So first the bona-fides.
I was a part of scouting from tiger through explorers and eventually venture scouting. I was also very briefly a Sea scout. As a part of my scouting journey, I got a summer job at a summer camp, which is what led to me becoming a camp counselor. I am an Eagle scout, I also earned both my gold and silver awards in both Explorers and Venturing (highest awards in those systems). I’ve worked with scouts from many different international scouting societies and resigned from the BSA in protest with others as part of a colleague of mine being dismissed for his sexuality (this was mid 2000’s). I’ve not involved myself with the BSA whatsoever since then, and while I still think that scouting as a principal is an incredible way to expose youth to experiences that schools and schooling will never be able to expose them to. It teaches leadership, independence, interdependence, and self reliance. I still don’t think BSA as an organization is a good organization and am continuing to protest them through non-involvement.
I was a merit badge counselor for around many non-required merit badges, including geology, plant science, nature, bird study, mammal study, nuclear science, astronomy, insect study, reptile and amphibian study, and many others. I was also a merit badge counselor for the required merit badges Environmental Science, and Swimming.
I was a merit badge counselor for around 10 years? I counciled both at summer camp and as an independent counselor (the kind you can look up in a big book each troop keeps around).
So what is a merit badge?
Well its kind of right in the name. Merit badges are fundamentally merit based, which means that the scout is the one who has to initiate, do, follow through on, and then seek counselor approval for all elements of the merit badge.
No one makes you, or can make you do part of a merit badge: it has to come from the scout (some parents or leaders do put pressure on scouts to earn badges, but this is antithetical to the philosophy of scouting: its supposed to come from the scouts themselves).
So put yourself in this position. You are a scout and want to earn the reptile and amphibian study merit badge. The first step would be to look up its requirements found here. They are:
Here are some example:
Describe the identifying characteristics of six species of
reptiles and four species of amphibians found in the United
States. For any four of these, make sketches from your own
observations or take photographs. Show markings, color pat-
terns, or other characteristics that are important in the iden-
tification of each of the four species. Discuss the habits and
habitats of all 10 species.
Discuss with your merit badge counselor the approximate
number of species and general geographic distribution
of reptiles and amphibians in the United States. Prepare a
list of the most common species found in your local area
or state.
…(skipping requirements so that this post isn’t too massive)…
Do TWO of the following:
a. Identify at night three kinds of toads or frogs by their
voices. Imitate the song of each for your counselor. Stalk
each with a flashlight and discover how each sings and
from where.
b. Identify by sight eight species of reptiles or amphibians.
c. Using visual aids, give a brief talk to a small group on
three different reptiles and amphibians.
Tell five superstitions or false beliefs about reptiles and
amphibians and give a correct explanation for each. Give
seven examples of unusual behavior or other true facts
about reptiles and amphibians.
So you are a highly motivated scout and want to get this merit badge. No one is forcing you to do so. You have to be self motivated enough to work through these requirements. Likewise, if your camp doesn’t offer this merit badge, you’ll need to find a counselor, look up their contact information, then arrange a time (sometimes multiple times) for you to meet with them and demonstrate your knowledge or otherwise document that you’ve met the requirements. When your are 13-ish years old, cold calling an adult to tell them they need to meet with you is quite intimidating. But the act of having to do this out of your own motivation is part of the point of merit badges. They aren’t supposed to be easy.
Now of course you can knock out many of these requirements at summer camp. In-fact, you can get them all done providing your region has sufficient reptiles to support each aspect. You can also identify by sight via books or posters. I ran our nature center where all the nature-themed merit badges were taught and we had 5-10 posters of just reptiles and amphibians hanging all around that you could study to meet this requirement.
Whoever this scout is has put in likely thousands of hours of work to earn those badges. You can see also that they’ve got their arrow of light (which means they were at least a cub scout), that they’ve earned their Eagle Scout (which its self is thousands of hours of cumulative work), and it looks like they are the quartermaster for their troop, which means the won election within their troop and have taken on responsibility for the material organization of troop property.
