don’t do the requirements properly.
  • The camp doesn’t have the right, proper or sufficient equipment or facilities.
  • There’s no ‘quality control’ (as if we were manufacturing widgets of some kind).
  • There’s not enough time for ‘classes’, there’s too many Scouts in a given ‘class’.

Some adults even end up hollering at a sixteen year old counselor as if he’s a tenured professor. They  complain to the camp director, the program director, the area director and through around plenty of snide remarks about ‘merit badge mills’. Let’s face it we adults can make a real mess of things because (to my mind at least) we have totally missed the point of merit badges and the possibilities of a week at camp.

The really frustrating thing is that the expectations of  adults  drive the very problems that upset them!

Because we adults insist that our Scouts leave camp with ‘x’ number of badges (and no partials!) we pressure the camp staff to produce. Under this pressure the staff does everything it can to meet these expectations. One marker for success becomes the number of blue cards they sign. This makes counselors focus everything they do on getting the dang-nab merit badge work done.  When this happens Scouts become a grubby little hand reaching out for a blue card with the implicit threat of an over-tired, stressed Scoutmaster demanding explanations and hollering.

As a counselor I know that this pressure can turn something you love into something you learn to hate. Once a counselor passes this point their instruction becomes perfunctory and Scouts become an onerous burden rather than a welcome challenge. A counselor with a merit badge that is popular, or otherwise looked on as ‘important’  can end up with thirty or more Scouts in a merit badge session and has to default to impersonal academic practices to have any chance of getting this crowd of Scouts through the badge.

All of these problems are  a result of the expectations imposed upon a camp staff  by adult Scouters. Scouts don’t know any better, they know what we tell them and, by and large, we tell them that summer camp is all about earning merit badges.

Scouts love Scouting, they love the outdoors and they love a challenge. What if we disconnected the things they want to do from the requirements for merit badges? What if we let them map out their own week at camp?

Why should  they only do things that are requirements for a badge on a schedule with twenty or thirty other Scouts and an over-worked, over-stressed counselor who spends the lion’s share of their energy trying to maintain order? Why must they do all the requirements for the badge at camp even if they aren’t particularly great things to do at camp? Why spend any of those precious hours at camp attending classes, writing reports,  filling out work sheets, and taking tests?

I think advancement is important, merit badges are important, I think they are a great way to learn about the many different subjects that they represent. I wonder, though, have we lost the spark of inspiration that created them? Have we regimented and legislated that spark out of the process altogether?

What if, instead of emphasizing  earning badges we started thinking about inspiring the love of learning and inquiry? What would our Scouts do with an opportunity like that?

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Comments

  1. We attend several camps a year, two in the summer and a winter camp. we promote the former to new scouts as a way to advance and the latter to older scouts as a way to earn that extra badge they need for Eagle or perhaps a palm. Invariably, as Outdoor Chair, I hear from parents that their “child” would like this class or that merit badge. I’ve learned it’s better to hear from the “scout” what he wants. Lately, as we attend camps farther from home, the older scouts want to do less with the classes. My son asked why he has to do ANY merit badges, instead just have fun. The campset up for next summer, several just want to sit on the river and fish. That about sums it up.

  2. Sweet !!! And if our parents and unit leaders (including myself) didn’t make the first question when we see them again, “How many (or What) merit badges did you earn?”. Our troop has this nice ‘Reflections’ meeting (or ‘Thorns and Roses’). We go around, with parents in attendance, and have each boy offer up what they liked or didn’t like about camp. Maybe we should add, “One thing you learned or experienced that inspired you.”

  3. All good comments. I was involved with a troop and attended summer camp for around twelve summers. I’ve been on the Council and District Advancement Committees for eighteen years and District Advancement Chairman for eight years. I also volunteered at one of our camps for 3-4 summers. Here is what I’ve found, in no particular order, or camp, or council.

    Our troop attended an out-of-council camp for years, during the 7th week. The following week, which was the last for the season, they offered an “Eagle Camp”, where Scouts worked on required merit badges: all the Citizenships, Communications, etc. They were required to bring pre-requisite work with them in order to obtain completions. Some of our boys stayed at camp for that week. I always felt it was strictly a money maker for the camp and a give-a-way program.

    My feelings were confirmed when one of our boys obtained five completions without bringing any pre-requisite work with him. When I asked him how he got Citizenship of the Community without the town budget, etc, he said his father obtained them and faxed them to the camp. He wasn’t required to attend a town meeting; that was ignored. I wrote the camp and council a scathing letter. I was told in confidence by one of the camp directors that all this program is about is 125 Scouts times $175.00, which comes to $21,875.00. Great, isn’t it?

