Frankly, Stephen, I think the problem starts at the top, with the leaders. Without going into too many details, the problems I've seen with the Boy Scouts points directly to a lack of solid leadership. Is there a training program or a test scout leaders have to go through or pass? From my experience, which is limited since I left scouting many, many years ago, there is not.

Two years ago in Yellowstone I ran into a scouting group that was canoeing on Shoshone Lake. They made a number of serious errors that, fortunately, didn't lead to an accident, possibly fatal:

1. The "leader" of the group figured that if he charged ahead in his canoe, he would inspire the others to follow him.

2. They crossed the "Narrows" portion of Shoshone Lake at midday, when winds were kicking up waves to roughly 3 feet; tricky waters for inexperienced youths in aluminum canoes.

3. The leaders refused to acknowledge the dangerous conditions on the lake and his group's inexperience. They pushed on, trying to reach the Shoshone Geyser Basin. The group, which I believe consisted of six canoes, was stretched out well over a quarter-mile in the heavy water. The winds eventually convinced them to stop and hike the rest of the way.

4. The group didn't have a water filter. They sheepishly borrowed ours on their return.

5. They recrossed the Narrows again in dangerous conditions, as the winds didn't abate until near sundown.

That's just one example. There are plenty more.

From that experience, it would seem to me the scouts need a national training center for scout masters.

Kurt

Excellent points Kurt! Basic training camps should be some kind of proving grounds for future scout leaders. Something like they have set-up in leadership academies to test their wit and physical stamina. Testing one's rational mental faculties under all kinds of wilderness conditions comes with superb training and experience. Something not to take lightly when trotting cross country with a troop of young tenderfoots.

I've had 3 of my 4 boys in Scouting and have an Eagle Scout as a son-in-law. From personal experiences within our dens, I feel part of the issue stems from too much "in the basement" (or garage, or family room, whatrever) at the lower levels of the program and not enough encouragement or structure to accomodate "field" experience. Yes, I know all about (and have chapenoned) the camping trips, aquatic biological studies, neighborhhod clean-ups, etc. Too little time is spent not only on the actual activity, but in preparation for the events. And insofar as inactions with the younger set, Kurt makes some valid points.........the leadership appears to be whoever is willing, qualified or not. While not having the "personal" experience with the Eagles, but having multiple and in-depth discussions with the son once removed, I get the distinct impression that he was relieved to be out of the junior circuit and found the challenges that were before him more rewarding and the knowledge gained more practical, along with the leadership being a far cry above what was experienced during his initial exposure to scouting. Maybe that's supposed to be the reward with havnig endured the incompetence of the early years?

I must admit that this entire thread has taken off into another fascinating direction to me personally. This is because I was not anticipating answering for the training methods of Boy Scout leaders in general. However, since it has gone this route I'll gladly address what I know from my tiny corner of the Scouting universe.

From the personal association, I believe the training for Boy Scout leaders is overly cumbersome. Please remember that the vast majority of leaders, especially the ones with which you've had your experiences, are volunteers. Although we do get hours and hours of training each year, it's not in the particulars of high adventure canoeing, or deep sea skuba-diving, etc. It's generally in matters pertaining to following the policies established by the Boy Scouts. For instance, the Guide to Safe Scouting details exactly what a safe swimming program should be. Well, it's become such a burden to follow the guidelines anymore that it's really not worth jumping through the hoops to go swimming as a Scout. Furthermore, there are written policies against wearing open toed shoes, sandles, etc. anywhere outdoors for fear of a stick stabbing an unfortunate exposed toe. I think you get the general drift.

With that said, the volunteer leaders with which you've had your dealings were untrained to lead those boys in the environments in which they found themselves. I really think, for that reason, that leaders should be recruited with specific high adventure skills, whether they have sons or not. However, that opens the door to other possible areas of litigation that the Boy Scout Organization is desperately trying to avoid.

I just now saw your comments, Lone Hiker. Thanks for your inputs as well. I find them to be highly valid and relevant. I should mention that both of my boys disliked scouting greatly, shortly after crossing over from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. I directly attribute this to the ways in which the Troop was managed differently from the Pack. In the Pack, the adults run things. In the Troop, the boys run things. In our specific Troop, the boys were expected to run things and had very little guidance from the adults. IMO, that was a disaster.

