Thoughts on Scouting

I’d like to take a moment to step aside from monuments to discuss something else close to my heart, scouting.

As you have probably heard the national leadership recently decided to allow girls to join Cub Scouts in 2018 (really they mean the recruiting that starts with the new school year in August 2018) and then into Boy Scouts in 2019 (which I believe will also mean August 2019). 

To be honest I have conflicted thoughts on the issue, which I hope to explore here both to help educate others on some of the issues and also to flesh it out myself so that I have a firmer opinion.  Of course I’m sure my opinion will change as this process goes along too.  I’ll try to blog about that process from time to time as well.

Step one of the process is deciding how our pack progresses as the decision from BSA  gives us three options.  Us in this case includes the church we meet at.  Ultimately they really are in charge of our pack.  They have to sign off on leaders and theoretically they could be really hands on but they generally leave us alone.  Picking one of the three options is essentially a church decision but I bet we’ll be involved in that process to some degree as we’ll be the ones implementing their decision.  Some other organizations may have zero input from the pack leaders.  So the three options are:  continue with a boys only pack, create a new second pack for girls only that operates alongside the existing boy pack, or create a co-ed pack with single gender dens.

I realize some might get to this log not knowing a ton about scouts so I’ll try to add in general info as we go.  In this case a Cub Scout pack is the total group at a church or a school.  It is broken into dens based on grade level; Tigers for 1^st grade, Wolves for 2^nd, Bears, Webelos 1 and Webelos 2, also known as Arrow of Lights, for 5^th grade.  Then after that they cross over to a Boy Scout troop which is composed of patrols.  I’ll also try to refer to the national organization as BSA so that when I say Boy Scouts you know I mean the actual troops of scouts versus the national headquarters.

I know there are packs that are ready, anxious even, to make the change.  I’ve seen some of it myself.  The family shows up for a meeting and the sisters sit with the parents, but then they tend to join in the fun.  I’ve had girls join us on hikes, field trips and even the occasional meeting like when we were playing chess not for a more mundane topic like fire safety.  There is a population of girls who want to join packs and troops. 

So then it’s a question of should we form a separate pack for girls or just add girl dens to the existing pack.  For each pack this will be a different decision.  Each route has its pros and cons, and logistical problems to solve along the way.  For example I don’t think our church has 5 more rooms to give us on our meeting night, I think we can expand to 7-8 rooms.  But maybe we won’t have girls for each grade level so we only need 8 rooms.  Maybe the church is excited about it and finds us the additional rooms.  Packs that meet at schools likely won’t have the space issue, same for dens that meet at the leader’s homes.

So if we have a shortage of rooms do we then let the girl Tigers and boy Tigers share a room since they’re both working on the same requirements?  It makes sense but then you don’t really have gender separate dens. 

Another logistical issue is leadership.  Finding den leaders and pack leaders (think committee members behind the scenes as well as uniformed extra adults serving as cubmaster and assistant cubmasters) is not always easy.  Some years we feel really good about the number of leaders and other times it seems like its tough to get volunteers.  Can better combine leadership resources in a co-ed pack but then due to den level leadership structure might have a dearth of help.  (Den leadership requires two adults at all times, each adult only responsible for 5 scouts.  So den of 1-10 scouts need 2 leaders, hit 11 and now you need 3.)  If we have two small Bear dens, say 4 each, then each den needs 2 leaders.  But if combined the dens into 1 Bear den of 8 scouts we’d need 2 leaders.  In one case need 50% of the parents to set up and in other only need 25%.  Those odds will be another reason that packs just let the dens be co-ed. 

Those are the two big logistical hurdles I see.  Each can be overcome.  I anticipate that the new girls joining will have enthusiastic parents that want to be part of this so they might volunteer at higher rates than existing membership.  Organizations that decide to do it will also want to support it properly and so will find the space to make it work.  I’m sure that there are other logistical problems I’m not seeing yet.

I’m sure someone is sure to say that sleeping arrangements, or restrooms, on a campout are the other big logistical issues.  As far as bathrooms I cannot think of a camp ground we’ve been at yet that this would be an issue.  That’s because we have younger scouts so we cannot take them roughing it, we go to state parks and the like.  Those have had separate restrooms for ages.  Also as far as camping we are doing family camping where the family sleeps together in one tent.  Boy Scouts will have its own issues as those scouts do not camp with a parent but the Venturing and Exploring programs have been part of BSA for quite awhile and they have figured out how to make it work. 

