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Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]
- themodelplumber 4y agoHoly smokes! Reading this over, I'll bet there were more than a few injuries among the groups that practiced it. Imagine sending your kid off for a fun weekend and then watching them come home Sunday morning with an acute elbow injury from an arm bar... Scouting was dangerous enough without that stuff. You could get lost and even die in any number of unexpected ways. I watched a friend take a full swing of a wood axe to the top of his head. It didn't make any of us stronger or more interested in the outdoors. Plus everybody told us the Eagle Scout looked amazing on a resume when you become an adult, but they didn't mention that it could have the complete opposite effect depending on where you're applying... Edit: I see the typical pro-danger, pro-learning-through-injury realism-posturing replies, but these quick takes are inappropriate for beginners, which merit-badge-earning scouts definitely are.
- eckmLJE 4y agoWhere did you apply that being an Eagle Scout counted against you?
- jimbob45 4y agoThe problem is that people who become Eagle Scouts tend to be successful enough individuals that the jobs they apply to don't understand why they would put such a low-grade achievement on their resume (compared to the other higher achievements they most likely have). It's like putting that you won an Olympic Gold in gymnastics when applying to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Yes, it's impressive to everyone, but at some point it's not necessary. I'd say the same applies to high school Honor Societies. If you're a member of one, chances are that it's never going to professionally benefit you.
- dctoedt 4y agoI'm an Eagle Scout (note the use of present tense) and I've had that on all of my resumes my entire adult life. When I got my Eagle, an uncle who was a senior executive at a Very Large Bank said that he would always give an Eagle Scout at least an interview.
- wespiser_2018 4y agoMe too. It's an interest award I'm proud of, and it takes a tiny amount of space.
- arnmac 4y agoNot going to lie. If you submitted a resume for a job I was hiring for and you 1. Pass the HR check 2. Had some of what I was looking in skills 3. Had Eagle Scout on your resume You are going to get an interview. Might not get the job but I would give you a chance. Just like anything in life the Eagle Scout Rank is not the same to everyone. Not everyone put in the same amount of effort. They all should have met the same requirements but in the end what did you personally learn? Some scouts learn and grow in leadership others it was just a thing they did. As an 11 year old scout I was almost immediately introduced to conflict resolution, setting and achieving goals, leading groups in small tasks. Looking back most of the lessons didn't really take root until years later when I got a real job. Then I had a group of concepts that some of my peers did not and I was able to take the early lessons and build on them more quickly.
- totierne2 4y agoQuickly?
- aketchum 4y agoI understand what you mean, but I think you chose a terrible example. I will never be in the Olympics, but if I was I would definitely have that on my resume.
- 4y ago
- themodelplumber 4y agoWhen multimedia was a huge thing in the late '90s and early '00s, you had a lot of small businesses with tight groups of graphic designers, illustrators, developers (full stack web + Flash & Director), and animators. Usually one of the creatives was in charge of hiring. It was totally obviously not a pro, and in many cases they'd make fun of it outright, or politely advise to take it off.
- MisterBastahrd 4y agoWell, sure. I was a quiz bowl captain, president of the national honor society, and placed yearly at the state science fair and I didn't list those on a professional resume either. It takes very little effort to be an Eagle Scout. I completed all requirements including the community project aside from the board review before I turned 13. Our scoutmaster suddenly quit on us to attain his MS in engineering (his employer surprised him by funding his education) right after I attained the final required merit badge and none of the adults wanted to take over, so it would have required me to go to another troop in the area: one was full of bullies, and one with a gigantic asshole of a scoutmaster. I decided to go fishing instead.
- themodelplumber 4y ago
- ilamont 4y ago> It takes very little effort to be an Eagle Scout. I completed all requirements including the community project aside from the board review before I turned 13. It really varies from troop to troop. Ours is old-school, by the book, multiple leadership positions required for half-year terms. No one got an Eagle who was under 15 and the projects are very involved with construction or logistics. Tearing down and rebuilding a long wooden fence at a women's shelter, constructing display cabinets at a nature center, working with a local charity to collect hundreds of food boxes. Someone built a real footbridge over a stream, which not only required decent carpentry skills but also driving rebar through 8x8 posts into the stony bank with sledgehammers. I got poison ivy twice while clearing brush to make a nature trail and rebuild a garden at a local temple. These projects are often the first time many youths have ever picked up a power tool or project managed anything. The bureaucracy associated with the service project and application was stunning.
- throwawayboise 4y agoAt the time this was written, boys learning to face danger, fight, and possibly getting injured was considered normal.
- troon-lover 4y ago
- prometheus76 4y agoPart of learning to defend oneself is getting injured along the way. It's part of the learning process. You can't learn to fight by reading a book about it. If you start to participate and learn through that participation, sometimes your efforts (or someone else's) will lead to injury.
