What do I do now? A Scout misbehaves, makes a mistake, or even consciously does something wrong, and things spin out of control, now what? If you hang around long enough your Scouts misbehave, and you’ll will be confronted by this sort of incident, so what is your plan? I’ll discuss an incident shared with me some time ago to illustrate some core ideas about the crucial things a Scouter ought to know....
Should gender define Scouting? This week I want to discuss responses to a post I published last week about gender in Scouting: Girls in the BSA. The post garnered lot’s of responses both for and against the idea of the BSA becoming a co-ed organization, and I’ll discuss some of the objections in this podcast. The question of gender and Scouting can be an explosive one since gender issues have caused much consternation and disagreement over the years....
I’ll be brief, well, kind of… … join me as I talk about two key ideas for Scouters I hope you find helpful . This podcast condenses into one talk the answers I wrote to several common email questions I had this summer. I want to share two key ideas I have talked about many times before, but I think are always important to emphasize. You can’t talk too much about these two ideas for Scouters, I hope!...
We aren’t working to control the conduct of young people. We have a greater challenge; to form their character as defined in the Scout oath and law. Are the Scouting ideals in the Scout oath and law a code of conduct? Is it an ideology? Is it a religious text? No, it is none of these things. The Scout oath and law are ideas that have defined positive, contributing, individual character throughout human history....
Remember being young when the ground was constantly shifting under our feet? Remember wanting to be an adult but not wanting to be like the adults you knew? Remember how you wanted to change things? What an energizing, exciting, challenging, and sometimes confusing world we lived in! Our growing brains and bodies were in a constant state of change, every day was full of new ideas, new experiences, new people, new challenges....
*During his lifetime Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the worldwide Scouting movement, wrote many books and articles directed to Scouters.*Each Sunday I’ll publish a selection from his writings in the hope that you’ll draw inspiration and understanding from his timeless ideas. A Scout is thrifty. I THINK we are happier people now than we were a few years ago. We are more generally getting enjoyment out of life, largely thanks to the development of transport in increased railway facilities, motor ‘buses, charabancs, cars and bicycles, which have brought garden cities and the country and the seaside within reach of town workers....
*During his lifetime Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the worldwide Scouting movement, wrote many books and articles directed to Scouters.*Each Sunday I’ll publish a selection from his writings in the hope that you’ll draw inspiration and understanding from his timeless ideas. So long as (the spirit of of goodwill and co-operation is there; there is brotherhood). But, mind you, self slips in unexpectedly sometimes; maybe it takes the form of a feeling that one is blessed with a gift for making a specially fine troop, or one is keen to show one’s patriotism to be greater than one’s neighbors; or one rather fancies oneself in a backwoodsman’s kit, and so on....
The next time you are out camping take a moment or two to be in the wild, stroll around and take it all in. No intention, no agenda, just be there until your mind quiets down and you begin to see what’s in front of you. The Norwegians call it friluftsliv ( free-loofts-liv ) or “open air life.” Norwegians practice friluftsliv by hiking, biking, boating, canoeing, skating, fishing, hunting, or camping....
*During his lifetime Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the worldwide Scouting movement, wrote many books and articles directed to Scouters.*Each Sunday I’ll publish a selection from his writings in the hope that you’ll draw inspiration and understanding from his timeless ideas. Two simple yet powerful aids to boy training towards happy citizenship exist ready to hand in — The glowing enthusiasm inherent in the boy himself. The trainer’s own experiences of life....
*During his lifetime Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the worldwide Scouting movement, wrote many books and articles directed to Scouters.*Each Sunday I’ll publish a selection from his writings in the hope that you’ll draw inspiration and understanding from his timeless ideas. I notice whenever we have people rising up to improve our code of Scout Law, etc., they are generally blind to the Scout spirit which underlies it. They think that we have forgotten some of the boyish vices, and they start to set us right by ordering the boys not to do this and not to do that....
One of my favorite writers and noted American naturalist Aldo Leopold is, perhaps, the first to describe what is now known as a “trophic cascade”. Leopold observed over-grazed mountain slopes and connected this with the extermination of wolves. How trophic cascades work, and how they can be restored is explained in this video about the far-reaching effects of the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone; Scouting provides young people the opportunity to understand how our own lives are woven into the fascinatingly complex web of life....
“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of others…for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received....
It is natural to want to be like the people we look up to. We want to recreate the success they have enjoyed in our own lives. So we try to imitate them. It seems like the shortest distance between two points. Of course, we are trying to copy a result. What we often fail to see is the work it took to get them to the place where they could do what they do....
Paul Siple, a nineteen-year-old Eagle Scout in Erie, Pennsylvania, was one of thousands who applied to join Admiral Byrd’s expedition in 1928. Byrd asked the Boy Scouts of America to help him select one Scout to take on the year and a half exploration of Antarctica. Local committees vetted applications and forwarded 88 to the national office. These 88 were winnowed down to six candidates who would meet with Byrd in New York City....
Make Me a Boat If I communicate the love of the sea to my people, Soon you will see them diversifying according to their thousand particular qualities: One will weave the fabrics, Another will cut the tree in the forest, Another still will forge nails Someone will observe the stars to learn how to navigate, All will work as one. To create the ship is not just to weave the fabrics,...
Forest E. Witcraft (1894 – 1967), a scholar, teacher, and Boy Scout administrator first published in the October 1950 issue of Scouting magazine. I am not a Very Important Man, as importance is commonly rated. I do not have great wealth, control a big business, or occupy a position of great honor or authority. Yet I may someday mould destiny. For it is within my power to become the most important man in the world in the life of a boy....
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. Søren Kierkegaard – Danish philosopher and theologian 1813-1855. There’s a great divide we cross sometime in our adulthood where we are better able to examine and understand the lives we have lived. Most of us who volunteer in Scouting have crossed that divide while the Scouts we serve have not....
Prayer of the Woods I am the heat of your hearth on the cold winter nights, the friendly shade screening you from the summer sun, and my fruits are refreshing draughts quenching your thirst as you journey on. I am the beam that holds your house, the board of your table, the bed on which you lie, and the timber that builds your boat. I am the handle of your hoe, the door of your homestead, the wood of your cradle, and the shell of your coffin....
Excerpts from Newark, New Jersey’s Mayor Cory Booker’s commencement address at Stanford University: My dad would touch me almost like he was trying to feel my very spirit. He would look at me and he would say in ways that are eloquent, he would impart to me this truth, he would say to me, “Boy, you need to understand that who you are now, you are the physical manifestation of a conspiracy of love....
It ain’t ignorance that causes all the trouble in this world. It’s the things people know that ain’t so. Edwin Armstrong , electrical engineer and inventor of FM radio. Sometimes in Scouting tradition and long practice usurp the way things ought to be. We tend to accept things unquestioningly as they are given to us. I am reminded of the story of the fellow who always cut the ends off a ham before he put it in the oven....