How to Meet Scouting Goals

David Larson

How to Meet Scouting Goals

• 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

• 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

• 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 learningEliminates 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?• 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?

• 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 ?• 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.

• 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).

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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?• 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.• 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• 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.

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