Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 20:37:52 -0500
From: "Settummanque, the blackeagle" <waltoml@WKUVX1.WKU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Eagle before 13?
(I think that my modem troubles are all over with....if someone can please pass along a good modem configuration for a 14,4 modem, send it to me by *private email*. That's what I get for "test driving" software that reconfigures stuff it shouldn't (I shouldn't) be doing! *hehehehe*)
I've followed both the on-line and off-line discussions on the issue of whether or not there should be a level (maturity, interest, support) given to Scouts "going for" the BSA's premiere youth award, the Eagle Scout Badge. In the past, I've weighed in on this topic (and some related to it), on the side of the program. I still feel that way.
First, the Boy Scouting program is based on *individual acheivement* not on "group achievement" nor on the "number of individuals that a Scouter can get to achieve at a certain level". Therefore, it is not only conceivable but highly permissible that a kid that feels so stay at First Class for three years if he chooses to do so; or for a kid to set a schedule and decide that before he turns 15, he becomes a Eagle Scout with nine palms, a Vigil Honor member of his Lodge, and perhaps the Section Chief of his Order of the Arrow Section.
That's the simplicity and beauty of the Boy Scout program and which sets it apart from school and church (at least in most areas of the nation).
Each Scout gets to design his way toward Eagle. That's the reason why the requirements are no more stringent than they are. Yeah, at the Star and Life levels, a certain number of "required merit badges" must be earned; but there's NOT a "you must earn this merit badge for Star" or "that merit badge is required for Life". For the Eagle Scout Badge to be earned, there is a list of 11 merit badges which MUST be earned; but as most of know, those 11 could be earned in ANY sequence over ANY period of time and don't HAVE to be earned at that point in time.
Likewise, each Scout can work as hard or as little toward the eventual goal of "becoming a Eagle Scout" as he, his Scoutmaster, his parents and the community at large would let him.
So, here are the questions out there and here's how I would answer them and the basis for those answers:
"Do you see anything wrong with a Eagle Scout at the age of 13?"
It depends upon the maturity, leadership and experience he's had at that point in time. There are several GREAT 13 and 14 year old Eagle Scouts out there, and I would hire them when they turn 16 anytime! On the reverse, there are several TERRIBLE 12, 13 and 14 year olds whom say that they're Eagle Scouts, can produce a $10.25 medal and a $.55 card which supports their assertion, and by their personal actions, can't convince me that they're SCOUTS, let alone Eagle Scouts!
Shamelessly, admittedly, the BSA has been a "Eagle mill" in it's past. We've instilled in every Scoutmaster's brain that he or she MUST produce Eagle Scouts, and we've given him or her the tools in which to do so. The BSA even until a certain time COUNTED the number of Eagle Scouts within each and every local Council and used that number in part to "hire and fire" Council Scout Executives. This practice stopped with our first "revision" of our program in 1973 and it was a good thing it did stop then. There are still stats compiled on the overall number of Eagles, but not arranged by local Council for "promotional purposes".
This insistence has rubbed off the Scoutmasters to the parents of Scouts, whom see the Eagle Scout Badge as some sort of "magic key" to get their kids into colleges or into the military academics. IT IS NOT. The Eagle Scout Badge is only good for getting their feet INTO THE DOORSTOP. There's a LOT MORE that really decides if a kid is going to be accepted or even LOOKED AT.
"So you are saying that there should be a minimum age to become a Eagle?"
No. The BSA's requirements, not significantly changed from the 1912 Eagle Scout requirements nor the 1962 requirements that our current listing is based upon, is fine. Then as now, it takes 18 months from start to finish to become a Eagle Scout. The DIFFERENCE WAS that Scoutmasters (and parents) were not so fixated on the "Eagle Scout Badge" and more fixated on "participating in a character, personal fitness and citizenship program with his peers". Whether a person made it to Second Class or to Eagle was of little consequence; what mattered was the EFFORT MADE to get as high as you could in the program.
I know of many Life Scouts whom are just as proud of their heart-shaped badge with the First Class badge inside of it as I am of my Eagle Scout badge. While they feel a slight bit of embarrassment for "not going the final mile" when asked, they do feel a positive sense of accomplishment and unity with every other Scout.
