How to Meet Scouting Goals
David Larson
How to Meet Scouting Goals
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Defining the Goals.
Defining the Scout Methods to meet those goals.
Scout Development Timeline.
How to develop scouts?
Defining the Goals
• Getting everybody on target with those goals
Defining the Scout Methods to meet those goals
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Patrol Method
Boy Lead
Scouting Skills
Environment to practice those methods.
Non Competitive skills, not who is the strongest or fastest
Learn sense of Community through community service and
helping others.
• Learn Principles of Honor
Scout Development Timeline
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Start with little things, age appropriate.
Build Confidence.
Older boys can do it, so can I.
Peer pressure very strong, can use that.
How to develop scouts
• Take every opportunity to be a leader.
• Press basic scout skills, (First class scout skills) so
can be successful.
• Define Program.
• Why an outdoor environment?
Must do then selves.
Must rely on others.
Put skills to practice, see the reason behind learning
Eliminates having life provided for him. Scout must become self sufficient.
• Provide a challenge. Get out of a comfort zone.
The Questions to Ask
• What are the goals in scouts? What kind of
adults are we trying to create from our
scouts?
What are the goals in scouts? What kind of adults are we trying to create from our
scouts?
• Have a high degree of self reliance
• Have high personal and stable values
• Have a desire and the skills to help others
• Understand the principles of the American social, economic, and governmental
systems
• Are knowledgeable about and take pride in their American heritage
• Have a keen respect for the basic rights of others
• Responsibility - to the group as well as to himself.
• Leadership - which ultimately may save his life or the life of another.
• Self Reliance - In which the process will be repeated, thereby fulfilling a guided
discovery within himself.
• Scouting is belonging, it is a community where young and old share a common
purpose.
• Scouting is a code of honor.
• Scouting is about self reliance and helping others.
• Scouting is about learning to think ahead and work as a team.
• Scouting is about being trusted to act responsibly and to take responsibility for
oneself and others.
• Scouting is about passing your skills on to the next generation and taking a pride in
using them well and reaching the highest standard you can.
• "Train them! Trust them". Trusting young people is scary but it is (or was) what we
do in Scouting.
• How do consider the scouts that will never be
eagles, maybe in for a few years and make first
class?
• How do consider the scouts that will never be
eagles, maybe in for a few years and make first
class?
For every 100 boys who join a Boy Scout troop:
• Twelve will have their first contact with a church or synagogue.
• Five will earn their religious emblem.
• Three will enter the clergy or a religious vocation.
• Eighteen will develop hobbies that will last through their adult life.
• Eight will enter a career that was learned through the merit badge
system.
• One will use his Scout skills to save the life of another.
• Two will use their Scout skills to save their own life.
• Twenty-one will become adult Scouting volunteers.
• Three will become Eagle Scouts.
How to include parents in the process?
How to include parents in the process?
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Adult Leader training
Boy Scout Parent orientation meeting
Boy lead organization
Self advancement
No longer have Den Leader, now patrol leader
Older scout leadership
First summer camp so important
Learn Patrol Method
Learn basic skills
Peer acceptance.
Uniform and patches. Identifies to peers who they are, and the skills and
experience.
Parent/Adults job
Safety
Safe haven issues
Mentor, advisor role
Provide infrastructure
High Adventure camping, is our final outdoors skills test. What
skills do we need prior and how are those skills taught?
High Adventure camping, is our final outdoors skills test. What skills do
we need prior and how are those skills taught?
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Mind Set, High adventure is a state of mind, not a place.
Preparation – Equipment, healthy, food
Planning
Weather, Safety, First Aid
The challenge, excitement, engagement and
fun that builds friendship
• Need first Class Camping skills
• Tour permits require, Minimum of 4 hours of instruction
• Risk involved, wrong decision or lack of skill will make trip
be miserable or even involve life/death decisions ( portage
around the water fall, Medical aid, food safety)
What is the purpose of advancement?
What is the purpose of advancement?
• A badge showed what skills you had mastered and could,
when asked, reproduce, and teach others.
Why are scouting skills so important ?
Why are scouting skills so important ?
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Scouting skills are separate from everyday life. They are, in fact, at odds with everyday life. They
require us to push ourselves physically and mentally beyond our normal sphere of comfort.
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Scouting skills connect us to our human origins. It’s generally agreed that the first basic elements
of human culture arose shortly after we learned to build fires (about four hundred thousand years
ago).
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Scouting skills may be practical useful things to know but let’s agree that they have little relevance
to modern life, and that’s one of the most important things about them.
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Practicing and mastering Scouting skills creates a special community with a distinct code of conduct
that re-orders the priorities of the everyday world. Practicing Scouting skills requires an unusual
combination of self-reliance and cooperation, a level of awareness of one’s self, of others, and of
the natural world no other endeavor replicates.
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Finally, aptitude at Scout skills is not as important as the effort required to learn and master them.
That effort, not a certain level of excellence, is our aim. Scouts will be all the more eager to extend
the effort when we concentrate on the interconnection and relevance of Scouting skills, with the
reasons we practice them in the first place.
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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. They might not do as
good a job as an adult would, but teaching of the skills is less important than the Scouts learning to
teach, thus reinforcing their own proficiency. It’s also a way of involving young people in interactive
situations. Likewise, parents who overly involve themselves in their children’s advancement take
away that opportunity for their sons to learn from one another.
