Observe a community or classroom anywhere in the world and you will conclude that boys instinctively form groups, adopt uniforms, establish standards, develop a credo and create initiatory challenges. While most educational systems battle these instincts scouting gives them a means of positive expression. Boys yearn to belong, to gain acceptance and approval outside the confines of their family. Their imperfect search for guidance and understanding is often met with suspicion and misapprehension. In adolescence they try on lots of attitudes and poses paradoxically seeking approval from the adult world in their very rebellion against it. It can be a tough time for everybody.
We all more or less hammered our way through adolescence in whatever way we could. Some had it easier than others. There were some people who made the process more difficult for us and some who helped. That’s part of the reason that I am a Scoutmaster – I’d like to help. I like to go camping, I like to teach, and I like to cook over a fire.
Scouting, for all the protestations otherwise, is not an ideology. It is a movement with a program that recognizes how to channel the unstable energies and excesses of adolescence. When scouting doesn’t work as it should it is usually adults who have made a real mess of things; it is almost never the fault of boys.
Our volunteers in Scouting are a cross-section of American culture. We represent the a full spectrum of socioeconomic, religious and political views but Scouting possesses a great potential to be inclusive, resilient and to to bring people together.
After beginning in Great Britain in 1907 the movement spread around the world. In 1910 Scouting arrived in United States. The Boy Scouts of America has had an illustrious, if sometimes troubled, history. We have yet to realize the full potential of Scouting for inclusion but change comes slowly.
Scouting is different from any other youth program and getting it right requires dedication and study. Scouting shares the paradoxical combination of simplicity and complexity found in a round of golf or a game of baseball. The basics take a few minutes to learn and a lifetime to master. This blog is an ongoing effort to do just that.
About the Author
I have worked as avolunteer with shelterbox international in kenya 2008 we did serve and pitched tents with mark pearson and philcocine who later died in nakuru i was a leader of the sea scout movement in kenya up to date am a scouter .,once ascout is always a scout.
I am a Leader Trainer From India.I fully agree with ur statement that “Scouting,for all protestation is not an idealogy.It is movement with a programme…….When scouting does not work as it should it is usually adults who have made a real mess of things,it is almost never fault of boys.”Very much true.In fact Scouting is “OF THE YOUTH,FOR THE YOUTH,BY THE YOUTH.”
Thanks – very insightful and genuinely kind.
Whether your God is an old man with a long white beard, sitting on a golden throne, or the realization that we are all a part of the grandeur of this natural world, it matters little. If you see non-standard forms of human relationships as just an expression of love, or you consider them evil, your goal in, and for, Scouting should not waver. Each and every young man should have the benefit of the kindness and wisdom of adults who contribute to their development. Leaving will, in no way, relieve anyone of that obligation. And as for me, I thank you for your tolerance and contribution.
I am a Scouter in hibernation…the Eagle Scout son is in college now plus I have a full canteen drink of adolescent angst each day(I teach middle school and coach high school rugby) I currently lack the motivation to volunteer to BSA in my new neighborhood. That may change.
I see some great ideas on this blog.
Great comments! As an Eagle scout myself and now a Scoutmaster I find myself explaining my involvement much in the same way that you do. I frequently find myself also asking or discussing with others:
- How many organizations do you belong to where you completely agree with all of what they do?
- I’m aligned with 95% of the Scouting program and policy and believe it brings tremendous benefit to our youth, why would I throw that out because of the current issues with the 5%?
- Someday things will change, and it will be because of the involvement of folks like me – so I’m not going anywhere!
Thanks for this. I have been seriously questioning weather to volunteer as a Scout leader. I did it for a few years after my Eagle in 1990. Since that time I’ve had a sort of “anti-epiphany” and become agnostic (I see you are Buddhist, and by a stretch of the definition I suppose I could be). I had the application here, read the Declaration of Religious principles part and threw it away in disgust. I don’t know how to sign that thing without lying. Perhaps I should do it, and just work as a voice of change from within as you have done. How does one get that inclusiveness knot anyway, I found it on wikipedia, but nothing else. I would wear it with pride if I had it. Any advice you can offer would be most helpful.
Great blog…your concluding line, “One stays at it, acts as an agent for peaceful change and has confidence that better times are coming.” is very inspiring. I am an asst. den leader for my son’s Webelos den and I think scouting is a great agent for change if used properly.
-Sean
Why Scouting
Clarke Green, on his blog, Scoutmaster, has succinctly written an article on Why Scouting.
He mentions the penchant for boys to instinctively form groups. We call that a Gang Mentality. And it does exist. All adolescents want to be…
Thanks for your comments about scouting — I’m an Eagle Scout who through a strange series of circumstances has ended up as a Scoutmaster 15 years later and having a hard time deciding if I think scouting is still relevant for today’s boys. Since getting my Eagle, I’ve moved on in life and feel like a lot of the Scouter’s I’ve dealt with aren’t the most “with-it” folks, so your post is a great bolster since you’ve thought out this issue so well.