I recommend everyone take a picture of their contact information with their digital cameras, that way if it gets lost and found, people know who to at least send the pictures to if the camera is destroyed.
I imagine the RC plane's owner would get a real kick if years later the camera was found and they got the footage back.
(I used to work at Philmont Scout Ranch and would do a lot of detective work to get people their cameras back.)
Yesterday I spoke with a Generac (home standby generator) dealership owner in the Houston area, and they are getting swamped with calls (80 a minute at times) and they have 20 people manning the phones.
One of the problems I see is that people aren't prepared. I live my life by the motto "Be Prepared" (see username). One of the Merit Badges I teach is Emergency Preparedness, and with camping, my Scouts are okay going without electricity and electronics. Even if you're not interested or able to participate in Scouting, swing by your local Scout Shop and pick up an Emergency Preparedness Merit Badge booklet and learn what you can do to Be Prepared. It doesn't extend to just hurricanes.
We live in a society and preparing as a group means that we can efficiently use resources and focus our energy on things that are interesting instead of everyone being overly prepared. Everyone going out and buying a generator is expensive, wasteful and incredibly inefficient. Why isn't it reasonable to just expect reliable infrastructure and quick responses to issues?
I think it is better to put that energy into improving things and building a better future for everyone. As a country it feels like we have forgotten that we can work together to do big things. I still think we can.
Due to occasional failures we should now throw our hands up and label systemic undercutting, and poor governance as unfixable.
Because things are bad sometimes let's excuse unlimited incompetence when expected situations are ignored and cause inevitable catastrophic failure.
Sometimes plans fail so let's excuse failure to plan.
When a huge storm blows through with minimal fuss because preparation and regulation was taken seriously let's downplay the risk and deregulate and dismantle safety apperatus as they are clearly unneeded....
It goes on and on... why did we hire these security guys we never have breaches, why did we hire these sys and network admins everything always works, why do we have all these pesky earthquake codes no buildings have fallen recently...
After nearly 40 years I still can't understand the mental gymnastics required to be so obdurate. It's just nihilistic slash and burn thinking isn't it.
What you're describing here makes our society sound particularly weak. You're basically describing a society that can't be bother with the basics of survival, we're only capable of having those taken care of for us so we can focus on whatever we think is interesting and actually worth our time.
Be seen. Volunteer for on-campus events that are organized by the university (find the person running something, and ask them directly if there's anything you can do to help them).
Always ask "Is there anything else I can do to help" after completing a task. Always be the first to start volunteering (show up early) and the last person to stop volunteering (stay late).
If you're a person of good character and genuine spirit, people will notice and talk about you. People will ask your help with bigger things. Repeat.
If you do this, you'll quickly get snatched up into some professor's research project and forced into grad school, like it or not. There you'll be forced to get your PhD and spend your life doing well paid research in something you're terribly interested in. Awful.
And that's okay. You're job isn't to be their friend either.
A parent's job is to give their kids opportunity to learn and grow. You can't always force it on them, and they won't always be interested.
You can give them them the opportunity to do something that will help them grow (learn, build character, etc) or they can be bored, but if they choose to be bored, they need to be told that they have options, and they are the ones choosing to be bored.
And the opportunities you give them don't always have to be something that costs you time or money, sometimes it's just giving them the opportunity to go outside and play.
What I've observed: they don't want any type of failure for their kids.
I'm a Scoutmaster, and I have one parent who lashed out at me because I asked him not to interfere when the Scouts were trying to do something for themselves.
I didn't let that affect me, I just thanked him for his feedback. Thankfully, I have the support of everyone else in the troop.
What saddens me, is seeing first-hand how bad these parents are for their kids. I feel bad for them. Those kids are going to grow up broken.
This parent's kid only has fun when his parent isn't there. I've never seen him with a smile when his parent is around.
Newton's father died when he was 3 months old and his mother ditched him as a kid and when she returned years later made him quit school to take care of the pigs. The reason he went on to become the Isaac Newton everyone knows, was because of the role all the other Adults around him played, not his parents.
Don't write off that kid.
I teach part time and see this a lot. Especially from fellow teachers. Oh this kid has an alcoholic abusive dad, that kid has a mom with cancer, those 2 have family members in jail etc etc, followed by go easy on the struggling kid or this kid has no hope etc. If the kid flunks a test or skips class let it slide etc.
All this compounds the issue. What is required is the opposite of just sympathy.
Help them find their strengths and interests. Show them how to focus on positives and tune out negatives. Encourage whatever small steps you see them taking. Sensitize the other kids around them to be supportive. Show them examples of resilience and what it takes to be resilient. All these small things add up. Basically don't focus on the parent, focus on things you can do for the kid.