• Eagle Projects – From our Eagle Mentors,
How do we prepare our scouts for Eagle
projects? What skills should they have? This
not a discussion of eagle projects. It is a
discussion on growing Eagle scouts.
Eagle Projects
What skills should they have?
• Key skills are Planning and Leadership
• Planning
– High level, define the goal, visionary
– Detailed planning – presenting concepts to adults,
organize people, define tasks, schedules, and
monitor progress. Adjust to changes.
• Leadership
• Organizing a team. Getting commitments
Young Troop vs one with older scouts
Young Troop vs one with older scouts
• Goal is to build leadership, start with what you
have.
• Young scout leadership – green, more adult
involvement.
• Build a tradition, Young scouts will emulate what
they see.
• Adults must always be assessing where they can
back off.
• Give bits of leadership responsibility, may have to
start with directed tasks.
How do we assign responsibility to scouts with support from the
committee and adults, taking the hard way and letting scouts do
it?
How do we assign responsibility to scouts with support from the
committee and adults, taking the hard way and letting scouts do
it?
• Mentor scouts, means meeting prior and after
scout meeting to discuss corrections. Do not
interrupt a boy lead troop meeting.
• Allow mistakes.
• Use PLC meeting
• Provide Junior leader training.
• Define traditions
• Use peer pressure, Scout will listen to older boys
but not adults. They want to belong with their
peers.
Growing Senior Patrol Leaders, how do you do that?
Growing Senior Patrol Leaders, how do you do that?
• Starts with first year scouts , giving them
responsibility one task at a time.
• Web sites and Emails have replaced phone
trees. How do we facilitate the scouts learning
organization skills when so much is done for them?
• Web sites and Emails have replaced phone
trees. How do we facilitate the scouts learning
organization skills when so much is done for them?
• Consider having two web sites one for Adults and one for boys.
• Let the boys use latest technology – Email, text messages twitter.
• Somehow get the campout signup back with a boy scout in charge.
• Financial responsibility, how do we teach
this? My troop in Minneapolis, each scout had a
checking account for his scout account.
• Financial responsibility, how do we teach
this? My troop in Minneapolis, each scout had a
checking account for his scout account.
• Bank Checking accounts do not work, as banks do not like these small
accounts. Could consider creating your own scout checks, that could be
used for campout signup. This might make your treasurer have fits.
• Fund raising experience
How do we let scouts make mistakes, but not letting the unit fail?
How do we let scouts make mistakes, but not letting the unit fail?
• If we create the conditions conducive to growth we’ll see it
happen.
• What is a mistake? What is a failure?
Why is the outdoor program so important?
Why is the outdoor program so important?
• When they earn and work and suffer together, they just
might be more likely to stick together.
• Loyalty and love – both of which require self-sacrifice –
are key ingredients to true friendships. Kids are learning
about loyalty and love – they may not have a strong
sense of what either really means.
• The result of unconditional distribution of loyalty,
service, and love? The building blocks for friendship,
perhaps.
Why is the patrol method so important?
Why is the patrol method so important?
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Scouting is about cultivating the Patrol Method, which requires cooperation, and if that
cooperation is missing, a lad will get mightily uncomfortable mighty quickly on a long
trip in a wild place.
Goals:
Every member has individual responsibility for the good of the group and the group has
collective responsibility for the good of the individual.
Responsibilities are shared among all of the members of the group, each has some
responsible role in the affairs of the group.
The dynamics of personal responsibility, respect for authority, and group responsibility
form the ideals of active citizenship.
Members develop self-control, mutual respect, team spirit and character as they learn
to cooperate.
Groups are formed
The members themselves choose smaller groups based on a combination of existing
friendships, interests and age.
Experience shows that the optimal number for a small group is no more than eight or
less than five but this should not be an absolute rule.
The groups may exist for a long period of time or be fairly fluid, so long as
they achieve the goals above.
The role of adult advisors in a youth organization
The role of adult advisors in a youth organization
• To mentor and train group leaders to execute the goals of the small
group concept.
• Provide administrative support that youth members cannot
perform themselves.
• To maintain the focus of the organization without imposing their
personal goals or using their position coercively.
• To maintain a safe and accepting atmosphere by
assuring that applicable policies and rules are observed.
• To provide an example of patient, considerate and compassionate
adulthood.
• To provide resources of knowledge, experience and skill when
called upon.
• To resolve conflicts or difficulties when asked or when they are
beyond the scope of the youth leader’s capabilities.
• What would happen if we stopped doing everything else and
focused all our efforts on the one essential feature of Scouting?
Boy Scout History
• Present the skills and methods were used in the past.
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Strong emphasis on Scout skills as in Army Scouting.
• Observation – scout always knows where he is. Nobody should be able to point
something out that the scout did not see. Tracking and stalking skills. Memorization of
details. Creating logs, diaries, journals.
• Reporting – Signaling very important, have a special badge for signaling. Creating logs,
diaries, journals. Kims game of memorization.
• Self Reliance – Basic camping skills, Learn how to learn.
• Team building – the Patrol method. Lot of competition but with a strong element of
teaching the lesser skilled, so the whole team improves. Competition grows from patrol
to troop to camporee to jamboree.
• Games with a purpose
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The original Handbooks was quite different from today’s. Today, is like a reference guide.
The first handbook, had stores, catalog of items to order, Games to play to make a point. It
was more like a novel, meant to read from front to back.