In Favour of Ineffeciencies in Scout Troops

I have learnt more about leadership & patience as a Scout Leader. It's a homile, but it's true: I've learned more from them than they have from me. Yet, my Scout Troop is not the well-oiled machine that some people imagine a Scout Troop should be. Nor will it ever be, because that's not the point.

The point is learning by doing, learning to work in small groups, and being outdoors where all the B.S. of daily life (and here I'm thinking mostly of all the electrically driven distractions now pervasive) gets left behind.

It's not the point to make things easy. Making things easy usually means making things easy for the adults, and avoiding those uncomfortable, awkward moments that are a part of growing up. When we supress & avoid those moments, we're telling the Scouts that we're ashamed, and what they're going through is embarassing. What we should be doing is supporting & celebrating those awkward moments, and let them know it's part of growing up. Congratulatins - you're a step closer to being an adult!

At our last camp, when everybody (including the Leaders) where getting much needed practise lighting fires, the kids' ears perked up when we adults were swapping stories of the stupid things we did when we where kids. I don't know how we got on the topic, but I like to think it made us seem more human and helped them know they were more human too. They seemed to be more relaxed this camp than they'd ever been, or maybe it was just that they got to play with matches...