I felt so sorry for the family of the young Scout who had come in to have his Eagle project reviewed. They had driven quite far, clear across the District, to have the Committee take a look at the Project and see what kind of advice they could give to the candidate.
And our best advice was, Go back and Try Again.
Most of the time, we reviewers sit at our little table with the candidate in front of us, chewing his fingernails while we go through the huge pile of paper describing the plans he's come up with, the drawings he's slaved over, the various details that have caused the sweat to pour from his face, and we see a few things here and there that need to be fleshed out, a few missing details, a few uncrossed T's and undotted I's. Because most of the time, his Eagle Project advisors and his Scoutmaster, who've been down this road before, provide the candidate with sufficient advice and guidance to get him through the tough parts.
But this kid ... oh, it still hurts to think about it.
We only had two projects to review that night, and if everything is good to go, we can be done in half an hour. But we were there with this kid for over an hour, trying desperately to come up with something that wouldn't make his parents' long trip - in the rain - a complete waste of time. We made lots of notes, wrote down lots of ideas, things for him to look at, to go back and think about, but it all boiled down to one statement that the Chairman made over and over: There's nothing we can do for you. You just aren't ready.
He had some bizarre excuses. When we first asked him where his material was - it was obvious from the thin stack of papers he gave us that he didn't have nearly enough detail in the project plans - he tried to tell us that he had "filled all that out on-line". But we had no clue what he was talking about. Everyone knows - don't they? - that when you come to your Eagle Project review, you bring the papers - all of them! - with you; and you bring enough copies for everyone on the Committee. At least three. It was like some kid in a school classroom telling his teacher that he'd emailed the Term Project to her the night before, when she is sitting at her desk waiting for him to hand it to her. Since when is it her responsibility to print out his emailed homework so that she can grade it?
We tried, we really did. We talked to him about the project, asked lots of questions, tried to get an idea of what he'd had in mind. But the more we talked to him, the worse it got. He hadn't actually come up with the project himself; someone had handed it to him because they didn't have enough time to do it themselves. Part of the project was to build a covered bulletin board (like they have in the National Parks at trail heads), or so we thought; actually, it turns out that most of the work to build the covered bulletin board had already been done by someone else, and he was just going to put it together and put it into the ground. OK, maybe that's doable; we just won't count the part where the materials are cut, and only count the part where he assembles it and plants it. But then we try to make sense out of his drawing, and there are dimensions missing and some things in it that just don't add up. Lots of missing detail. How is his team supposed to know how to build this thing? There was no procedural, no step-by-step description of how it was supposed to go together.
So we look at the map of the area which shows the layout of the project. And right off the bat, we notice some things that don't make sense. Not to get into a lot of detail about the project, but it appears that he's going to put concrete pads on the edge of the property, which is most likely on an easement. And he has other part of the project which encroach on parking lots and driveways. How is that supposed to work? We ask him if he's actually visited the site to ensure that the plan will work. He assures us that he has. Yet when we delve further into the details, we find that he is rather fuzzy on certain things. We get the feeling that he hasn't really done his 'homework' in regards to placement of the project items. Then it comes out that the drawing which he gave us was actually given to him by that other guy who was hoping to do the project. And he never bothered to go out to the site to make sure the drawing was correct.
It was hard, so hard, to have to tell the guy he was going to have to try again. But we had some good news for him. The next review is scheduled for October 6th, which is next week. He has a little over a week to make the corrections and get it ready again. We hope he gets it done. It's a really good community project, and a great enhancement to a vital city park. And it would be one of those projects that would garner some really good press for the Boy Scouts.
But it's just not ready yet.
And it reminds me that the Eagle project being planned by one of the guys in our Troop will need to be just as detailed as we expressed to the unready Scout tonight. And that is going to take a lot of work on our part to help him get it to that state. Because it's not even close. And this particular Scout in our Troop is going to "age out" in December.
We don't have much time.
6 comments:
How do you be one of those to tell the kid, this isn't what you need to present? Doesn't it just do you in to tell a kid he just didn't do it all the way?
We need to have a big training meeting where we tell all the Troop "advisors" how the Projects are supposed to be organized. Although we already have tons of information on the various Eagle Project websites. How hard is it to find the info and use the template that is provided??
Have we trained the boys to be box checkers, to be resume builders, rather than community servants? I get the impression watching our own eagle candidates that it's not the community service aspect so much as it is "let's just get this done so I can put it on my resume" kind of thing. I'm not impressed with the caliber of eagle scouts that have been coming out of our troop--we've got one who is so arrogant he argues with adults and sits around like king of the hill watching everyone else do the work. But that's another soapbox. Hope your ESC gets his act together! Nothing like being a short timer!
I'm always afraid of the "Pinewood Derby" syndrome, where it's obvious that Dad did all the work. Some of the dads get so caught up in the competition that they forget it's a training exercise. Likewise, they get caught up in the "box-checking" in the Scouting program that they forget it's supposed to train the boys to be men. I'd much rather see boys struggle to put a project together because that's what they're going to deal with in the real world. Managing projects is a major headache, especially dealing with other people!
It's good for a kid to hear that mediocrity is not acceptable. So often kids get passed on for fear of hurting their fragile egos... when the best thing for them would be to set high standards and let the kids know they can achieve them with some hard work.
Our troop turns out Eagles with some regularity-- one or two a year or so-- and the boys definitely learn a lot about managing people. Yes, there is an element of resume building and box checking, but even that is a life skill that men (people!)need these days. Imagine trying to get a house renovation done, or applying to college, or even filing income taxes if you were incapable of dealing with red tape. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the paperwork and hoop jumping skills are at least as important as the leadership skills that a boy learns through scouting, and maybe even more critical to real-world success than knot tying or (gasp!) fire starting. It's all about responsibility and follow-through.
So, anyway, way to go on upholding standards. I suspect the boy will remember and benefit from the experience for the rest of his life.
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