News
Progress toward Long Term Goals
Subtitle: Or the Roar of the Crowd versus the Eagle Court of Honor.
I offered my thoughts on the differences between sports’ lessons on team work and personal development versus scouting in those same domains.
I was watching Professor Jordan Peterson, whom I have introduced before. In his fifth lecture on Maps and Meaning, he has an interesting side discussion on the dopamine effects on the brain for positive reinforcement. Yes, he is lecturing on Pinochio, and very funny in the process.
In the segment I am highlighting, the professor suggests that striving toward a vision or major goal in life is crucial for finding meaning in life (23:30). In one part of his analysis, he analyzes why athletes can have an injured thumb or sprained ankle and continue to play. Yet, the athlete is in excruciating pain once the competition is over. He attributes this mind over matter to the focus of a goal-oriented mind. In this case, the goal is winning the game, whether regular season, post-season, or championship game is not discussed. Implicit in the point, based on his later analysis, is the notion that the athlete is probably seeking a longer-term goal, as he defines it. (Championship trophy, college recruitment, all-time record, etc.)
The professor suggests that long-term goals are crucial for finding meaning in life (as opposed to the grander “meaning of life”) and personal satisfaction.* The professor hypothesizes that a person feels a dopamine (i.e., good feeling) response from the brain when a significant step toward a self-identifed, valued, larger goal is accomplished. Each step that moves the progress toward the long-term goal foward compounds the dopamine response. Then brain starts to associate accomplishing the long-term goal as a source of good feelings. Absent the longer-range goal, the person has a random spike in dopamine that does little to incentivize future behavior. It is important that the person have dopamine spikes often enough and systematically enough to engage this personal satisfaction.
Reminder for Roundtable Next Week
As previously announced, the roundtables topics will be:
- Cub Scouts: “Keys to Successful Annual Planning”;
- Scouts: “STEM and Explorer Scouting / Canoeing Trip Ideas”.
The Roundtables will take place Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 7:00 pm at Luke’s Lodge, the 
outbuilding on the northeast corner of the campus of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, 100 West 86th St, Indianapolis, IN 46260.
Please forward this information to your Den Leaders, Committee members, and Assistant Scoutmasters. They are an important part of the Roundtables’ target audience.
Remember, attending roundtables is a key requirement to earn the Scouter’s Key for both Cub Scout leaders and Boy Scout leaders.
REMINDER: No District Committee Meeting This Week
Just a quick reminder that the District Committee and Commissioner meetings dates and locations have changed. There are no meetings this week, especially Thursday, March 1, 2018.
Roundtable Schedule Announced for 2018
District Commissioner Stephen Heath, newly appointed Assistant District Commissioner for Education John Wiebke, and Cub Scout Roundtable Commissioner Bill Buchalter have set a schedule for this year’s roundtables.
New Guidelines for Cub Scout Aquatics: Freedom!
From the Council Training Committee meeting this week comes this news:
AQUATICS
Contrary to past BSA program design, all Cub Scouts — not just Webelos — may participate in paddle sports as a pack or den; previously, they could only do so at district or council events. And, of course, Cub Scouts may continue to participate in swimming as a pack or den activity.
The Cub Scouting team worked with the Aquatics and Health and Safety committees to relax the council- or district-only requirements for paddle sports. But as adult leaders, you still must make sure that the points of Safe Swim Defense and Safety Afloat are incorporated, including training and staying within the BSA’s aquatics framework.
The new Cub Scout program includes one aquatics-related adventure for each rank, but you’ll notice they’re all elective, not required. That means Cub Scouts who aren’t interested in water activities are fine to stay on dry land.
Safe Swim Defense: Any time you take Scouts swimming, even if you’re going to a council event or local pool where lifeguards are present, you still need leaders trained in Safe Swim Defense.
- You can take Safe Swim Defense online at scouting.org. (Click My Dashboard, then Training.)
- You always need at least one leader trained in Safe Swim Defense — even if you’re somewhere that provides lifeguards.
- When lifeguards are notpresent, you need additional rescue personnel trained in Safe Swim Defense.
- Swim tests are not optional. A key part of BSA aquatics is knowing one’s limits.
- Safe Swim Defense training is good for two years.
Safety Afloat: You are permitted to take Cub Scouts boating as a pack or den. (Previously you could only go boating with your Cub Scouts at district or council events.) But any time you take Cub Scouts boating, you need at least one leader with Safety Afloat training taken within the previous two years. At least one adult leader must be trained in first aid and CPR as well.
- You can take Safety Afloat training online at scouting.org. (Click My Dashboard, then Training.)
