I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been impressed with Cub Scouts as I go through it again thirty years later with my own sons. In addition to programming for kids, scouting provides training opportunities for their adult leaders. Scouting is driven by adult volunteers. In contrast to Boy Scouts where the scouts themselves take on the planning, programming, and execution with supervision of the adults, in Cub Scouts, the adult leaders take on these roles to create experiences for these younger kids.
I attended the Basic Adult Leader Outdoor Orientation, or Baloo, training. Baloo training is required before you can organize and supervise a Cub Scout overnight camp out. It was an online training plus a full day (12 hours) of practical training at a local Scout camp. The name Baloo is fitting since Cub Scouts has its thematic roots in the stories of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book. In the Jungle Book, Baloo the bear is the teacher of the (wolf) cubs. Akela is the leader of the pack. In Cub Scouts, the adults take on the combined roles of Akela and Baloo by both leading the scouts, but also teaching them skills so that one day, they can lead themselves.
The Baloo program combined four areas important to an outdoor leadership: planning, ethics, skills, and teaching, all with an emphasis geared towards kids in the ages of 5-11. The program used a series of breakout sessions to cover specific topics such as camp site selection and layout to group cooking, knife skills, knot tying, GPS, and first aid. Other breakout sessions covered nature education, leave no trace/outdoor ethics, water safety, and gear selection. One purpose of these sessions was to make sure that all of the adults through the program had some experience with the basic outdoor skills that the scouts were required to learn. I had a new perspective on these topics as now I was thinking about how I would teach them to my den when we came to those requirements. These sessions were a good refresher of basic skills, and I was reminded that it can be good to pay attention to the basics from time to time. This leads me to my first big take away.
#1 We are Setting an Example
In addition to wanting to create a positive experience to the scouts, you want them to see that you are acting out the correct behaviors and actions. Again, for many scouts these are their first or early experiences camping. As a dad, I know that kids can be highly observant and especially in a new situation, they will look to the adults and model what they see.
Over the years of doing things outdoors, everyone picks up “bad” or at least not “by the book” habits. This can be sanitation related, water treatment, or fire safety to name a few. When camping by myself I may simply wipe out or lightly rinse a personal food item. I’ll drink from a lake or river from time to time without filtering. I may leave a fire unattended if I know that I will be back soon. When an experienced person does these things it is with an assessment of the risks and with some mitigating actions, conditions, or behaviors, e.g. – the wiped plate didn’t have anything oily or fatty in it, the water was drawn from the middle of a deep lightly used lake, it was a calm day with the fire burned low and the fire area clear of combustibles.
However, for the new scout, they don’t see the nuance or have the experience to see why it is “more ok” to do something in this situation compared to the general prohibition. The new scout doesn’t see the distinctions above, they see you not washing your plate, drinking unfiltered water, and leaving a fire unattended. They too need the experience and need to learn (and see you carry out) the basic prohibition first. As the leaders we need to be setting that good example. As an additional aside, any of the camping that we do with the Cub Scouts will most likely be in an easy and unchallenging environment, as a leader I can kick up the challenge to my personal outing by trying to be my best possible example.
#2 Given the Chance Kids can Handle More
The new Cub Scout program greatly increased the emphasis on the outdoors and camping. In doing so, they opened up the ability for Cub Scouts to take on more adventurous activities including camping, hiking, swimming, boating, and shooting sports, among others. The kids can handle this primarily because of two main techniques: organized camps and reliance on the adult partner.
The Cub Scouts have a network of staffed camps available for packs. At these camps they have the right equipment, processes, and supervision to create positive experiences in all of these areas. Again, it is about creating positive experiences that make scouts want to learn these skills for themselves in the future.
The reliance on the adult partners is a tool and concept that I hadn’t fully considered and has helped me to expand my thoughts as to what can be done within Cub Scouts. Since the focus of Cub Scouts is positive outdoor experiences, the adult partner can be enlisted to help this. Adult partners are suggested for many events and are required for all participation by younger scouts. Therefore, scouts can be assigned roles or tasks during an outing to be completed by them and their adult partner. No task is too difficult for the adult partner to accomplish, but you pass the experience down to the scout and adult partner for completion. In this way jobs like meal preparation or clean up can be divided up among the scouts and the meals, with each scout and adult partner working together to accomplish the task. This also gives the chance to foster a positive experience in the outdoors for the scout and the adult partner.
I need to keep this in mind outside of scouting as well. There can be a tendency on other trips, even with adults, for people to fall into “roles” all too often someone ends up doing the majority of the cooking, or cleaning, or wood gathering or other task, while others do less under the excuse of inexperience. This is also easy to do when camping with my own kids, and I will try better to let them have chances to help in the work of camping. By creating a team environment where everyone has a chance to build up their skills, kids and adults can become more comfortable contributing partners in the outdoors.
#3 Reverence is an Integral Part of the Outdoor Experience
Reverence is a hard one of the scout law to teach to scouts. It is difficult to teach to anyone. But the Baloo training highlighted the ways in which this difficult to teach law can be applied and featured in an outdoor program. An appreciation of nature and the outdoors is an appreciation for life (and lives) beyond our own. This deeply rooted appreciation and the respect that flows from it is reverence. Therefore an act of silence, meditation, watching a sunrise or sunset can all be acts of reverence that the scouts can participate in in an outdoor program.
The new Cub Scout program also places a greater emphasis on outdoor ethics. The Scouting Outdoor Code is:
As an American, I will do my best to be clean in my outdoor manners; careful with fire; considerate in the outdoors; and be conservation-minded.
It was mentioned that some Packs have elevated the Outdoor Code to the same level as the Scout Oath and Scout Law and use it to start every meeting. I’m thinking that is a change that I’ll implement with my den this next year.
Related to Reverence, is Scouting’s Duty to God. It can be difficult to touch on the subject of faith and God, but giving the connection to reverence, the Duty to God can and should be incorporated into an outdoor program. A simple grace or prayer at meal time or during a flag ceremony or a camp fire can be a moment of reflection for scouts, and done in a way that scouts of all faith traditions feel welcome and comfortable.
The suggested opening phrase, “Please prepare yourself for prayer in the manner in which you are accustomed,” lets everyone know that we will be saying a prayer, but also acknowledges and encourages the diversity of faith traditions. While we were given a number of examples, here were two that I thought were good:
We thank the Lord for all that's good, For food, for life, for brotherhood. For friends and family, near and far, For fellowship right where we are.
The food comes from the Earth and Sky. It is the fight of the entire universe And the fruit of much hard work; I vow to live a life which is worthy to receive it.
Although, I plan to explore it more in the future, I think that I can be more reverent in my time in the outdoors. The outdoors is where my sense of reverence comes from, and I think that I make an effort to practice that internally when I have a chance. But if I want to pass values along to my children, I need to vocalize this to them and engage them more in discussing nature in this way.
Conclusion
The Baloo training was a good opportunity for me to refresh and brush up on some outdoor skills, but also gave me a chance to reflect on my new roles of father and den leader and how I can be a better example of outdoor ethics and values to my boys and to the scouts of my den. I would recommend Baloo training to anyone who is involved or will be involved with Cub Scouting. It is a worthwhile program. Scouts also offer additional advanced adult leader training for specific skills and roles, including the Wood Badge training which is an advanced course in the leadership and leadership training methods of scouts as well as outdoor skills.
I want to end with a thank you and shout out to all of the teachers from Three Harbors Council who volunteered their entire Saturday (not to mention their preparation time before and after) to put on this training.