Responsibility

I’ve been reading a few of my American Scouting friends’ blogs and they regularly talk about their Boy Led Troops. Also, there is this post from Lotta in Sweden about her Group’s and District’s Annual General Meetings.

In both these cases, Scouts are given the considerable responsibility of either running their Troops or having a major say and input into their important meetings.

The thing is, and I hope you don’t think I’m being rude about our Scouts, I don’t believe we would be able to do those things here in the UK.

First of all, the Scout Troop being run by the Scouts themselves like in the USA is unlikely due to the ages of the Scouts.

Scouts leave the Troop when they are 14 to join Explorers. This is run by the Explorers themselves, and very successfully as their ages go from 14 – 18. But with Scouts being in the 10 – 14 age range this doesn’t work.

As an example, I will tell you about one of our Scouts who has moved to Explorers in the last 4 – 5 months. He’d come through Beavers and Cubs and was a generally pleasant 10 year old. But when he was 11 & 12 he was a little  _________ (insert choice expletive here!). In fact, he was close to being chucked out of the Troop for his behaviour. Then, virtually overnight, his attitude changed. He worked hard and gained his Chief Scout’s Gold Award and started to help out with the Beavers. He’s now in the Explorers and a Young Leader with the Group (and a valued one too).  Now he only ‘grew up’ around 6  – 8 months before he was due to leave the Troop.

And this is where the difficulty lies within the Troop. Just as the Scouts start to become more experienced and are able to do tasks themselves, show others how to do things and show leadership skills, they leave the Troop! Now this is where I go a little ‘off message’ and say that having Scouts leaving the Troop to go to Explorers at 14 was a mistake! It means the experienced Scouts are not around long enough to pass on that experience to the younger ones.

Secondly, getting the young people interested in the actual running of the Group (for example) by suggesting items at a meeting would be a struggle. I don’t know whether this is just the young people in our Group, in our area or a UK thing, but when doing something that is ‘serious’ they tend to have the attention span of a goldfish! Is that our fault as Leaders by not presenting things in a way that grabs their attention, or just symptomatic of the time we live in where everything is instant and on a screen? I agree with Lotta when she says that getting the young people interested  and “involved in other circumstances, like student councils, political youth movements and so on” is an excellent idea, (and a necessary one really)  but for the Beavers, Cubs & Scouts are they interested / do they even care?

I don’t know. And maybe I am being unfair to the young people, but that’s the way I see it. Would anyone care to change my mind?

6 Replies to “Responsibility”

  1. Since you invited a bit of mind changing I’ll give it a shot.

    I’ll agree that you are, in some respects, hamstrung with the constraints of the program. Working with 11-14 year-olds is going to be different than having older, more experienced, Scouts to call on for leadership.

    That being said I still think that you will be successful in getting them to lead competently. I feel confident in this because the program does actually work. Now I risk being somewhat pedantic and possibly even offensive from here on out. Please take this all in the spirit in which it is intended; that of one who has been there and experienced the frustrations you describe.

    All of this begins with having a very thorough look at our perceptions of perspective and scale. With the best of intentions we adults want to see that our Scouts get all the good they can from Scouting. In doing this we loose sight of a youth’s perspective and sense of scale. What seems half measures or inconsequential to us looms very large in their experience.

    I think we often miss very small expressions of initiative and leadership in our search for the larger ones. We discount their ability to focus when they simply bypass things that either don’t appeal to them or are presented in the wrong manner.

    All of this is enmeshed in the great power struggle, instability and vicissitudes of adloescence.

    For example we’d like our Scouts to cook wonderful, nutritious, appetizing meals. We’d like them to plan them completely and prepare them and serve them with at least some faint gesture of table manners.

    In practice their plans are a few scrawls on a bit of paper (if that), their preparation follows the absolute path of least resistance, and they descend on the result (no matter how revolting) like a pack of crazed hyenas. All the while they think they are being perfectly reasonable, prudent and mannerly as they eat like kings.

    What we must seize on are the smallest indications of leadership and initiative and gently encourage them to grow. It begins as a painstaking process of patience and self control with many setbacks – but it will move forward. Soon you’ll have created a culture within the Troop that perpetuates youth leadership. It really will work.

  2. Nick —
    Concentrate on those 13-14 year olds you still have in Scouting – they are the natural leaders. You might find that reading some of William Hillcourt’s works (a dear friend of B-P, and his biographer) will help. His “Handbook for Scoutmasters,” (3rd, 4th, and 5th editions, 1936-1972) and “Handbook for Patrol Leaders” (first edition, published from 1929-1967) are outstanding tools for understanding how the “Patrol Method” and youth leaders can and does work.
    Both books can be obtained on eBay for a modest price (I just picked up another copy of “Handbook for Patrol Leaders,” a 1931 printing for under US$4 including shipping) and are an excellent read.

  3. Nick,
    I am sorry that you feel that the scouts you speak about are not up to the challenge of leading. However I would ask in whose eyes are they not up to the challenge.
    Obviously in in yours they are not but what about in theirs? It is amazing how if given the chance a young person will again and again rise to the challenges we place before them and it is only Adults that say ooo they are too _______ (insert silly, young, childish, immature)

    Avon County runs a county patrol camping competition every year and as a scout leader I looked at my scouts and though “mmm they are very young to enter, I am not sure they will do well.” I have now been involved for the last 2 years in the planning and organisation of the event and it amazes me the quality of Scouting and Youth Leadership that happens at this event.

    The reason it happens is because adults have, all be it with in a controlled environment, have let go. What could be a more controlled environment that the Scout hut, I will be the first to admit that I was not the best as the Youth Led Scout group, however I did get my PL to organise and run a game each week, I did hold a PLC all be I chaired it.

    I remember one year I look through the 12 y.o APL and there were 3 clear choices but we had 4 patrols and of those left not one was really up to being a PL. However there was a lad who was 11 who had shown great promise and we made him PL. It caused a real shake up in the group, it showed to the young people that just because you were “the next in line” did not mean you were automatically going to become a PL
    I would suggest having a look at the Taking the Lead Resources (http://www.scouts.org.uk/supportresources/1321/taking-the-lead?cat=55,389) and start small.
    If the 10 year old scout does not see the 13.5 year old PL taking responsibility then why should they do it when they get to be PL.

    Baden Powell said “The more responsibility the Scoutmaster gives his patrol leaders, the more they will respond.”

    Yours in Scouting
    K

  4. Thanks all for your comments.
    You have given me some food for thought and some ideas that I can pass onto the Troop so as to encourage our Scouts to take more responsibility.

  5. Younger and older boy leaders can make the same decisions, but you give the younger ones more support. They might choose from a set of options you give them, or you might walk them through the steps of a decision.

    I was going to give a lot more advice, but I’m so envious of the “Taking the Lead” materials that I’m going to go read them instead. They are far, far better than anything we have from the BSA. Our troop-level training is the equivalent of about five of those 27 exercises, but not as well laid out.

    The BSA has one excellent publication I can recommend, the current Patrol Leader Handbook. It is just right for boys, with plenty of concrete advice.

  6. Thanks Walter, I’ll have to see if I can get my hands on a Patrol Leader Handbook.
    I always think it’s interesting to see what materials and information Scouts in other countries use and wherever possible to use the ideas!

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