Working With Scouts

Carrying backpacks for the first time, Scouts leave the familiar comforts of home and strike out on the trail. Following flashlight beams through unknown territory, they arrive at the campsite with their friends. Tents are set up, a fire is lit and they gather around trying to shake off the cold. They talk excitedly about tomorrow’s climb over a mountain peak to the destination on the other side. They strain their imaginations in anticipation, careful to mask the uncertainty and vulnerability they feel in the volume and bravado of the conversation....

Instead of worrying about what Scouts aren’t doing look for what they are doing. Exchange your expectations for their aspirations. If we look for problems, we’ll find them; there will always be plenty of room for improvement. If we look for effort and initiative we’ll find them too. Your encouragement of the good you find leads to more good. Our goal is motivation by responding rather than dictating and suggesting rather than requiring....

Keep before your mind in all your teaching that the whole ulterior motive of this scheme is to form character … Baden-Powell Scouting’s ulterior motive, our goal as Scouters, is forming character. The methods of Scouting , (the patrol system, outdoor adventure, etc.), are the tools of character development. We track this development using reflection, counselling, mentoring and coaching. If our work is invested in developing an individual’s mental and moral qualities what milestones indicate we’ve succeeded?...

2012 Red Lantern Recipient Jan Steve’s, shares her inspiring story of ‘the challenge of a lifetime’ in the Edmonds News. The fastest musher in the history of Alaska’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race ran the 1000-plus mile course from Anchorage to Nome in just under nine days. The longest time to finish the race is 32 days. Each year the last musher to finish the Iditarod earns the Iditarod’s symbol of perseverance, the Red Lantern Award....

As a camp director one summer, years ago, several Scouters complained that our dining hall steward was getting out of hand. We served all our meals family style and Scouts served as waiters. Waiters arrive before the meal to set the table, serve the food during the meal, serve their table during the meal, and clear up afterwards. Troops rotate this responsibility for a full week so at any meal there are Scouts who are new to the experience and they make mistakes....

Organizations that do nothing but measure the numbers rarely create breakthroughs. Merely better numbers. Seth Godin via Seth’s Blog: Colors or numbers? One responsibility of every Scouter is keeping track of numbers. We track advancement, participation, membership, and fundraising numbers at the individual, unit, district, council, regional, and national levels because these numbers are indicators of successful program delivery. But, make no mistake, numbers are only indicators. When we observe numbers they can tell us things....

Mike Rowe at the National Jamboree telling scouts to “work smart and hard” encouraging something I have been trying to tell Scouts headed to college for years – find something you love and don’t ignore the idea of working with your hands as a career. Mike hardly needs any introduction; he’s a distinguished Eagle Scout best known to most of us as the host of the show Dirty Jobs. (The Distinguished Eagle Scout Award acknowledges Eagle Scouts who have received extraordinary national-level recognition, fame, or eminence within their field, and have a strong record of voluntary service to their community....

Frustration in organizations begins with someone saying “If I only had the authority to I’d … (fill in the blank)”. When someone says this one of two things are happening ; they are either expressing a strong propensity for leadership, innovation and initiative, or just cloaking a complaint in language that doesn’t make them responsible for change. We understand authority as the power to make things happen. That’s the organizational chart way of looking at things; top down, low-risk, chain of command....

Effective Scouters are alert to possibility, to the challenge of the moment. If we aren’t watchful, though, those transient moments of possibility become obscured by our preoccupation with competence. There’s no inherent virtue in being an experienced Scouter, after all if you stick with something long enough you become experienced. Hopefully experience leads to competence, but competence shouldn’t obscure possibility; As we get more experienced, we get better, more competent, more able to do our thing....

…the business of the Scouter — and a very interesting one it is — is to draw out each boy and find out what is in him, and then to catch hold of the good and develop it to the exclusion of the bad. There is five per cent of good even in the worst character. The sport is to find it, and then to develop it on to an 80 or 90 per cent basis....

