3 ms·

Sorry, I should have used the correct org terms. But, as the parent of an Eagle scout, I think my point still stands. Either they can, or can't, trust the Eag

Sorry, I should have used the correct org terms. But, as the parent of an Eagle scout, I think my point still stands. Either they can, or can't, trust the Eagle to be honest. IMHO, that trust should be a necessary condition for awarding Eagle. And if the council isn't capable of making that call, then they're perhaps unqualified for deciding whether or not to award Eagle rank. (I realize my position is a bit simplistic. I paired it down for brevity.)

taylodl 3y ago
Trust but verify. The Scout Law is a set of ideals to which a scout aspires. It's not assumed the Scout has achieved them.
- MisterBastahrd 3y ago
  The main reason I am not an Eagle Scout is because I took two classes at a winter camp for merit badges, did everything from signup and turned in every bit of work, and then at the end of the class they told me they had no record of me being in it. I did all the work for every other part of that award, but I flat out refused to redo those badges again. I've never jumped through hoops to make up for the failures of lazy leadership, and I never will.
  - floren 3y ago
    Well, you're an Eagle Scout in everything but name, and honestly that might be better -- you get the personal satisfaction, but you don't do the thing all of us find extremely tedious about Eagle Scouts, which is constantly mentioning (in your 40s) how you're an Eagle Scout.
    - em-bee 3y ago
      doing work and not having it recognized but in fact rejected because someone somewhere lost their notes is not the path to personal satisfaction. a lot of merit badge work is based on trust. it should not be to hard to ask a few questions about the work done to be able to judge if it was really done. most of this should be in the control of the scout masters. if they can't trust their scouts to be honest about this and work out a compromise then their troop has a real problem
      - MisterBastahrd 3y ago
        This was at a winter camp. My scoutmaster was not there. It was me and two other kids from my troop along with plenty of others from other troops. I (a) signed up for the classes, (b) paid for the classes, (c) completed all the work for the classes. According to them, instead of trying to figure out why I was attending and turning in the assigned work, they just tossed it. I don't respect truly lazy people, and that was truly lazy. So anyway, I made my case, they rejected it, and I decided I had enough. I didn't need their useless external validation, especially since I had already attended every bit of advanced and leadership training within my grasp due to my work and character. Eagle Scout was icing on the cake, it wasn't the cake.
garciasn 3y ago
The council-level Eagle Board of Reviewers likely didn't know the individual scouts and were simply applying their individual knowledge about the content reviewed compared to the whole and made, in this case, poor assumptions about the quality of writing they should expect. As it relates to academia today, this is now happening at a larger scale with folks lacking more trust, not having to think critically about the individual, and applying a similar outcome based on this. This all goes back to critical thought, understanding your audience, and using tools/knowledge in a way it shouldn't be used; it's just now being used more often and with less control than ever. To address your specific comment that those folks may not have been qualified to assess scouts attempting to obtain Eagle, I cannot speak to that, but at the face of it, it would absolutely seem they were definitely not exposed to enough quality writing nor did they have the wherewithal to make decisions at the level they were tasked. Working in the business world, I am continually faced with a wide swath of college-educated adults who simply are unable to write coherently, so none of it surprises me today, but it certainly did when I was 15-16 and thought adults were more capable than actually were/are. I still hate the world.
- godelski 3y ago
  I've started referring to this phenomena as "Goodhart's Hell." We're living in a world with quickly increasing complexity. Variance in samples is much larger because our reach in what we sample is larger (we talk to people far from our homes, with different cultures, interpretations of words, language patterns, behaviors, ethics, etc). But we've responded to this only by simplifying our evaluations. We've created more tools and metrics that can help guide us, but we don't use them as guides but answers. We're using mathematics/technology not as a tool or language, but a black box. A black box with high accuracy too! Noise/uncertainty has increased but so has our confidence in our answers. It is entirely unwarranted. In essence, we are just hacking metrics and over-fitting our models to increase laziness and comfort. Our ever pursuit of meritocracy ironically takes us further from achieving the goals because we are unwilling to embrace the noise that is inherent to the system, believing that the noise is a lie, believing we can accurately measure everything to absolute (or even meaningful) precision. We have not only abandoned nuance but have actively turned against it and I do not know why. I think it deserves the hell in its name.
godelski 3y ago
> Either they can, or can't, trust the Eagle to be honest. A scout is _____ (∩ ⌣̀_⌣́)

taylodl 3y ago

Trust but verify. The Scout Law is a set of ideals to which a scout aspires. It's not assumed the Scout has achieved them.