- themodelplumber 4y ago> You can't learn to fight by reading a book about it Just to say that this is untrue, as long as your opponent has not read any books or had any training. A lot of scouts or just bullied kids who visit the library will tell you that.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- UberFly 4y agoSheesh. Some of the best things I ever did involved the risk of getting hurt. And yes, I guess I could see someone very left-leaning hating on an Eagle Scout but it would still probably be rare thankfully.
- micromacrofoot 4y agoWhat's the liberal complaint about scouting?
- themodelplumber 4y agoFor the big ones, read about the history of scouting, including when BSP visited Portland OR. You'll understand right away.
- mikestew 4y agoThat is the worst homework assignment ever: read the complete history of Boy Scouts, including when an unexpanded not-common acronym visited Portland. Was a link asking too much?
- atdrummond 4y agohttps://scoutingmagazine.org/issues/0811/d-wwas.html https://scoutingmagazine.org/issues/0811/d-wwas.html I assume this is a reference to the political fracas that Baden-Powell encountered with a group of Socialists in Portland.
- micromacrofoot 4y agowhat's BSP?
- atdrummond 4y agoI assume this is a malformed initialism for Baden-Powell, scouting’s founder.
- 4y ago
- colechristensen 4y agoIt’s not a quick take, it’s just modern infantilization of children to the point that many people in their 20s have difficulty with basics. Everyone starts as a beginner and age doesn’t change that, except maybe by making things harder as you get older. Do you object to the pacing or the starting age or are you imagining that the people teaching this were reckless?
- gonzo 4y agoAs a Scoutmaster for 7 years I introduced the axe and other subjects to over 200 11 year-old boys without a single injury other than 2 semi-minor burns. I, OTOH, suffered an ascending aortic dissection that terminates in my left iliac. I survived (obviously), but it did stop me from e.g. Philmont afterwords.
- ilamont 4y agoSome merit badges involve strenuous physical challenges, such as hiking (multiple long-distance hikes including a 50-miler). The canoeing MB requires learning how to get back on an overturned canoe while in deep water, which is bloody hard. They still have badges for shooting and archery, too. There are also some badges that were unexpected - plumbing, fixing farm equipment, computer game design.
- graywh 4y agothere's no 50-mile hike requirement -- all the hikes are to be done in a single day and 20 is the maximum length for good reason the sum total of all the required hikes is 70 miles: 5, 10, 10, 10, 15, 20
- ilamont 4y agoYou are correct. I was thinking of the "50 miler" badge. https://www.scouting.org/awards/awards-central/50-miler/ https://www.scouting.org/awards/awards-central/50-miler/
- MisterBastahrd 4y agoAh yes, the canoeing merit badge. Accomplished by yours truly and one other scout because I found an underwater stump in the Sewanee river and told him about it. LOL.
- fishtoaster 4y agoI remember getting my computer badge- in the late 90s, iirc. I had to write up a document in a word processor, create a simple spreadsheet, and one or two other things I'm probably forgetting. Even then it felt a bit basic and behind the times, but I was happy to get an easy badge!
- gonzo 4y agoMerit Badges are mostly designed to be introductory, not a test of advanced competency.
- 4y ago
- kiernanmcgowan 4y agoI'm just thinking back to my time in scouting and can only imagine what it would be like to teach a bunch of 14-16 y/os the 1920s equivalent of MMA. Probably about 30min of fun until kids just start hitting each other as hard as they can with sticks. Still sounds more fun than the basket weaving merit badge though.
- themodelplumber 4y agoDid you do basket weaving? Basket weaving was super chill and could make you feel like an adult in some important ways. My baskets were a disaster but talking to friends about favorite video games while weaving them was like free therapy.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago> but talking to friends about favorite video games while weaving them was like free therapy. This is backwards. Your friends aren't cheap knockoffs of a therapist. Therapists are people you pay to pretend to be your friend.
- germinalphrase 4y agoThis is bassakwards. A therapist isn’t supposed to be - let alone pretend to be - your friend at all.
- glowingly 4y agoNo parasocial experience really is. However, intent of the therapist may not be fully acknowledged by the patients.
- dctoedt 4y agoFormer longtime adult Scout leader here (and Eagle Scout) -- you're absolutely right about the kids hitting each other
- gcheong 4y ago
- irrational 4y ago1925 in Great Britain? So, this was published just a few years after the end of World War I. I presume it was written by people who actually fought in the war. I wonder how much of this reflected the skills they had learned or used as soldiers in that war?
- Dlanv 4y agoI'm not sure they fought with quarterstaffs or rapiers in WW1. The boxing and jiu jitsu perhaps.
- irrational 4y agoApparently swords were used in the war. http://www.militarian.com/threads/use-of-the-sword-in-ww1.7075/ http://www.militarian.com/threads/use-of-the-sword-in-ww1.70... Hitting each other with sticks seems like something people at war would do ;-)
- ch4s3 4y agoEhh… a quarter staff is a good approximation for a lot of weapons of convenience. It also teaches gauging distance in a way that translate to boxing.
