Jul. 14, 2008 - "Gimme" Badges and Summer Camp

I spent this past week at summer camp with the boys.  It was great fun.  I highly recommend it to parents - so long as you can restrain yourself from hovering.  There's nothing like being branded a "Mama's Boy" to dampen the spirit of a Scout, not mine, of course :-). The Scouts all worked very hard, and the Scoutmaster's wife did an admirable job of having all the back work done so that they didn't have to bother with busy work.  One industrious Scout from our Troop came home with ten completed badges!  Most earned three or four.  Seiji had a lot of work done beforehand, so he ended up with eight and two partials.  Soumei is a little more of the slow-and-thorough type.  He earned four plus one "gimme". I know that Art is the second easiest badge there is (after Fingerprinting), but it should take more than ten minutes.  I suppose the instructor (if he can be called that) thought he was doing him a favor by rushing him through.  Render a subject of your choice in FOUR of these ways: a. Pen and ink, b. Watercolors, c. Pencil, d. Pastels, e. Oil paints, f. Tempera, g. Acrylics, h. Charcoal i. Computer drawing or painting Soumei brought back his 'rendering'.  A simply 2" x 2" face in four different ways: pencil, pen, crayon, and marker.  It left him in a dilemma.  He really wanted to earn the badge, had a signed blue card, yet knew the spirit of the badge had not been upheld.  Fortunately, he discussed it with his SM, who agreed to accept the card with the caveat that he redo it at home.  A compromise that is satisfactory to all. While the summer camp as a whole was fantastic, there was another more serious "gimme".  One of our Tenderfoot Scouts camp back with a "complete" on his Swimming Merit Badge.  I'm sure that there ARE a few 12 year olds who are fishes in the water and can do this badge.  D is not one of them.  He's the most out of shape kid in the whole troop.  More importantly, when asked, the instructor admitted that he didn't get the CPR doll, so just practiced using a "pretend" victim.  That's not going to be a fun discussion with the Scout. I'm sure that MBCs who sign off on badges without their being properly completed THINK they are being kind to the Scouts.  They're not.  It teaches a Scout to cut corners, that the rules don't apply to everyone, and that there are shortcuts to hard work.  Seijitsu assures me that he earned everything he got, but I'm glad to redo the Art badge with Soumei.

Comments (1) :: Post A Comment! :: Permanent Link

Jul. 5, 2008 - Fish and Wildlife: The Blind Leading the Blind

Requirement 5d: Design and construct a wildlife blind near a game trail, water hole, salt lick, bird feeder, or birdbath and take good photographs or make sketches from the blind of any combination of 10 wild birds, mammals, reptiles, or amphibians. Sounds pretty straightforward, right?  S & S both designed their blinds.  Seiji's was a lot simpler, so we went with that.  Probably not the best decision.  The concept sounded good - and frugal.  Using PVC pipe and camo cloth.  Since we had most of the materials, I was definitely for it.  They cut the PVC to size, fitted the pieces together, stained a screen, stretched the camo material tight (and cut away the part for the screen), and fastened it.  Ready to go! Once we got into the field, however, we quickly realized the problems: * We needed to glue the pipes together * The blind needed to be larger * Either we needed more duct tape, or to sew the camo cloth.  Clipping and taping didn't work too well. It was a frustrating experience.  The boys definitely made the attempt.  Whether the MBC will accept the photos they took remains to be seen.  If you look closely, Soumei is in the middle of the photo with the blind. Even though it fell apart, I still consider their endeavor a success.  They know what went wrong.  Next time, it shouldn't.  Soumei, of course, says that if we'd used HIS design, there would have been no problems.  Is there a HUMILITY badge?

Comments (2) :: Post A Comment! :: Permanent Link