- For Cub Scout boating activities, the ratio of trained adults, staff members or guides to participants must be at least one to five. (For Boy Scouts, it’s one to 10.)
- Cub Scouts must know how to swim to try paddle sports.
- All participants must wear properly fitted, U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jackets.
- Any swimming done in conjunction with the activity afloat should operate using Safe Swim Defense.
(Scuba: Cub Scouts aren’t permitted to do scuba.)
PLEAS NOTE: Tiger Cubs, Cub Scouts, and Webelos Scouts may complete requirements in a family, den, pack, school, or community environment. Tiger Cubs must work with their parents or adult partners. Parents and partners do not earn loops or pins.
For more information, always look to the Guide to Safe Scouting. The online aquatics section is here.
Order of the Arrow Troop Elections
From OA Chapter Advisor Mark Pishon:
Dear North Star Unit Key 3:
The Jaccos Towne Lodge expects units to hold OA Elections prior to March 15, 2018. Remember to have elections for youth and adults; they have different forms (see links at bottom). We would like you to use the new forms which now include email addresses are fillable PDF documents. My past experience tells me that a fair number of the Candidate Letters never get delivered because we can’t read your handwriting. Please fill in the form using a computer so it is legible.
I have also attached the National Order of the Arrow Guide to Unit Elections for your ready reference.
The results should be emailed to both your LOA Chapter Adviser (LOAAdviser@jaccostownelodge.org) and the lodge (Elections@jaccostownelodge.org). All election results must be turned in by March 15, 2018.
We would appreciate it if you get them turned in early so we can see where we are.
Please let the OA Adviser Mark Pishon know when they are on the calendar. LOA would like to send a representative if you do not have an OA Representative who is participating in OA Monthly meetings.
The Spring Camporee has not been fully scheduled out as of today but the dates are April 20-22, 2018. I suspect it will be at Camp Kikthawendund.. I will let you know once we know for the Candidate Call Outs.
As Scouting’s National Honor Society, our purpose is to:
- Recognize those who best exemplify the Scout Oath and Law in their daily lives and through that recognition cause others to conduct themselves in a way that warrants similar recognition.
- Promote camping, responsible outdoor adventure, and environmental stewardship as essential components of every Scout’s experience, in the unit, year-round, and in summer camp.
- Develop leaders with the willingness, character, spirit and ability to advance the activities of their units, our Brotherhood, Scouting, and ultimately our nation.
- Crystallize the Scout habit of helpfulness into a life purpose of leadership in cheerful service to others.
Through Unit Elections, worthy Scouts are recognized and elected as Ordeal candidates. Arrowmen are needed to serve on Unit Election teams in their Chapter. Contact your Chapter Chief and volunteer! Most units do their elections in the first months of the year, so contact your Chapter Chief as soon as possible. Forms are available on the Lodge’s website under Resources. Please make sure copies of Unit Elections and Adult Nominations are turned into the Lodge.
It is an Arrowman’s responsibility to help promote camping through his unit, district, and council. This may be done through camp promotions to Cub Scout and Boy Scout units. Information and resources are available from the Council to help you make presentations on camping opportunities in the Crossroads of America Council. Doing a unit election and camp promotion at the same time for Boy Scout units is an efficient way of offering cheerful service and helping both the BSA and the OA!
Yours in Brotherhood,
Mark Pishon
LOA Chapter Adviser
LOAAdviser@jaccostownelodge.org
Cell 317.374.2262
Download his attachments here:
Email called “Are You a Youth Protection Hero?”
You may have received an email from Council with the above title. You will notice that they are encouraging updating your YPT status by April 30, 2018 using YPT version 2.0.
National has a deadline that ALL volunteers have updated to YPT version 2.0 by October 1, 2018. So why the difference?
This topic came up at this week’s Council Commissioner Staff meeting. No explanation was offered as to why the Council Training Committee has issued this mandate. The best I can advise you is that Council wants to get as many adults trained with the YPT standards before summer camp as possible.
The next question that I asked was whether an in-person version of the training is expected. Our best information is that we will have that available at the end of March 2018. Once that is announced, we should be able to provide live seminars to units and roundtables to help expedite fulfilling this mandate.
In the meantime, please bear with District as we adapt to the new expectations. Encourage your leaders to use the online training as soon as possible. The Del-Mi District Commissioner reported that he has done the online YPT version 2.0 since I last did it. He thought the whole experience went more smoothly than what I reported in the linked article above.
Please be aware that the commissioners’ general consensus that the time estimates on the training modules don’t include quiz time or extra modules on individual slides. The overall time needed is about 20-30% than the computer’s estimates.
We will provide more information when it becomes available.