- FooBarBizBazz 4y agoNot exactly the same, but this guy made a longbow kill in WW2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill
- dctoedt 4y ago> I wonder how much of this reflected the skills they had learned or used as soldiers in that war? Even today, Marine recruits are trained to fight with pugil sticks and padding — part of the idea is to get them accustomed to being hit without losing focus on the mission. https://rp.marineparents.com/bootcamp/mcmap.asp https://rp.marineparents.com/bootcamp/mcmap.asp
- gonzo 4y ago
- jvanderbot 4y agoI really love this. I am a firm believer in everyone studying _some_ martial art (player's choice). For the following reasons: - It teaches an insane amount of respect when two people have to hold themselves back to practice - It teaches self-discipline, mostly in the long-forgotten art of keeping yourself from becoming so angry you cannot function with form. - It gives a crazy amount of confidence to know you are at least a little bit prepared for bad situations - It removes a lot of the panic instinct in all kinds of intimidating situations, from actual fights, to presenting to a review board. - You quickly learn to operate through pain and discomfort and intimidation, even if you are not being actually injured (e.g., not actually sparring). - Everyone should feel that they are legitimately their own first line of defense. Even if that defense is to create space and get away. My sport was boxing. I'm a knowledge worker, still.
- throwawayboise 4y agoI could support kids learning boxing if it was limited to body blows. With what we are learning about concussion, it seems to be more and more understood that blows to the head are never OK. Maybe you still need to teach defense against head blows, but they should probably not be allowed in competition. Getting battered in the head until you cannot stand up or respond should be right out.
- leephillips 4y agoAlthough, according to the pamphlet, “Every boy who is worthy of the name has an inclination to know something of the art of boxing.”
- throwawayboise 4y agoI saw that too and it made me smile. I think it can still be done. Just cut out the brain damage.
- leephillips 4y agoTotally agree. And some other sports, especially soccer (football outside the US) are also risky for the brain, because practice involves repeated heading.
- nimbius 4y agoBroke: I want to enter my son into a child fighting ring. Woke: My boys earning his arms merit badge in the boy scouts.
- motohagiography 4y agoGrew up playing hockey and just assumed the point of having children was to set them against one another for sport. It's as though nobody here is from Canada. Did you not have lawn darts, potassium nitrate, and licorice cigars? I was a generation or so late to get a duelling scar, but grew up about 20miles from the site of Camp X (where we invented the CIA), and it seemed the american kids were given guns willy nilly where here it was just expected you would use the tools at hand to plan a night mission take them yourself in the event of an invasion. I'm a bit out of the loop as I have only recently become an uncle, but presumably a boy today can at least still have a pet bobcat? Between all the sugar cereals and cartoons, it's a wonder the people of the US aren't speaking Canadian...
- totierne2 4y agoBorder poll?
- gonzo 4y agoWe had lawn darts and potassium nitrate. I was given my first rifle when I was 6 (for Christmas). Still have it. I turned 60 yesterday. Different times.
- srdesigner 4y agoYou will likely really enjoy Super70sSports on Twitter.
- corrral 4y agoSee also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canne_de_combat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canne_de_combat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartitsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartitsu (related to the first link—it's a martial art Sherlock Holmes is familiar with, in the Doyle stories) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlestick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlestick The photos at the tops of the the second two links are great. All the sailors in the last one, facing off in lines with their stick-swords, and the dudes in boater hats posing with their sticks like they're LARPers who accidentally put on a costume for the wrong setting, at the second link.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hitovst 4y agoI had no idea! I'd be curious to look at founding documents to see what Boy Scouts was before it was corrupted.
- bitexploder 4y agoI am most impressed that the grappling techniques are almost all legitimate and taught today. I tapped people out with two of those techniques (cross collar choke and arm bar) in the last week as a BJJ practitioner. Same with the throws. The scissor takedown is also known as Kani Basami and is stupid dangerous for the person being taken down. Can easily tear knee ligaments and most gyms do not permit its use in most circumstances. It is effective, though.
- eric4smith 4y agoI got the badge for knots, hiking and camping. 45 years later I can still mess with some of those knots! Boy Scouts we’re awesome. Pity in the USA they are a little under attack now.
- jessaustin 4y agoPerhaps the greater pity is that they have sheltered child molesters for decades?
- paulmd 4y agoAnd then blamed it on gays. BSA has always been tied up with religion and churches - and particularly the Mormon church. And this is very much not the case in other countries.
- kod 4y agoSparring with quarterstaff is a bad idea, regardless of age. A 7' lever is no joke. Anyone who thinks that's a hot take, infantilization of kids, politically motivated, or whatever else has been going on in this thread should probably watch e.g. https://youtu.be/3bmcpjBO4a0?t=270 https://youtu.be/3bmcpjBO4a0?t=270