Likewise, I know of several Eagle Scouts that have placed their achievement away in a drawer or framed it alongside the football pictures or the college diploma, only to display it whenever folks come by and in many cases as an afterthought (oh yeah, I did that too. Eagle with the palms, the Order to the Arrow, all of that jazz...Did I mention that I was all-state twice?). I work with one such man (stated loosely) at work. This guy used to be the Lodge Chief of the local OA lodge, is a Eagle Scout (yeah, once always), with three palms, and is a Vigil Honor member. You wouldn't know it if you met him...he comes in to work drunk four days of five, treats customers terribly, and spends 70 percent of each day telling how much "he got" the previous night, how much "he drank" the previous night, and how much he's looking forward to "being out on the streets" in the present evening.
He earned his Eagle at the tender age of 14.
"So what should we do to maintain what high standards we expect from Eagle Scouts? Keep them in the Troop longer? Deny them merit badges until a certain age? Administer a test? What?"
The testing is the Eagle Scout project. Momma and Pappa should NOT be involved in the project, except to provide moral support. The project is designed to be the TRUE TEST of a Eagle candidate's ability to plan, develop, execute and evaluate a plan. HIS plan, one in which he had to gain approval for HIMSELF. What happens a lot is that Momma and Pappa goes out and solicit the plan, develops the plan, and hands it to the kid. The kid then goes to the adults in his Troop or Post or Team and repeats from memory what Mom and Pop *told him* about the plan. Get stuck? Say "I'll come back to you" and go home and drill Mom and Pop to explain it again....or Mom or Pop (or both) picks up the phone and complains to the Troop that "you're pressuring him. Come on, this is *just a project*". Then, the Troop folds from pressure (or in their "insistence to MAKE A EAGLE", approves the project....)and sends it to the District or Council.
There, they (because they want to INCREASE THE NUMBERS and MAKE THE EAGLE), looks the project over and stamps it "approved".
Then Momma and Pappa goes with the kid and completes the project, fills out the paperwork, and turns it into the Scoutmaster whom is supposed to make a decision: Is this kid EAGLE MATERIAL IN MY OPINION? Then, seeing themselves in the Norman Rockwell painting, handing the Eagle Badge to a proud parent, he or she signs the application and off it goes.
ONLY WHEN IT GETS TO THE TROOP/DISTRICT/COUNCIL BOARD OF REVIEW DOES
IT COMES OUT THAT THE KID DON'T HAVE A CLUE AS TO WHAT HE WAS SUPPOSED TO GET OUT OF THE EXPERIENCE! Then, it's too late.
Denying merit badges until a certain age is silly. Most of the badges can be earned with a good counselor by any 12 year old kid, male or female. And that won't keep them in the Troop longer anyway. We see that all of the time...there's no challenge.
And THAT, my friends, is where the answer is. I've reached my limit with this posting.
Settummanque!
--
Settummanque, the blackeagle... (MAJ) Mike L. Walton ( co-Owner, Blackeagle Services ___)_ (h) 502-782-7992 (f) 502-781-7279 (w) 502-782-7467 |-=-|] 5350 Louisville Road, #52 Bowling Green, KY 42101-7211 -=====- Internet: WALTOML@WKUVX1.WKU.EDU/America OnLine: KYBLKEAGLE@AOL.COM
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 19:41:12 -0600
From: "Settummanque, the blackeagle" <waltoml@WKUVX1.WKU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Scouting's Goal
gregor herrmann <Gregor.Herrmann@UIBK.AC.AT> writes:
>a friend of mine (an Austrian scout currently studying in
>gainesville fla.) has sent me a BSA boy scout handbook (10th
edition
>1990). i found one sentence that caught my curiosity:
>
>"your boy scout handbook [...] will point you toward
the most
>important scouting goal of all - the eagle scout rank."
(ben h.
>glove, chief scout executive; page vii)(Ben H. Love's preface
to the opening of the Scout Handbook)
>IMO scouting has a slightly different goal than earning ranks
(BTW:
>i tought it is called "advancement system" and not
"rank system" any
>more?). so i wanted to ask esp. the scouts from BSA in this
group:
>* is this really the Scouting aim as BSA sees it?
