As the idea for the Big Scout Project took root, the need for some basic ground rules became very clear, very quickly.
Accountability & Transparency
If I’m gonna tell the world that I’ve done all this work earning badges, I should be held accountable, don’t you think? Think back to math class: it was never enough to get the answer right, you had to show your work. Same idea here. Only today we call it “transparency.”
When I was a scout, my mom was an assistant troop leader. So I checked in with her about how badges were awarded, and she confirmed that a girl who wanted a badge had to show her work, and the troop leaders would decide if she had, in fact, earned it.
Clearly, I needed to wrangle up some troop leaders.
And to that end, the BSP will have a small group of trusted souls from across the country to act as virtual troop leaders. We’ll meet every two months or so, via webinars or Skype or conference calls. They’ll get to see my all of my work and the requirements for each badge (most of which will probably be posted here, YouTube, and Flickr as well). A majority of troop leaders will decide if I’ve earned a badge or not. And if I’ve fallen short, my troop leaders will tell me what else I need to do to meet the requirements.
These people are not pushovers, and they don’t take bribes. I expect they’d be the first to call me on the carpet for any lame stuff I try to pull. And that’s how I’ll live up to my end of the bargain and stay honest.
Reasonable Standards
Having said all that…
There are about 100 possible badges a junior scout can earn these days, and a scout has to complete 6 out of 10 possible tasks to earn any badge. That means I’m looking at about 600 tasks, right? A lot of these tasks, I grant, will be quick and easy. But lots and lots of them are real projects, requiring a real investment of time and energy.
Now, it turns out that the tasks between badges occasionally – rarely, but occasionally — overlap. For instance, most of the exercise badges have a task about warming up before physical activity, and some of those warm up tasks are pretty close to identical. So, as a reasonable expectation, I’m asking that troop leaders accept this premise: by completing any requirement for Badge A that also fulfills a requirement for Badge B, I get that credit for Badge B without having to duplicate the task a second time. Remember, I’m not getting a free ride on Badge B – I’ll still have five other tasks to complete before I’ve earned the badge.
Here’s another reasonable expectation I’m asking of troop leaders right up front:
Some of the tasks and badges are simply all about being a girl. There’s just no way around it. In some cases, it’ll be fun to do these tasks exactly as prescribed and intended for a 12 year old girl. But then you bump into a wall when you get to earning a badge that’s called “Becoming a Teen.” See the problem there, don’t you?
So the ground rule is this: when tasks and badges are clearly youth oriented, I may request that troop leaders allow me to adapt the tasks for things that are more age appropriate. Hence, instead of a badge called “Becoming a Teen,” I’m gonna push for a rewrite of those tasks altogether; I’m gonna push to invent a substitute badge called “Becoming Menopausal.” I think you get where I’m going with this.
Right?
Flexibility & Adaptability
No doubt troop leaders and I will bump into places where we didn’t anticipate the need for a ground rule. The deal-io there is that we promise to maintain an attitude of flexibility and a willingness to adopt new ground rules as the need may arise.
And I’ll post any updates to the ground rules on this page as the BSP progresses. Scout’s honor.