Frank Maynard is a troop committee chairman writes the blog Bobwhite Blather. In a recent article Frank discusses three things that Scouters should never do for their Scouts; As Scouters, though, we really need to put… parenting instincts aside in order to make sure that we not only deliver the Scouting program as promised, but also to help our kids do their best by not helping them directly. Don’t teach Scout skills– If adults take over the teaching of Scout skills, such as knot tying, first aid, plant identification or compass skills, the skills will get taught – and probably very well – but we miss a golden opportunity for the Scouts to teach these skills themselves....

Via Curious, Useless, or Simply Interesting Scout Knowledge What is authentic Scouting? 52 Scout leaders from 16 countries in the European Scout Region replied to a survey about the retention of young people in Scouting conducted by the World Organization of the Scouting Movement (WOSM) during the World Scout Jamboree in Sweden. Their responses indicate that Scouting everywhere shares common challenges. Here’s some key thoughts offered in answer to one survey question that I think are particularly important;...

Troop 676 of Bozeman during their August 2012 traverse across Spanish Peaks in the Lee Metcalf Wilderness of Montana, standing atop Indian Ridge listening to our oldest Scout tell an animated story about another adventure from the past. (Photo from Ryan Jordan) Scouts need some structure and direction but they also need the opportunity (plenty of it) for the alchemy of friendship and loyalty to do its work. This is something that Scouters can’t control or manage; trying to make a plant grow is futile and frustrating....

Sometimes it seems we are doing all the right things but the results we are hoping for never materialize. When Scout leaders grow frustrated with their work it’s usually because they are making one or more of the following mistakes: 1. Scout Leaders Become Over Involved You’ve heard the term ‘helicopter’ applied to parents, teachers and Scout leaders who are over-involved in children’s lives. Scout leaders can over-plan, seek to control too many of the variables and reduce the Scouting experience to something more like a carefully guided tour rather than an open-ended adventure....

Keeping older Scouts active and involved is a perennial concern. Scoutmasters wring their hands over losing older Scouts and many troops do have a problem keeping them around. The standard response is amping up the ‘wow’ factor of the program but I have never been very fond of the “bread and circuses” approach to Scouting. (If you aren’t familiar with the metaphor ‘bread and circuses’ refers to placating real concerns with superficial means of appeasement like diversions or distractions without getting to the heart of the matter....

From an article by columnist David Brooks , read the full article at The Heart Grows Smarter In 1938, a group of researchers began an intensive study of 268 students at Harvard University. The plan was to track them through their entire lives, measuring, testing and interviewing them every few years to see how lives develop. … as this study — the Grant Study — progressed, the power of relationships became clear....

I was never a Scout as a boy but I had a copy of the patrol Leaders handbook illustrated with line drawings of perfect campsites and campfires, of Scouts in perfectly neat uniforms lining up eagerly to listen to their patrol leader, cheering heartily, rallying around the patrol flag waving their hats. I was quickly disappointed when youthful attempts to organize our neighborhood gang didn’t resemble those idealized pictures. The idea that the perfect is the enemy of the good, the assumption that a perfect solution exists and that any solution short of perfection is unacceptable, reduces complex situations to two black and white illusions....

Two of the effects physicists describe apply to our work in Scouting: The Observer Effect Changes that the act of observation makes on the phenomenon being observed. A tire pressure gauge releases air from the tire thus changing the pressure we are testing. The Proximity Effect When two atoms come into proximity, the highest energy, or valence, orbitals of the atoms change substantially and the electrons on the two atoms reorganize....

Think for a moment how Scouts grow, about the way a Scout-aged-boy’s mind develops – He is becoming increasingly able to think abstractly. He may be sharply self-conscious thinking that he is constantly being watched and judged by others; believing no one can relate to his personal experiences. He is beginning to think systematically about morality, friendship, faith, democracy, fairness, and honesty. He is beginning to understand how the thoughts or actions of one person can influence others....

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,...