Like this kid has done a shit ton of work, and they definitely deserve to be proud of their accomplishments. There are aspects of the BSA that are horrible, reprehensible, and honestly, maybe the organization needs to be broken up or dissolved. But giving youth the opportunity to explore their world and earn accomplishments is not among those reasons. I think its quite wrong to bash on a child who just wants to learn and explore, when its the adults in leadership who have corrupted the organization and made it a pseudo religious political institution.
Hey thanks for answering. I never talk to an expert on this stuff and I have zero knowledge of the organization, but I was wondering if you might be willing to tell us what change you’d ideally see to bring the organization to a place where it’s something you’d be proud of again?
I’m a layperson. And a woman. And I have nothing to gain, this is just curiosity.
Huh I was in boy scouts as well, interesting to see the differences in how my troop handled merit badges compared to yours.
Most of the scout dad’s in my troop would sign up to be merit badge counselors, basically we had most of the core badges covered and some extra depending on interest. The only time I had to seek an outside counselor that wasn’t a camp counselor was for the lifeguarding (I think it’s called that) badge.
Most of our weekly meetings were then focused on merit badges and rank advancement as well as planning for the next upcoming camping experience
But I had a lot of exposure to troops and scouts outside my own. I mean at it’s height our summer camp was running something like 60-70 troops a week, and when we were at capacity we were running something like 2500- 3000 scouts a week through program.
Our troop meetings were basically never for merit badge advancement. That would have been considered very inappropriate, since those are for individual boys to work on. It’s also not typical for you to be do merit badges with a counciler from your own troop. It might be a council / district level thing, but I don’t think I ever even heard of someone getting signed off on a merit badge from some one in their own troop. For example, as a counciler I wouldn’t be able to accept a blue card where a member of your troop had signed off on a requirement.
Our meetings were for basic skill building, and rank advancement, as well as for high adventure trip planning. This was the specific focus of the troop, high adventure. We did a low adventure outing and a high adventure outing every month. Meetings were mostly older boys teaching first aid skills, camping, knots, etc to groups of younger boys, basic rank advancement stuff. Each week it would be one patrols job to teach a specific skill to the troop. Then of course, always a game of capture the flag.
In fact I think of the boys had had their way the entirety of boy scouting would have been capture the flag.
So first the bona-fides. I was a part of scouting from tiger through explorers and eventually venture scouting. I was also very briefly a Sea scout. As a part of my scouting journey, I got a summer job at a summer camp, which is what led to me becoming a camp counselor. I am an Eagle scout, I also earned both my gold and silver awards in both Explorers and Venturing (highest awards in those systems). I’ve worked with scouts from many different international scouting societies and resigned from the BSA in protest with others as part of a colleague of mine being dismissed for his sexuality (this was mid 2000’s). I’ve not involved myself with the BSA whatsoever since then, and while I still think that scouting as a principal is an incredible way to expose youth to experiences that schools and schooling will never be able to expose them to. It teaches leadership, independence, interdependence, and self reliance. I still don’t think BSA as an organization is a good organization and am continuing to protest them through non-involvement.
I was a merit badge counselor for around many non-required merit badges, including geology, plant science, nature, bird study, mammal study, nuclear science, astronomy, insect study, reptile and amphibian study, and many others. I was also a merit badge counselor for the required merit badges Environmental Science, and Swimming.
I was a merit badge counselor for around 10 years? I counciled both at summer camp and as an independent counselor (the kind you can look up in a big book each troop keeps around).
So what is a merit badge?
Well its kind of right in the name. Merit badges are fundamentally merit based, which means that the scout is the one who has to initiate, do, follow through on, and then seek counselor approval for all elements of the merit badge.
No one makes you, or can make you do part of a merit badge: it has to come from the scout (some parents or leaders do put pressure on scouts to earn badges, but this is antithetical to the philosophy of scouting: its supposed to come from the scouts themselves).
So put yourself in this position. You are a scout and want to earn the reptile and amphibian study merit badge. The first step would be to look up its requirements found here. They are:
Here are some example:
Describe the identifying characteristics of six species of reptiles and four species of amphibians found in the United States. For any four of these, make sketches from your own observations or take photographs. Show markings, color pat- terns, or other characteristics that are important in the iden- tification of each of the four species. Discuss the habits and habitats of all 10 species.
