Scoutmaster

Square Knot Resume

The picture at the beginning of my blog shows the front of a Scout uniform featuring insignia known as square knots. I display them here because they represent recognitions I have earned

Truth be told I have never sewn these on my uniform because I am not doing this for recognition and I don't want to look like someone who does (in my experience there are a lot of people who do). As  Mark Twain said "It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them." I put them here because they have some 'street cred' in Scouting. Other scouters know they mean a fairly long tenure ( Scoutmaster since 1984), recognition of work I have done at the district and council level, and participation in training. In short; I've done this work faithfully all of my adult life.

Here is what the square knots represent;

Top to bottom, left to right

Silver Beaver
Presented for distinguished service to young people within a BSA local council.

Inclusive Scouting Award
The Inclusive Scouting Award identifies scouters who are supportive of those currently threatened with exclusion from Scouting. Not an official BSA award the knot is worn to promote inclusion and tolerance. It is available here.

District Award of Merit
Awarded for five or more years service to youth in the District. The nominee's attitude toward and cooperation with the district, division, and/or council is to be taken into consideration.

Boy Scout Leader's Training Award
Recognizes that a scouter has completed a course of intensive training.

Scoutmaster Award of Merit
Awarded to Scoutmasters who have a record of proper use of the Boy Scout advancement program, resulting in a majority of troop Boy Scouts attaining the First Class rank, Development of boy leadership through the patrol method, Positive relations with the troop's chartered organization, extensive outdoor program including strong summer camp attendance, positive image of Scouting in the community and a troop operation that attracts and retains Boy Scouts.

I should also mention that I staffed at our summer camp for twelve years in various directorships including two seasons as the camp director. I have worked with literally thousands of scouts and leaders and have administered a staff of eighty counselors. I am also a vigil honor member of Octoraro Lodge 22, Order of the Arrow. It has been quite an education.

Why Scouting?

Observe a community or classroom anywhere in the world and you will conclude that boys instinctively form groups, adopt uniforms, establish standards, develop a credo and create initiatory challenges. While most educational systems battle these instincts scouting gives them a means of positive expression. Boys yearn to belong, to gain acceptance and approval outside the confines of their family. Their imperfect search for guidance and understanding is often met with suspicion and misapprehension. In adolescence they try on lots of attitudes and poses paradoxically seeking approval from the adult world in their very rebellion against it. It can be a tough time for everybody.

We all more or less hammered our way through adolescence in whatever way we could. Some had it easier than others. There were some people who made the process more difficult for us and some who helped. That's part of the reason that I am a Scoutmaster - I'd like to help. I like to go camping, I like to teach, and I like to cook over a fire.

Scouting, for all the protestations otherwise, is not an ideology. It is a movement with a program that recognizes how to channel the unstable energies and excesses of adolescence. When scouting doesn't work as it should it is usually adults who have made a real mess of things; it is almost never the fault of boys.

I am a liberal card carrying member of the ACLU, a Buddhist and a stone cold Democrat. Most people would say that Scouting is not a likely fit for me, but I have been at this for just over 20 years now and it fits fine.

At its best the program is inclusive, resilient and able to bring people together. After beginning in Great Britain in 1907 the movement spread around the world. In the United States we have the Boy Scouts of America, a once revered and respected organization that now has a reputation for excluding some people from membership based on a bizarrely narrow and relatively new interpretation of the Scout Oath and Law.

This perplexing situation has led me to reconsider my involvement with such an organization. I concluded that I would no more leave scouting over the current administration of the BSA than I would renounce my U.S. citizenship because I disagree with the current administration of the government.

One stays at it, acts as an agent for peaceful change and has confidence that better times are coming.