Follow
As adults in positions of authority our exchanges, no matter how casual, carry the weight of position and authority. This is why I school adults to be very careful about what they tell youth leaders because what they say will be interpreted as instructions and they will be followed.
We also must be careful to understand the difference between evaluating and valuing what youth leaders say.
Since we are considered as the default authority youth leaders will take our reactions to what they say as an evaluation. When the senior patrol leader is telling me what his plans are he is expecting me to evaluate them, to approve or disapprove. I must be careful to value his plans first and evaluate them later otherwise he’s unlikely to develop any initiative towards thinking for himself.
If he tells me a plan that I suspect won’t work (but will not expose Scouts to inappropriate or dangerous situations) I have found it best not to evaluate them immediately. I am better off if I let him go ahead and find out if the plans work or not. If they fail I will refrain from letting him know that I pretty much suspected that they would. If they succeed I can congratulate him and make him smarter than me by saying something like; ‘You know I wasn’t too sure whether that would work or not – Good job!, I learned something from that.’
If his plans fail I have the opportunity to evaluate them in a supportive way by refraining from anything that may come off as an ‘I told you so’. We reflect on what happened, I guide him through the process of finding the flaw in his planning and then let him know that the most important thing was that he tried and ask how he would do it differently.
If I had evaluated the plan when he first shared it with me and had him change them I had missed the opportunity to build on his initiative and allow him to go through the process.
Just totally awesome!
Larry, Clarke, Thank you both for what you do. For your diverse approaches. For the way you care for Scouts all over the world of Scouting by shepherding us adults! I find great value in both of your approaches to this topic.
What Clarke says is certainly true if you are the kind to be constantly interactive with your Troop’s leadership. I’m not very good at that. So I generally just ignore them. I’m not good at evaulating things ahead of time. I make very few assumptions (except that teenagers tend to be very lazy). I usually just say, “Ok, whatever. Carry on. Have fun.”
I let them evaluate how they did most of the time. It’s their Troop. They know when they mess up. We may not think so and they can be very cool about how things are going sometime, but they know.
“If they fail I will refrain from letting him know that I pretty much suspected that they would.” This is a very subjective thing. I find that the Scouts rarely “fail”. They may not always make an “A” but they rarely make an “F”. It’s mostly D+ to B- stuff. They almost always “succeed” somewhat. At least in their own minds.
It’s that issue of motivation. If the motivation for what your Troop is doing is coming from me then it’s not theirs.
It’s the issue of what I call “Benign Neglect”. I generally don’t “value” or “evaluate”, I just ignore. The Scouts learn that I’m not going to get into their business except in certain cases. Malignant Neglect is when someone doesn’t feed an infant. Benign Neglect is when we adults (usually men and dads) don’t do things for the boys that they can do on their own and that their moms might do for them, or at least strongly attempt to motivate them to do. It’s just the way things are.
We then take them out into situations where they have no choice whatsoever about managing themselves and again we ignore them. At the Buck Lake campsite there are no restrooms, electrical outlets, refridgerators, stoves, ovens, microwave ovens, dishwashers, no sinks even, no roof or shelter and no mommies to pick up after them. They must set up their own shelter, find their food and prepare it. Find a place to relieve themselves. Go to a certain place with a certain container to even get a drink of water. I’m not going to help them. Their fellow Scouts are not going to do for them what they won’t do for themselves. Scouts tend to be very good at helping someone out of a bind, but they will rarely do for a Scout what he should do for himself.
If a Scout gets filthy dirty and smelly, am I going to say something? No way. The other Scouts usually don’t care. If a Scout leaves his gear laying all around his tent intead of inside of his tent, am I going to value or evaluate? No way. I probably won’t even notice it. Will I know whether a Scout got enough to eat on a campout? No way. That’s his patrol leader’s job and his own responsibility. Will I evaluate that? No. Did he brush his teeth? Good grief, I have no clue.
If the SPL’s program for the weekend is falling apart, am I going to step in and make it work? No. I’m over in my chair by the fire eating Bear Cookies. I’m quietly hoping and praying that one of the Patrol Leaders will step up and ask the SPL, “How come?” or “What’s supposed to be happening?”. I’m dividing my attention between the Scouts and the adults around me. I’m watching some of the adults start to fidget and I’m evaluating what to do. Hmmmmmm? Take the adults on a hike? Put them to work on some project? I’m really not worried about the Scouts, it’s the adults that I’m evaluating. 🙂
One of my ways of evaluating is campfires. In the evening we sit around the fire and tell stories. I tell the Scouts stories of guys who messed up. I tell them stories of things Troops and Patrols have accomplished. Things like taking trips to Switzerland! I tell them stories about Eagle Scouts and what they’ve done and about their families. About weddings and baby showers. I tell them stories about their dads and how they accomplished stuff. I tell them stories about doctors, engineers, architects, EMTs, school teachers, firemen, computer guys and more. I tell them stories about canoes trips into the wilderness and backpacking trips through the appalachian mountains. I tell them stories about houseboat trips on the St. Johns River and sailing in the Florida Keys.
I tell them stories and they evaluate. They sit in the dark and listen. Their “little pea brains” (my son’s term 🙂 ) aswirl with myriad thoughts of the dark and home and stories and the Scouts around them. Mostly they are thinking about belching and the beans that they ate or some goofy thing that happened at school or why this particular kid doesn’t like them. But every once in a while two thoughts get connected. One of them will quietly ask a question or tell a little story. Things get real quiet and real serious. For about five minutes anyway. Suddenly learning takes place.
Many of you out there in Scouting land probably have a hard time taking “Crazy Larry’s” hands off approach. That’s ok. Every Troop is different. Listen to Clarke and you’ll do fine.