Comments on: Vanguard Scouts: Mormon Boys in Their Mid-Teens: part 2

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:22:38 +0000

Well, it was 1929, Paul …

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:07:10 +0000

Ardis, just as with Part I of this series, I find the discussion of the reality of 15-year olds to be pretty spot on (except, I hope, for driving the car to visit a girl…)

By: kevinf

kevinf — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 21:03:53 +0000

As I look at the org chart again, it must have made heads swim (even as the current one does now), especially that all the lines of authority did not go back through the Bishop and from him to the Stake President. Matrix management must have been a really foreign concept to men who likely were born in the 19th century.

Researcher, I share your pain, as a former square peg scoutmaster who was told that all the holes had to be round, so I must be the problem. Personally, I would prefer just the Duty to God program over the confusing hydra of BSA, LDS Scouting, and priesthood principles and policies.

By: Researcher

Researcher — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 20:25:50 +0000

Take out the M-Men, and that looks about like the structure of the program today, which is probably why so many people have such a hard time figuring it out.

Then add in the simultaneous Duty to God program somewhere in the chart, and try and navigate through the confusing Scout program — the manuals are impediments to figuring out what to do, so luckily people have written guides and put them online to help navigate the programs.

My father is constantly complaining about how people don’t understand the scouting program (in an area with a very high concentration of members) and I think that if it’s so endemic, it’s a problem with the program structure, not the people.

Another weakness of the structure, which we’ve particularly noticed in our ward, is that the boys age out of cub scouts when they’re 11 years old but don’t fall under the priesthood-linked scout program until they’re 12 years old, so there’s an entire year when they pretty much fall through the cracks and fall behind in a lot of their requirements.

And what else can I complain about?? (Due to all these complaints I’m writing this comment under my old pseudonym. : )

I’m a merit badge counselor for about half a dozen merit badges and have had some wonderful experiences working with the scouts, but I do have some major concerns about the overall program, some of which I have noted here. And hopefully none of my boys will ever have any idea about my concerns and they’ll all get their Eagle Scout awards sooner rather than later.

By: MC

MC — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:37:59 +0000

That chart literally makes me dizzy.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:37:11 +0000

It’s part of the Progressive Era, isn’t it, kevinf? Psychology and organizational charts and their scientific applications to life problems, I mean.

By: kevinf

kevinf — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:08:47 +0000

I also love that they included an org chart for the program. Now, they would include this same information with all the current titles, in three or four power point slides in the correlated blue background with the church logo. Org charts must have seemed new and exciting to a generation of church leaders and bureaucrats who may have been the first to see things like this psychology and business organizational concepts taught in their college experience.

By: kevinf

kevinf — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:03:45 +0000

With these older boys, Scouting must be modified considerably before it can adequately supplement the Teachers’ quorum work.

The problem of what to do with aging scouts is truly timeless. We still struggle in many cases with 14 year old Eagle scouts for whom scouting no longer offers much of interest. Vanguard, Venture, Varsity…we seem to have a fondness for the letter V in these cases.

When I was a scout in the mid sixties, our scoutmaster would kick you out of scouts once he perceived you were interested in girls and basketball. That was fine with me.