Scouting, Volume 67, Number 3, May-June 1979 Page: 4
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Cftance to Fail
BY JOHN P. SAGI
A SONG VERY popular in my younger
Scouting days ended with, "Scouting's for
the boys." At that time the song was
nothing more to me than a tune. Now, as a
troop commissioner and an old hand, I
perceive a much deeper meaning to those
closing words.
Most of us Scouters do very well in
providing the means for boys to learn new
outdoor skills, to get their laughs playing
this game of Scouting. But drop in for a
15-minute visit to many troop meetings in
town and you'll probably see little evi-
dence of any planned—or even
unplanned—boy leadership development.
One reason we often tout for neglecting
teaching boys how to lead is that there's a
myriad of tasks that fall on our uniformed
shoulders—purchasing new tent pegs, lin-
ing up transportation and planning the
menu for the next camp-out, and so forth.
There's just no time to teach leadership.
An additional difficulty stems from our
lack of confidence that even if we teach
kids to lead, they'd probably botch it. For.
haven't we all experienced that absolute
despair that comes from seeing parents
grumble about that fiasco of a court of
honor that the troop leaders' council car-
ried out on a trial basis? Didn't we feel that
we really should have done it up right by
ourselves? Never again, we vow!
Yet, haven't we all proudly awarded
many colorful insignia to boys that boldly
cried out patrol leader, leadership corps,
senior patrol leader? How often have we
really involved these appointed ones in the
elements of leadership like planning,
coordinating, directing, counseling?
Most troops I know about have an
active troop leaders' council. By active, I
mean, they meet regularly. (Some meet
monthly as suggested in our basic man-
uals, others less frequently.) Few of these
TLC's have an active role in the complete
leadership process of drawing from kids in
the troop ideas of what they'd like to do, to
planning what happens in the camp wide
game as the stars flicker above the tents.
We neglect entrusting important mat-
ters to the troop leaders' council because
we remember something we read in a
management manual that said that an
individual can make a decision much
more rapidly than a committee can. But
we forget to ask ourselves if it's speedy
decisions we want or the best decisions.
That same management manual might say
that the best decisions are those that come
from the group—only they take a little
longer.
We box ourselves into a tight squeeze by
poor work scheduling. We picture our-
selves bent over our kitchen table late at
night, hurriedly pulling together the pieces
of tomorrow's troop banquet. And then we
complain afterward that we didn't have
any help in running the show. What we're
really saying is that we didn't think far
enough ahead, nor did we have con-
fidence in the ability of others—especially
kids—to do the job.
Another defense for acting the way we
do is that nobody ever seems willing to
take any responsibility. Sure not. Boys
won't usually beg for a chance to fail.
Nobody's told them how to take charge.
Without training, they're afraid to tackle a
new job.
Yet implied in their desires of what they
hope to get from being in your troop is that
chance to shine in handling a new task,
one that lets them show people what to do,
people like their peers and the young kids
in the troop and patrol. Often when your
troop leaders don't get that chance to learn
to lead, they swap their khaki uniform for
a jersey, helmet, and cleated shoes, or
something like that. Maybe out there on
the gridiron the coach will give them a
chance to call the plays.
In this land of Wheaties and champions,
many of us Scout leaders think it almost
un-American to fail. I say let's not be
afraid to fail, to be second best. Tom
Jefferson once declared that the strongest
trees grow in the wind—not in the hot-
house. We all pledge—whether we realize
it or not to prepare boys to stand straight
in face of the storms, to be ready to accept
both the rewards and disappointments of
adulthood. Let's loosen up the reins of
Scoutmastership and allow our boy
leaders to walk the narrow path between
success and failure. Don't we do it every
day as adults? ■
When he's not sailing as an officer aboard
the Navv's guided missile destroyer, USS
John King, John Sagi is a troop commis-
sioner in the Pavab District, Tidewater
Council Norfolk, Va.
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 67, Number 3, May-June 1979, periodical, May 1979; New Brunswick, New Jersey. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353648/m1/4/?q=music: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.