Also it is important to note that much of the rest of the world has co-ed scouting.  BSA only had it for the older scouts, over age 14 for Venturing.  The BSA was not first.  Scouting was founded in the UK.  It started as boy only and spread that way.  Over past 100 years the rest of the world has become co-ed.  The exceptions were the primarily Muslim countries of the Middle East and the US.  Also in those cases the two scouting groups merged.  In this case BSA isn’t merging with Girl Scouts, its just opening its doors to girls.

And that actually does bother me.  I think we should merge instead of this.  But I know the GS has rebuffed the BSA’s efforts on this.  From my own experience dealing with GS they don’t seem as well organized as far as the grade level groups. 

I’ve heard that one reason girls want to join BSA is that GS doesn’t offer the outdoor activities, or not on the scale that BSA has.  GS becomes crafts and cookies unless find a leader who takes the girls camping.  Another reason I’ve heard is that girls want to earn Eagle, that the GS Gold Award doesn’t have the same cachet.  I think in this case that’s a marketing problem as I’ve read some of the Gold Award efforts and it feels very comparable to the work done for Eagle.

We don’t know yet how the BSA will incorporate girls in Boy Scouts yet.  That doesn’t start until 2019 and I suspect they’re waiting to see the execution of some things in Cub Scouts first, that’s why the year head start for Cubs.  I know people are worried that Eagle won’t mean as much that BSA will make it easier to earn.  I highly doubt that they will alter the requirements for Eagle.  Think it’ll be the case for all scouts that either you put in the effort, time, dedication, etc to earn all those merit badges plus the leadership positions along the way or you don’t.  Plenty of good scouts don’t achieve Eagle.  Plus on a side subject Eagle shouldn’t be the end goal anyway.  Learning skills, improving on them, becoming young leaders who teach, guide and inspire other scouts, that should be the goal.  If along the way you do the merit badges and lead a project then Eagle will come to you. 

So where do I land on all of this?

The old school part of me says its called BOY Scouts for a reason.  Boys, and girls, need some single gender activities to grow.  Even if that growth is toward the same goal.  Traditions need to be respected and followed. 

But ……..  Things change.  The world is different today than it was in 1910 when BSA was formed or closer to 1900 when Baden-Powell wrote Aids to Scouting which helped launch the whole scouting movement.  (Robert Baden-Powell wrote Aids to Scouting while a colonel in the British army as a guidebook for military scouts.  It became popular back in England among young boys which caught him by surprise when he returned home in 1903.  The scouting movement started to grow quickly and he retired from the army to devote the later part of his life to scouting.)

But if we don’t adapt to a changing world we’ll die.  That’s not just scouting but anything.  And scouting has adapted many times over the years.  There used to be a ton of farming related merit badges as the population was much more rural and agricultural than it is today.  Those badges are gone.  Sometimes replaced by similar badges that consolidate several, or sometimes gone for good.

We’ve always been a changing organization, it might be small changes but it has happened.  And it will continue.  Change is scary but it can be good. 

Also I think all the arguing and sky is falling mentality among scouters is misplaced.  BSA has made a decision.  I know from other stories that this has taken BSA years to get here, this was not a spur of the moment thing.  So its not going away unless its proven not to work.  And no adults should sabotage the experience of the kids so that it does fail.  If an adult feels so strongly against this then they should remove themselves from a direct leadership position and instead use their leadership skills to work with BSA directly.  Don’t make kids a pawn in your struggle. 

I’m excited and nervous for the future.  This process won’t be smooth.  Its not an effort I was expecting to be involved with.  But I will do my best to make sure that girls in Cub Scouts is a success in my pack (if our church decides to even go that route, which I think they will).  By chance my daughter will be of Tiger age next year so she’ll be part of the first group of girl Tigers nationwide.  But even if my daughter wasn’t part of this I would still reach out to the leaders of the girls, share my knowledge and guide them to create a great experience for the girls.  I will also be in a leadership role with my oldest son’s troop by the time girls are allowed in Boy Scouts.  We don’t know the format of that, it could follow the same guidelines as the Cub Scouts were given, but I’ll be there to help too.  I’ll help teach them merit badges, life skills and mentor their growing leadership abilities.  And when one of them has done the work for Eagle I will be there to congratulate them on their accomplishment, same as I would do for any other scout who earned Eagle.