    A few years later they did away with this program but incorporated the required merit badges during the regular program weeks. On the first day of week 7 I watched about thirty Scouts taking Personal Fitness Merit Badge with one instructor (our local schools don’t have that ratio). I approached him with the requirements and asked him who do the Scouts contact three months prior to get Requirement #7 approved before they start. He looked at that requirement and as his eyes got wider he hemmed and hawed for a few seconds before blurting out, “I guess the Scoutmaster takes care of that.” He “guesses the Scoutmaster…..” That was the first time that clown saw that requirement in seven weeks. Another scathing letter went out. The following year they discontinued offering Personal Fitness as they said that it really cannot be done in camp.

    A Scoutmaster told me that while attending another camp two boys came up to him at the end of the week and handed him two signed blue cards that they completed the merit badges. The boys handed them to him saying it was a mistake because they didn’t finish them, they dropped out of the class during the week.

    Another Scoutmaster told me a boy in his troop signed up for First Aid Merit Badge the first day and walked out, not attending any session the rest of the week. When he picked up his packet at the end of the week the boy had a signed blue card that he completed the merit badge: First Aid. He told me he ripped it up.

    A friend of mine told me his son took Camping Merit Badge although he didn’t have all the required nights of camping. When the 16 year old staff member asked him how many days and nights he camping my friend’s son replied.’ Ten nights and twenty days.” All the sixteen year old heard was twenty and gave him a completion. The troop held off awarding it until the required nights of camping were met.

    Another Scoutmaster told me four of his boys were given completed blue cards for Emergency Preparedness Merit Badge WITHOUT doing the CERT Drill. He held up awarding the badges until the requirement was completed. One of the boys was his son.

    According to National’s policy all of the above Scouts EARNED the merit badges; they were signed by a registered counselor. Those camps and staff were incompetent, negligent, and irresponsible.

    While volunteering at one of our camps I witnessed parents faxing and bring to the camp requirements their son did not do and bring to camp with him. They were all accepted.

    Enough said.

  4. I’m a firm believer in council run camps. I’ve attended many across the western US as a scout and adult leader. As a college student I staffed a handful of.years as well. When I take my scouts to summer camp I look more to the software side of camp. Do the staff show scout spirit? Do my scouts play and work together? Is our staff friend genuinely friendly and do our scouts look up to him. For me, merit badges are a bonus to our stay.

    Like a computer, software is no good without without the hardware to run it on, but its the software that makes all the difference.

  5. One of our council’s camps is an open program where the scouts choose the merit badges that they want to do and just make arrangements with the councilors when to show up. This type or program works well with the older scouts wanting to get that “one last required” merit badge. Many times it also allows them to work on combinations of merit badges that could not be done if all classes were in given slots.
    It also gives scouts down time if they want it. I had a scout use his time to create his own walking staff and explore the camp with his friends. He used that staff to find areas of the camp that many of the staff were not aware of. He also came back with excitement of some of the wonders of nature that he discovered on his own.
    We have had scouts come back with one to ten merit badges in the week. Again this works well for older scouts who are able to manage their time. The younger scouts need the additional direction that a structured merit badge program gives since they haven’t learned to manage their interests.
    What’s missing at most camps, that our troop has been to, is program for these older scouts. If they do not need or want the extra merit badges there is not much else for them. Camps need to broaden the programs beyond the merit. This can keep their interest in scouting and summer camp.

    • Great comment! I just got back from camp with a young troop. I was wondering next year if it will really appeal to them if they have to spend the whole week in classes because there are no alternatives

  6. BULLS’ EYE! I’ve been looking at some of the summer camp info since my oldest will be a Boy Scout next summer, and I am completely disappointed in some of the camps’ programs. Nothing but MB classes, with little to no free time for swimming, boating, shooting, or other fun activities. Heck some camps have night time classes, and I do not mean Astonomy either!

    I remember back in the day taking 4-5 MB classes and having time to swim, go boating, or just plain goof off. I remember night time activities like Staff Manhunt, OA Pow Wow, and Troop Nite. I remember building a raft with folks from my troop and going on the waterfront to sail it as one troop nite activity.

  7. It’s all too easy. I have taught MB classes over the years. MBs don’t start and stop at summer camp. Seldom do the boys complete all the requirements at camp. It is our duty and responsibility to teach them “how to finish something”. We would take the list of partial MBs and implement a plan to complete those MBs throughout the remainder of the year; so that the boys could start “fresh” next year and not have MBs out there just hanging. Finding Counselors would sometimes be an issue. But identifying the outstanding requirements, showing them where to go find the answers is what life is about. Being in the military for over twenty years, there’s a basic tenet; you don’t have to know all the answers, you just have to know where to find them. If the boys would do a little research and work on their outstanding requirements, most times that would meet the intent of the MB. Remember…MBs are not meant to make them experts, just to expose them to new material and learn to work through a process towards completion. I myself took the Environmental Science MB (3) times at consecutive summer camps and could never complete it. I didn’t know to ask for help, and it was never addressed throughout the year. I never want that to happen to one of our Scouts.
    “A man never stands so tall, as when he stoops to help a child.” – Abraham Lincoln

  8. At our summer camp, we have a “Trail to Eagle” segment, where scouts working on Tenderfoot, Second Class, and First Class requirements can learn scout skills like knot tying, line rescue, totin chit, etc. These tend to be really big classes run by a single councilor. Lots of scoutmasters here take the report of the scouts accomplishments and sign off their books based on them. I have found that the skills are retained by the scouts after they sit through these classes. So, on the last day of camp, I will have them come to me and demonstrate all the skills that are on the report. I reserve the right to test the boys and sign off on the skills when I am satisfied. I really do want the boys to learn the skills.