As big an enterprise as scouting is --and it's huge; according to Wikipedia, the BSA ranks 12th nationally in terms of nonprofit revenues, with $665.9 million in 2005, and the chief scout executive was paid more than $900,000!!-- one would think the organization could afford to either better train its scout leaders in activities they lead scouts on, or at the very least have teams of regional experts who could travel the country certifying scout leaders.

Just as Boy Scouts need to earn merit badges, shouldn't scout masters have to go through a similar process to show they're capable of leading young men and teaching them the core values that scouting evolved around? I mean, here in Utah there have been relatively recent occurrences in which scouts or scout leaders died because they were unprepared for hiking in Grand Canyon and Zion national parks, and burned down a pretty good chunk of national forest.

Growing up in Jersey I was active in scouting, progressing from Cub Scout up through Boy Scout to Explore Scout. Looking back, I think I had pretty good leaders for the most part, although there were a few who were simply volunteers and knew very little about the out-of-doors and how to survive in them.

I do believe scouting is a valuable experience -- or at least it was -- and that it can play a key role today in not just teaching self-esteem, personal responsibility, and valuable skills, but also a life-long love for the out-of-doors in general and the national parks specifically.

The question is, how do we get kids out of the shopping malls and into the woods and making scouting cool again? I know that kids get laughed at when they hear they're in scouting. You hear cries like: "Man, that's not cool anymore"! Kurt makes a damn good point about the money factor and the merit badge issue. Perhaps some ex-green berets can perk up the interest and make it more challenging with their high-tech skills in outdoor survival. Kids need the high-tech environment involved in scouting.

True, "techying" up the scouting arena could only have positive benefits, but outfitting each den with a GPS, et.al, will prove to be less than cost-effective. You think fees are high now? Besides, survival skills more often than not require an ability to read nature, not a LCD screen. Your Route Tracker won't be much good locating food, assisting in finding materials and erecting a shelter, knowing when storms are "on the horizon".
They still teach map reading, don't they? Or has GPS overtaken that basic skill too? Technology has definate limitations. After all, GPS is certainly no substitute for an ability to read a topo map.
On the other hand maybe the BSA would be interested in knowning that after first-hand observation by my youngest, since he was basically dragged along to the annual Pine Wood Derby, Scouts Family Dinners, Cross-Over Ceremonies, etc., and seeing just how much fun his older brothers were having at the various levels, he turned his attention to baseball. Year 'round. All-Star and Travel team starter every year but his first. Gets up and works out most every day. All due to his trying to find some way of avoiding the miserable experiences he encountered BSA before even joining.

And I would like to thank the BSA as well!

Kurt - there are tons of training programs for Scout Leaders. With 4 million boys and 1 million adult leaders, there are bound to be a wide variety of people in the leadership ranks. I worked at a Boy Scout camp for three summmers, and saw all sorts of leaders. Yes there is training, quite a lot of it actually, and as with any large organization there is much that they can probably do better.

Thanks for all the responses. I am in general agreement that it's a worthwhile program, still. It also could be improved in many respects.

As a follow up to my role in Scouting I am still a leader, even though both of my kids decided to pursue sports, baseball specifically, with a vengeance. With all of the training and experience I've had in and out of Scouting, I went back to the Pack level this past year and took on the role of the Tiger (1st grade level) leader. I know that I can make a positive difference in the lives of those kids so it's a very rewarding experience for me personally.

Lone Hiker: I don't expect the young troopers to have all the high-tech gadgets to make scouting appealing to hold their interest. Perhaps the Bear Grylls ("Man vs. Wild") survival type can arouse scouting to be a pure adventure which matches wit and brawn. My thinking is, kids lose interest in scouting because we live in a culture of mushroom comfort...spoon fed, pampered and consoled when life gets a little rough. Bringing kids outdoors to enjoy the elements of nature and rough the brush takes a man like Carl Sharsmith (now deceased) to pump interest into their little brains...and there is very few of his type around. Kids need this kind of concept of outdoor education. Ranger Sharsmith did it all, from the meadows of Yosemite to it's highest mountain peaks. Pure trekking at it's best! Perhaps some of these ceremonial rituals in scouting is a little overly done and can be eliminated to some degree and make it less boring for the youngsters. Scouting shouldn't be for pampered babies who whine when the elements of nature gets the best of them. No! Look at past scouting history and you will fine kids were a little more hardier and more motivated to master the skills of outdoor wilderness survival. What happened to this zest and zeal in kids today?