It's very hard to reprogram dysfunctional adults and get them to change, but kids are very different story. And there are few things more beautiful and satisfying, than watching a kid who has struggled for years and years, overcome and kick ass.
Thank you for your support. Rest easy, I'm not writing off anyone. Perhaps it was because I wrote, "They are going to grow up broken." In reality, we all grow up broken. Nothing will ever be perfect for anyone - not the rich kids, not the kids with loving parents, etc. The best I can do is teach them and give them the tools to be able to handle adversity and find success anyway.
When I was a kid, my situation was different, and it would have been easy for others to write-off me, but they didn't.
I agree with everything you're saying. I'm in Scouting for the kids, not for the adults. I don't know and will never know any of the kids' complete stories, so I hold them all equal and give them the same opportunities to become better people.
Who are you referring to? I hope not public school teachers. They have 25-30 kids per class, little freedom to change curriculum and pressure from both administrators and parents to achieve high grades above all else.
You can preach personal sacrifice until the cows come home - capitalist societies are incompatible with having or raising children - they get in the way of the one true God, quarterly profits.
To me, this issue is one of the biggies. I understand where that feeling comes from, we are constantly told that everything is a competition or a race.
My wife and my sister are both teachers (languages and physics respectively), and they often encounter parents like that, who insist that their kid can do no wrong, or cannot be allowed to fail (or that any failure is someone elses fault), and it breaks the kids. Some of the kids understand what's going on and do well in spite of their parents, but others become convinced that either they don't have to take responsibility for anything, or insist on doing courses they are simply not going to do well in (like if you have solid Ds in Maths and the sciences, don't insist on doing A-level Physics, and no you are not going to medical school).
My wife's school had a family where all the kids were hard-working, conciencious and all-round lovely, but everyone dreaded dealing with the parents. Any time a kid got a bad mark in anything they would be on the phone demanding an explanation. The kids were always fine about it and knew when they had not worked on something. They sounded permentantly embarressed by their parents.
One of the most popular arguments right now against grammar schools in my country is that the kids who don't pass the entrance test will experience failure.
Plain and clear, the parents do not want their 11 year old kids experiencing failure.
If an 11 year old cannot cope with failure, imagine what will happen when they are older and fail an exam at university, or are rejected when applying to jobs.
> I'm a Scoutmaster, and I have one parent who lashed out at me because I asked him not to interfere when the Scouts were trying to do something for themselves.
Anecdotally, there are entire Troops built around that type of parent. Tried BSA for a few years as a teenager, ended up in a group with a revolving door of Scoutmaster, as every time a child gained Eagle they and their parent would disappear. If you didn't have a parent actively pushing you through the badges and ranks, you were SOL.
That won't be my troop. I'm setting clear expectations to parents from the beginning that they are only there for safety, driving kids, etc. I will make sure every Assistant Scoutmaster and Committee Member knows this. I will do my best to make sure that whomever succeeds me, will do the same including letting their eventual replacement know as well.
My goal is to make the Troop self-reliant, not reliant on me. I need to protect it from the Bus Factor.
Are you in a newish troop then? Growing up, all the troops I heard of were pretty established, some going beack nearly to the BSA founding. Typically they were associated with another organization like a church or an Elk's Lodge type thingy.
That said, I hear you on the 'paper eagles'. I saw a lot of kids with their mom just trying to get the rank for college applications and then get out. It was semi-effective. Strangely, the Mormon troops were eagle mills too, but the guys tended to stick around afterwards all the same.
As you're on HN, I'm sure you are aware of the importance of culture in a start-up. I'd say that a troop also has culture and it is very important too. Maybe read up on some of that stuff too.
Also, as I may have your ear, what's your take on girls being full integrated?
My troop is 80+ years old, however I just took over a few months ago. The troop was doing very poorly when I took over: only 7 registered youth, rarely camping, no summer camp in several years, previous Scoutmaster didn't even want to be the Scoutmaster, no Patrol spirit/identity, both the adults and youth had no idea how the program was supposed to work (no Patrol Method, no training, etc).
This was a troop that had a strong program and 30+ youth 15 years ago, chartered by a large-ish church.
I don't think the troop produced any paper-Eagles in those 15 years (I kept in touch), but when I took over, the head of the church asked for better Eagle Projects.
As for girls, I'm fine with that. Character-building isn't only for boys. There is Girl Scouts of the USA (GSA) troops that have good outdoor programs but they are very few and far in-between. They are more known for "glamping" and selling cookies. Gold Award doesn't have the same recognition as Eagle Scout. Something that I found out: GSA troops are not always sponsered by an organization, and those that are sponsered, are not owned by the sponsering organization. In contrast, all BSA troops have a sponsering(chartering) organization and the sponser owns the troop. So, GSA and BSA have different programs and fulfil different needs. It's good that more youth now have more options for personal growth.