    As for merit badges, most eagle required badges done at camp cannot be completed at camp. There are too many requirements that call for going to a civic meeting, or working a three month plan, or corresponding with someone, to be finished there. I would rather have the boys do a badge for an outdoor skill, like swimming or rowing or white water rafting, that they cannot do at home. The outdoor skill badges are more fun, and better promote the aims of scouting.

  9. There is definitely a “Scout school” aspect to group merit badge instruction, whether it’s at summer camp or in a merit badge clinic. However, summer camp offers much more than the few hours a day of merit badge instruction. As in television, where all too often the programming exists as a means of drawing in eyeballs for the commercials, so too the merit badges offered are the way we convince Scouts (and their parents) to attend, while what they end up getting is a weeklong immersion in the outdoors, bonding with their fellow Scouts, accepting responsibility for themselves, and enjoying the camp facilities.

    We certainly have had boys take seven or eight merit badges each year at camp, and they’ve filled up their sashes quite nicely. However, some of the best experiences that some of our Scouts have had at camp were those times where they did not take the “full load” of badges but did maybe three or four, and including the more “fun” ones like Pioneering or Pottery. They filled their time just whittling, building monkey bridges, kayaking at the waterfront, or playing a musical instrument in the outdoors (the sound of a flute wafting through the woods is purely mystical and magical). Did they advance or increase their badge count? Not really. But did they develop as individuals, taking the time for introspection and learning something about themselves? Absolutely! And it’s something they could not have done anywhere else.

    The list of the “same old chestnuts” about the drawbacks and misimplementation of the merit badge program at summer camps, thankfully, does not afflict the camp we have been attending for many years. The staff at Camp Rotary is enthusiastic, knowledgeable, stable, and outgoing. The time they spend with the boys is golden, and most of our boys come home talking fondly of the waterfront, climbing, nature, archery or PATH counselors like they’re their new best friend. There is a large variety of merit badges offered including many of the newer ones and technical/artistic/theatrical ones, and plenty of things to do at camp besides study merit badges.

    Having taught a couple classes as a guest staffer, I can agree that sometimes there just isn’t enough time, meeting for an hour a day over five days, to adequately cover the material. And it is difficult to meet the requirement that each boy demonstrate, tell, show or explain what’s required. But it is possible, especially with good use of “open” times to go over things.

    We probably need to reduce the pressure to complete large numbers of merit badges at camp, but in a larger sense, we need to restore the merit badge system to the way it’s supposed to be – one counselor with one, two or three Scouts at a time, outside the framework of camp and troop meetings. This can happen once adults (parents included) lessen the pressure to earn patches of cloth for the outside of the uniform and instead work on what’s inside the uniform, and agree to support the individual instruction method in any way they can.

  10. Clarke, you have hit on a subject that has been a sore point with me since the 1970s. It first dawned on me when the powers on high decided that OA functions in camp were taking too much away from the MB program. OA used to be a huge part of summer camp: the ceremonial tap outs, the silent candidates working around camp, the new Arrowmen coming back to their troop decked out with a new sash. OA has been in decline since, because it no longer has the presence. Camp used to be far more about woodcraft and camping than today. What’s the point of teaching Citizenship or Computer MBs which they can get at home. Most camps do offer some real fun adventures having to do with Scouting in the outdoors, but I agree we should really rethink the program.

  11. THIS! I’ve always discouraged signing up for the maximum available MBs. Take a couple, then spend the day in the lake/playing football/sitting under the waterfall/watching bugs!!!

  12. Scout Gravy

    Every year I always tell my Scouts, somewhat jokingly, that summer camp is their reward for having me as their Scoutmaster for the past year. I believe that camp is a mix of merit badge opportunities, rank advancement possibilities, and a wonderful place to create some Scout magic that transforms a boy into a young man. Seems like there is no other place that this happens in just this way. Perhaps it is the outside environment, maybe it is that everyone is doing a little more for themselves, or could it just be that when young boys see what they have been studying and learning really does matter in the real world. I like to think this is what I take them to summer camp for…. all the rest, well let’s just call it a good helping of Scout Gravy.

  13. Hit the target dead center. They are trying to meet the “customer’s” expectations.