No. The aims that Scouting in the USA seeks are not tangible ones. The attainment of the Eagle Scout Badge makes the intangible goals (that of character, personal fitness and citizenship) more reachable and more realistic for the 11 or 12 year old new Scout.
>* was this a mistake by the chief scout executive?
Definately not. The attainment of the Eagle Scout Badge...a coveted award in ANY walk of American life...is something that each and every kid that joins Scouting in America SHOULD reach for, despite the low numbers that actually make it. It's a TOUGH award, no matter how much some adults try to water it down for their Scouts (by birth or by unit affiliation) for them to reach it. It's a DEMANDING award, because of the sheer fact that you will have to prove yourself to your community, to your faith and to yourself while working toward it. It's also a EQUALITY-MINDED award, because a Black teenager living in the Bronx, an Hispanic living in North Dakota, and a white kid living within the American Consultant in Bogota, Columbia can all earn the award meeting the SAME requirements, the SAME demands and the SAME amount of service...while at the same time, this award is INDIVIDUALIZED in the way each of them (and others) choose to earn it. While there are eleven required merit badges which must be earned, there are others that is totally up to each Eagle to choose, work on and earn.
(was someone looking for some Eagle Court of Honor words? *hehehe*)
>* how is this possible - whatever it was?
How was what possible? The emphasis on earning an award? Gregor, I've tried to explain this before to you, but it bears repeating here in the open forum. Unlike other nation's Scouting programs, the BSA's Scouting programs have a high degree of personal achievement and this personal achievement serves as the prime motivator for both youth and adult in the program. We Americans are a competing lot, and that competition, which spurred from our earliest days as a nation, spills over for better or worse in many areas of our daily lives. We are NOT content, as Scouts are in many European countries, with just being "a Scout". There are THOUSANDS of Scouts in the United States. What SINGLES them out from the rest of the Scouts....again for the good it does as well as the bad...is that DRIVE to become the "best". The "highest". The "coveted". That competitive drive serves as one of the determinations whether a kid goes to college or even finishes high school here.
In other nation's Scouting programs, the exception is the Scout that achieves more than what I'll call the "proficient" level of their program. In the United States, Canada, and in Great Britain, this level is the STANDARD. Since this standard could be met by the majority of the Scouts in their nations, they developed a stairstep of awards which takes those Scouts higher than being merely proficient. Scouts in all three nations grow tired of just camping without a purpose, to doing things without a goal or a reason other than "that's what Scouts do". They want to achieve a level higher than their peers.
In the USA, it is called "Star Scout", "Life Scout", "Eagle Scout" and "Eagle Scout with _______Palm(s)".
Each step upward takes a Scout beyond merely camping and "palling" around with his (or her) peers. It takes them to another level of service, another level of leadership and most importantly another level (we hope) of self-discovery and self-disclosure, as he or she finds out that there are some things that they CANNOT do.
Other things, they can do EXTREMELY WELL. This serves as part of that competitiveness that drives them onward through high school, through college and we hope through a successful and fulfilling life.
>gregor *slightly shocked*
Don't be shocked. Again, as many tried to explain here, the BSA is indeed a rare and exotic animal indeed. Our programs are not just designed to take kids into the woods camping and hiking and all of that.....it is designed to prepare them for their places in today's competitive and increasing changing American society. While I can debate either side...the good that this causes as well as the wrong it does create in some quarters, the *bottom line benefit* is that earning a tangible award (Eagle or First Class or even Tenderfoot) takes much more than going camping and coming to meetings.
Settummanque!
-- Settummanque, the blackeagle... (MAJ) Mike L. Walton ( co-Owner, Blackeagle Services ___)_ (h) 502-782-7992 (f) 502-781-7279 (w) 502-782-7467 |-=-|] 5350 Louisville Road, #52 Bowling Green, KY 42101-7211 -=====- Internet: WALTOML@WKUVX1.WKU.EDU/America OnLine: KYBLKEAGLE@AOL.COM