Discuss with your merit badge counselor the approximate number of species and general geographic distribution of reptiles and amphibians in the United States. Prepare a list of the most common species found in your local area or state.
Describe the main differences between: (a) Amphibians and reptiles (b) Alligators and crocodiles © Toads and frogs (d) Snakes and lizards
…(skipping requirements so that this post isn’t too massive)…
a. Identify at night three kinds of toads or frogs by their voices. Imitate the song of each for your counselor. Stalk each with a flashlight and discover how each sings and from where.
b. Identify by sight eight species of reptiles or amphibians.
c. Using visual aids, give a brief talk to a small group on three different reptiles and amphibians.
So you are a highly motivated scout and want to get this merit badge. No one is forcing you to do so. You have to be self motivated enough to work through these requirements. Likewise, if your camp doesn’t offer this merit badge, you’ll need to find a counselor, look up their contact information, then arrange a time (sometimes multiple times) for you to meet with them and demonstrate your knowledge or otherwise document that you’ve met the requirements. When your are 13-ish years old, cold calling an adult to tell them they need to meet with you is quite intimidating. But the act of having to do this out of your own motivation is part of the point of merit badges. They aren’t supposed to be easy.
Now of course you can knock out many of these requirements at summer camp. In-fact, you can get them all done providing your region has sufficient reptiles to support each aspect. You can also identify by sight via books or posters. I ran our nature center where all the nature-themed merit badges were taught and we had 5-10 posters of just reptiles and amphibians hanging all around that you could study to meet this requirement.
Whoever this scout is has put in likely thousands of hours of work to earn those badges. You can see also that they’ve got their arrow of light (which means they were at least a cub scout), that they’ve earned their Eagle Scout (which its self is thousands of hours of cumulative work), and it looks like they are the quartermaster for their troop, which means the won election within their troop and have taken on responsibility for the material organization of troop property.
Like this kid has done a shit ton of work, and they definitely deserve to be proud of their accomplishments. There are aspects of the BSA that are horrible, reprehensible, and honestly, maybe the organization needs to be broken up or dissolved. But giving youth the opportunity to explore their world and earn accomplishments is not among those reasons. I think its quite wrong to bash on a child who just wants to learn and explore, when its the adults in leadership who have corrupted the organization and made it a pseudo religious political institution.
Hey thanks for answering. I never talk to an expert on this stuff and I have zero knowledge of the organization, but I was wondering if you might be willing to tell us what change you’d ideally see to bring the organization to a place where it’s something you’d be proud of again?
I’m a layperson. And a woman. And I have nothing to gain, this is just curiosity.
Huh I was in boy scouts as well, interesting to see the differences in how my troop handled merit badges compared to yours.
Most of the scout dad’s in my troop would sign up to be merit badge counselors, basically we had most of the core badges covered and some extra depending on interest. The only time I had to seek an outside counselor that wasn’t a camp counselor was for the lifeguarding (I think it’s called that) badge.
Most of our weekly meetings were then focused on merit badges and rank advancement as well as planning for the next upcoming camping experience
How big was your troop?
at it’s largest I think maybe 120.
at it’s smallest maybe 30-40?
But I had a lot of exposure to troops and scouts outside my own. I mean at it’s height our summer camp was running something like 60-70 troops a week, and when we were at capacity we were running something like 2500- 3000 scouts a week through program.
Our troop meetings were basically never for merit badge advancement. That would have been considered very inappropriate, since those are for individual boys to work on. It’s also not typical for you to be do merit badges with a counciler from your own troop. It might be a council / district level thing, but I don’t think I ever even heard of someone getting signed off on a merit badge from some one in their own troop. For example, as a counciler I wouldn’t be able to accept a blue card where a member of your troop had signed off on a requirement.
Our meetings were for basic skill building, and rank advancement, as well as for high adventure trip planning. This was the specific focus of the troop, high adventure. We did a low adventure outing and a high adventure outing every month. Meetings were mostly older boys teaching first aid skills, camping, knots, etc to groups of younger boys, basic rank advancement stuff. Each week it would be one patrols job to teach a specific skill to the troop. Then of course, always a game of capture the flag.
In fact I think of the boys had had their way the entirety of boy scouting would have been capture the flag.