MisterBastahrd 3y ago
The main reason I am not an Eagle Scout is because I took two classes at a winter camp for merit badges, did everything from signup and turned in every bit of work, and then at the end of the class they told me they had no record of me being in it. I did all the work for every other part of that award, but I flat out refused to redo those badges again. I've never jumped through hoops to make up for the failures of lazy leadership, and I never will.
- floren 3y ago
  Well, you're an Eagle Scout in everything but name, and honestly that might be better -- you get the personal satisfaction, but you don't do the thing all of us find extremely tedious about Eagle Scouts, which is constantly mentioning (in your 40s) how you're an Eagle Scout.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    doing work and not having it recognized but in fact rejected because someone somewhere lost their notes is not the path to personal satisfaction. a lot of merit badge work is based on trust. it should not be to hard to ask a few questions about the work done to be able to judge if it was really done. most of this should be in the control of the scout masters. if they can't trust their scouts to be honest about this and work out a compromise then their troop has a real problem
    - MisterBastahrd 3y ago
      This was at a winter camp. My scoutmaster was not there. It was me and two other kids from my troop along with plenty of others from other troops. I (a) signed up for the classes, (b) paid for the classes, (c) completed all the work for the classes. According to them, instead of trying to figure out why I was attending and turning in the assigned work, they just tossed it. I don't respect truly lazy people, and that was truly lazy. So anyway, I made my case, they rejected it, and I decided I had enough. I didn't need their useless external validation, especially since I had already attended every bit of advanced and leadership training within my grasp due to my work and character. Eagle Scout was icing on the cake, it wasn't the cake.

garciasn 3y ago

The council-level Eagle Board of Reviewers likely didn't know the individual scouts and were simply applying their individual knowledge about the content reviewed compared to the whole and made, in this case, poor assumptions about the quality of writing they should expect. As it relates to academia today, this is now happening at a larger scale with folks lacking more trust, not having to think critically about the individual, and applying a similar outcome based on this. This all goes back to critical thought, understanding your audience, and using tools/knowledge in a way it shouldn't be used; it's just now being used more often and with less control than ever. To address your specific comment that those folks may not have been qualified to assess scouts attempting to obtain Eagle, I cannot speak to that, but at the face of it, it would absolutely seem they were definitely not exposed to enough quality writing nor did they have the wherewithal to make decisions at the level they were tasked. Working in the business world, I am continually faced with a wide swath of college-educated adults who simply are unable to write coherently, so none of it surprises me today, but it certainly did when I was 15-16 and thought adults were more capable than actually were/are. I still hate the world.

godelski 3y ago
I've started referring to this phenomena as "Goodhart's Hell." We're living in a world with quickly increasing complexity. Variance in samples is much larger because our reach in what we sample is larger (we talk to people far from our homes, with different cultures, interpretations of words, language patterns, behaviors, ethics, etc). But we've responded to this only by simplifying our evaluations. We've created more tools and metrics that can help guide us, but we don't use them as guides but answers. We're using mathematics/technology not as a tool or language, but a black box. A black box with high accuracy too! Noise/uncertainty has increased but so has our confidence in our answers. It is entirely unwarranted. In essence, we are just hacking metrics and over-fitting our models to increase laziness and comfort. Our ever pursuit of meritocracy ironically takes us further from achieving the goals because we are unwilling to embrace the noise that is inherent to the system, believing that the noise is a lie, believing we can accurately measure everything to absolute (or even meaningful) precision. We have not only abandoned nuance but have actively turned against it and I do not know why. I think it deserves the hell in its name.

godelski 3y ago

> Either they can, or can't, trust the Eagle to be honest. A scout is _____ (∩ ⌣̀_⌣́)