If I had a daughter and BSA wasn't available, I would look into American Heritage Girls (a scout-like organization, sometimes called Heritage Scouts) or another program like that. The BSA has had co-ed programs for 14-21 year olds since the 1970s though: Venturing, Varsity, and Explorers. However I think it's just Venturing now, IDK.
FYI, in Cub Scouts, boys and girls are seperated by dens (patrols). In Scouts BSA (renamed from Boy Scouts where youth can earn Eagle), boys and girls are seperated by troops (but can have same number, same chartering org, etc... just separate youth structure).
Good God! Why even bother at that point? Camp is one of the highlights of the scouting year. It would be like skipping Christmas.
Glad to hear you are reviving things. It's a tough road and a lot of lonely work. That said, it'll be worth it a thousand times over for the kiddos.
A lot of older school BSA folks aren't that keen on the girls comming in, which is a bit funny. What with Venture Crews, girls have been a part of BSA Scouting in the US for a while now.
I remember the international jamboreesm and international troops during my time in the scouts. Nearly all other countries have just scouting and do not break it up by sex. As such, they kinda looked at us US scouts a bit askance. Everyone else was just fine with girls/boys around and had little problems (that we knew of at least). It was a new way to look at the world that we hadn't been exposed too. Neckerchief trading with the girls from other countries was a great icebreaker too :)
This saddens me too. Recently, I traveled with my 19 year old nephew to Thailand. This guy had been so coddled by his parents all through that he had no experience of doing things by himself. Once when he wanted to go to our resort room from the beach (about 500m walk) in the daytime, he refused to do so alone. He asked me to accompany him. This was a straight line walk and I said he could ask anyone if he couldn't figure it out :-/
That's what I'm trying to do: give the kids the same opportunity we had - freedom to explore the outdoors. Confidence to take care of themselves and not need an adult to do everything for them. To give them opportunites to build character.
Scouts was a hugely formative time in my life, precisely because our Scoutmasters decided to buck the trend of the other Boy Scout Troops in our area (adult-dictated Eagle Scout factories).
The strongest memories I have of Scouts were of the older boys teaching us things, and of myself doing the same for younger boys. These “things” ranged from profound reflections on life to very practical skills. We ran our own fundraisers, planned our own trips and periodic events, and staged our own elections for very meaningful leadership positions.
“The Adults” were always in the background, jumping in to support and advise when asked for. I always thought that they had chosen the easy path, because they didn’t have to work too hard! In retrospect, I realize this was actually the hardest path – to trust that your kids and their insane friends are actually capable of intelligible self government etc.
And this didn’t come at the expense of excellence, but quite the contrary! Our troop had a proud legacy of winning the various prestigious awards at summer camp year-after-year, and the boys were very good at passing down this expectation of integrity and success to successive generations of kids.
That’s something that is hard to maintain in troops with very hands-on adult leaders - once a Scoutmaster’s kids age out, the culture of the troop can change dramatically. On the flip side, troop culture seems to be more resilient when it’s boy-led.
Anyways, I wish you the best of luck! Thank you for bringing these pleasant memories into my head to reflect on. Your kids will thank you for your restraint :)
Kudos to you -- much respect. I was an adult leader when my son was a Scout and I went on a number of weekend campouts and 1 week of Scout summer camp. One of the big challenges I saw was to get the boys to leave their electronics behind. Nevertheless, we had some really fun outings and the boys were able to enjoy the outdoors.
I live in the Netherlands and in our scout group, we regularly do nighttime droppings in which the children between the ages of 11-15 have to find their way back not knowing where they were dropped.
We also sent them out sailing by themselves all day across the lake. They have to navigate and set up their tent on the sailboat themselves. We only check up on them once before nighttime and then sail back to our own campsite, which may be an hour or more by boat. The next morning they pack up their stuff, prepare the boat and set sail to travel back to the campsite (half-day sailing depending on the wind conditions).
The oldest boy (14-15 years old) is in charge and has to bring everyone back safe.
Some of my best memories are surviving and being responsible for the other kids. You have to take care of them, teach them and protect them.
These days they have a mobile phone, so in case of an emergency, they can contact the grown-up leaders. But in my time we got a couple of coins for a payphone and we were also fine.
I imagine the RC plane's owner would get a real kick if years later the camera was found and they got the footage back.
(I used to work at Philmont Scout Ranch and would do a lot of detective work to get people their cameras back.)