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Scouting is something young people do naturally, it will always remain relevant.
Scouting happens instinctively. Look at any group of young people anywhere in the world, anytime in history, and observe how they organize themselves. They form groups, adopt uniforms, establish standards, develop a credo, and create initiatory challenges.
Classrooms often got to battle with these instincts but we find a way to give them a means of positive expression.
When we are young we all yearn to be independent, to belong, to gain acceptance and approval outside the confines of our family. When we are young our imperfect search for these things is often met with suspicion and misapprehension.
In adolescence we try on lots of attitudes and poses paradoxically seeking approval and validation from the adult world in our very rebellion against it.
It can be a tough time for everybody.
Many of us hammered our way through adolescence the best way we knew how. Some people made things difficult, others helped.
I am a Scoutmaster to be one of the ones who help.
Scouting is not an ideology or an organization.
We are part of a movement with universal ideals and activities to channel the unstable energies and excesses of adolescence.
After beginning in Great Britain in 1907 the movement spread around the world before any official organizations existed.
Our volunteers represent all socioeconomic, religious, and political views but Scouting is inclusive, it brings people together.
Scouting is different and getting it right requires dedication and study.
Scouting is something young people do for themselves, not a program of activities adults present to them. If Scouting isn’t working it’s because adults have made a real mess of things; it’s almost never the fault of young people.
Scouting shares the paradoxical combination of simplicity and complexity found in a round of golf or a game of baseball. The basics take a few minutes to learn, but a lifetime to master.
This blog is an ongoing effort to do just that.
I have worked as avolunteer with shelterbox international in kenya 2008 we did serve and pitched tents with mark pearson and philcocine who later died in nakuru i was a leader of the sea scout movement in kenya up to date am a scouter .,once ascout is always a scout.
I am a Leader Trainer From India.I fully agree with ur statement that “Scouting,for all protestation is not an idealogy.It is movement with a programme…….When scouting does not work as it should it is usually adults who have made a real mess of things,it is almost never fault of boys.”Very much true.In fact Scouting is “OF THE YOUTH,FOR THE YOUTH,BY THE YOUTH.”
Thanks – very insightful and genuinely kind.
Whether your God is an old man with a long white beard, sitting on a golden throne, or the realization that we are all a part of the grandeur of this natural world, it matters little. If you see non-standard forms of human relationships as just an expression of love, or you consider them evil, your goal in, and for, Scouting should not waver. Each and every young man should have the benefit of the kindness and wisdom of adults who contribute to their development. Leaving will, in no way, relieve anyone of that obligation. And as for me, I thank you for your tolerance and contribution.
I am a Scouter in hibernation…the Eagle Scout son is in college now plus I have a full canteen drink of adolescent angst each day(I teach middle school and coach high school rugby) I currently lack the motivation to volunteer to BSA in my new neighborhood. That may change.
I see some great ideas on this blog.
Great comments! As an Eagle scout myself and now a Scoutmaster I find myself explaining my involvement much in the same way that you do. I frequently find myself also asking or discussing with others:
– How many organizations do you belong to where you completely agree with all of what they do?
– I’m aligned with 95% of the Scouting program and policy and believe it brings tremendous benefit to our youth, why would I throw that out because of the current issues with the 5%?
– Someday things will change, and it will be because of the involvement of folks like me – so I’m not going anywhere!
Thanks for this. I have been seriously questioning weather to volunteer as a Scout leader. I did it for a few years after my Eagle in 1990. Since that time I’ve had a sort of “anti-epiphany” and become agnostic (I see you are Buddhist, and by a stretch of the definition I suppose I could be). I had the application here, read the Declaration of Religious principles part and threw it away in disgust. I don’t know how to sign that thing without lying. Perhaps I should do it, and just work as a voice of change from within as you have done. How does one get that inclusiveness knot anyway, I found it on wikipedia, but nothing else. I would wear it with pride if I had it. Any advice you can offer would be most helpful.
Great blog…your concluding line, “One stays at it, acts as an agent for peaceful change and has confidence that better times are coming.” is very inspiring. I am an asst. den leader for my son’s Webelos den and I think scouting is a great agent for change if used properly.
-Sean
Why Scouting
Clarke Green, on his blog, Scoutmaster, has succinctly written an article on Why Scouting.
He mentions the penchant for boys to instinctively form groups. We call that a Gang Mentality. And it does exist. All adolescents want to be…
Thanks for your comments about scouting — I’m an Eagle Scout who through a strange series of circumstances has ended up as a Scoutmaster 15 years later and having a hard time deciding if I think scouting is still relevant for today’s boys. Since getting my Eagle, I’ve moved on in life and feel like a lot of the Scouter’s I’ve dealt with aren’t the most “with-it” folks, so your post is a great bolster since you’ve thought out this issue so well.