Simple.......video games, I-net, chat rooms, and the "mommy drive me" suburban lifestyle. WAY too much convenience in life. Most kids now even cringe at the thought of riding a bicycle; God forbid they have to actually WALK! Many kids today are almost literally "all thumbs", that is, pertaining to the video controllers. They've been desensitized by the violence perpetrated by the media in all of its forms, from the music industry to movies, television, literature, games, papers and of course, the Web. They don't have to leave the comfort of their parent-supplied Lay-Z-Boy recliners to "see the world", or at least what they perceive to be the real world. And that perception of the world and those who inhabit it are the primary issue that needs immediate addressing insofar as altering one's concept of reality.
I've been accused, most notable by the gun-liberals, of not living in "reality". I don't take it seriously, because reality is indeed a personal view, a unique perspective that varies from individual to individual. It's largely based on ones life experiences, which are the most formative portion of your views and opinions on any given issue. Someone had a bad experience and chooses to take a knee-jerk reaction in response, that's their prerogative. Silly as it is at the moment, it's the spontaneous reaction to an action. My response is thinking before you knee-jerk, take a measured, calculated response. Of course, that involves rational thought and taking time to actually think, which I gather is asking too much in modern society. The other way is much easier. But the easy way is rarely the best or proper way. That again is why the answer to this issue about getting kids involved has no one-size-fits-all resolution. But in general, if you remove the conditions that encourage a slothful existence, you might simultaneously be removing the barriers that are responsible for giving kids the "easy way out" for not using THIER brains to find something more useful to be doing with their miserable existences.

Lone Hiker: Your point of view is well taken...good response!

Here's an example of a young man who did a harmful thing to nature without understanding how he was hurting it: a Boy Scout here killed 29 Tree Swallows with his Eagle Scout project, and barely avoided killing 22 more.
The Scout was trying to help wildlife. He built 20 bluebird houses and installed them at McKenzie Slough. That's a wildlife area managed by the North Dakota Game and Fish Dept.
I've had birdhouses at the slough since 2001. I check them weekly and send the information to Nestwatch, http://watch.birds.cornell.edu/nest/home/index. I saw the new birdhouses, found out from Game and Fish that the Scout wasn't going to monitor them, and volunteered to add them to my database.
When I made my first check, I found the new birdhouses full of Tree Swallows, mostly dead. The Scout had built the boxes out of smooth lumber, used a design that made a deep box (7 ¾” from entrance to floor), and had not provided any footholds. The birds couldn’t jump that high, couldn’t climb the smooth walls, and there wasn’t room to fly. It was just luck that I got there in time to find some birds still alive.
I took the boxes down and took them home to fix. I’m making shallow horizontal saw cuts inside, between the entrance hole and the floor, to provide a “ladder.”
I plan to warn the Scout and his troop not to use that design again without using rough lumber, adding footholds, or both. He could have made footholds by adding saw cuts, tacking on a piece of wire mesh, inserting wood pegs or screws as interior perches, or putting in some staples. Even horizontal scratches with a jackknife might have been enough.
I am a former Girl Scout, married to a former Boy Scout, and both our families are in Scouting. My answer to this tragedy is to try to spread the word about the danger of smooth sides in deep birdhouses. (This is part of that effort.) I wish I had an answer for where to get enough leaders and train them properly, or how to teach Scouts to understand nature.

How tragic is that story. It just boggles the mind that such good intent goes to waste because of either the lack of research on the part of the Scout, the lack of guidance that should have been given the Scout by a leader, or a combination of the two.

Although not necessarily an expert in this area, I do remember hearing of one Eagle project that focused on providing artificial shelter for wood ducks. The thing that struck me reading the story about the tree swallows is that the wood ducks needed similar footing inside of the enclosure in order to exit. This Scout had a dad who was his leader and had much experience in this area.

I don't know what the answer is to preventing this in the future because I think it a good thing the Scouts get involved and learn, but not at this price.

Anyway, thanks for sharing, Ann.