Stories and the Child’s Developing Mind
As I have noted before, my latest obsession is Professor Jordan Peterson. His recent book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, is a tour de force in offering a way to live a good life. This is not the normal self-help book. This is the work of a deep philosophical thinker, practicing psychologicology research professor, practicing clinical psychologist, and practicing lecturing professor. He thinks about people, studies psychology, uses psychology, and teaches about people and psychology. For example, he understands that knowing what the rules of life and being able to follow them are not the same thing. It takes practice to be an actively moral person.
To that end, his fifth rule is “Do Not Let your Children Do Anything that Makes You Dislike Them.” He opens the chapter this way,
RECENTLY, I WATCHED A THREE-YEAR-OLD boy trail his mother and father slowly through a crowded airport. He was screaming violently at five-second intervals— and, more important, he was doing it voluntarily. He wasn’t at the end of his tether. As a parent, I could tell from the tone. He was irritating his parents and hundreds of other people to gain attention. Maybe he needed something. But that was no way to get it, and his parents should have let him know that. You might object that “perhaps they were worn out, and jet-lagged, after a long trip.” But thirty seconds of carefully directed problem-solving would have brought the shameful episode to a halt. More thoughtful parents would not have let someone they truly cared for become the object of a crowd’s contempt.
Peterson, Jordan B.. 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Kindle Locations 2377-2383). Random House of Canada. Kindle Edition. In the chapter he goes on to explain that making a child welcome in the world-at-large is a big job for parents. If the parents like the child, because the child is well-behaved, when the child visits others’ homes or places of business, adults will greet the child warmly. This warm reception will make the child more likely to be well-behaved. Well-behaved kids tend to have an easier time making friends their own age. They are happier and more connected socially. Since we are social animals, this is important.
Female Athletes’ Emotional Development in College
In the Washington Post, from last year that I have been meaning to write about, a fascinating article about emotional isssues that kids in college are facing. The focus of the article that the title suggest the emphasis is on women’s college sports. The content is far broader, even though the persons interviewed are women’s college coaches and affiliate personnel.
One strong passage caught my eye.
Talk to coaches, and they will tell you they believe their players are harder to teach, and to reach, and that disciplining is beginning to feel professionally dangerous. Not even U-Conn.’s virtuoso coach, Geno Auriemma, is immune to this feeling, about which he delivered a soliloquy at the Final Four.
“Recruiting enthusiastic kids is harder than it’s ever been,” he said. “. . . They haven’t even figured out which foot to use as a pivot foot and they’re going to act like they’re really good players. You see it all the time.”
Some of the aspects emphasized apply equally well to scouters working with scouts.
It doesn’t take a social psychologist to perceive that at least some of today’s coach-player strain results from the misunderstanding of what the job of a coach is, and how it’s different from that of a parent. This is a distinction that admittedly can get murky. The coach-player relationship has odd complexities and semi-intimacies, yet a critical distance too. It’s not like any other bond or power structure. Parents may seek to smooth a path, but coaches have to point out the hard road to be traversed, and it’s not their job to find the shortcuts. Coaches can’t afford to feel sorry for players; they are there to stop them from feeling sorry for themselves.
Coaches are not substitute parents; they’re the people parents send their children to for a strange alchemical balance of toughening yet safekeeping, dream facilitating yet discipline and reality check. The vast majority of what a coach teaches is not how to succeed but how to shoulder unwanted responsibility and deal with unfairness and diminished role playing, because without those acceptances success is impossible.
Here is a key conclusion.
The bottom line is that coaches have a truly delicate job ahead of them with iGens. They must find a way to establish themselves as firm allies of players who are more easily wounded than ever before yet demand they earn praise through genuine accomplishment.
From this article we can draw a couple key conclusions:
- In our role as scouters, we can help prepare our scouts, boys and girls, for their college experience. We can teach them to deal with “unwanted responsibility” such as cleaning up after dinner or cleaning the latrine and with “unfairness” such as being assigned camp tasks too many times when others have not had their rotation.
- We can be the “toughening yet safekeeping, dream facilitating yet discipline and reality check” that is parents to provide for their own kids.
- We can be “firm allies” of scouts “who are more easily wounded than ever before yet demand they earn praise through genuine accomplishiment” such as rank advancement, BSA Life Guard training, mile swim patch, or high adventure.
Lions will move from pilot to full-time part of Cub Scouting
After a successful pilot that introduced new families to Scouting and raised retention rates, Lions, the BSA’s Cub Scout program for kindergarten-age youth, will become an official part of Cub Scouting this year.
— Read on blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2018/02/14/after-roaring-success-lions-will-move-from-pilot-to-full-time-part-of-cub-scouting/
CAC North Star Unofficial Website 
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