When The Existing (Read: Old) Guard Dies, The New Will Flourish
I just got off the phone with one of my boys from Scouts, who told me the very bad news that three of them failed their pre-hike report for the Chief Commissioner’s Award, the highest award that one can get in secondary school as a scout.
The reason why? Apparently there were similarities in their emergency plans. Two thoughts come immediately to mind:
1) How original do you want emergency plans to be? Write down “Dial 911″ backwards and read it in a mirror?
2) Maybe the boys shared notes and picked the best out of their research. So what? Do we live in a world where the system doesn’t reward good research? At least they worked at it!
Maybe they suspected plagiarism, but I’ve whacked it into the heads of my boys not to do that. And I’m hoping they didn’t. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
But the big question is how are any of is Gen Yers and Gen Zers supposed to do stuff with these old, stupid people living in their “glory” days think they’re right all the time? We’re moving from mass production to personalisation. From tightly guarded secrets to open collaboration. But we can’t until the “old guard” gets the hell out of our way.
My message to the Singapore Scout Association: Ask the boys to re-do the pre-hike log, but don’t fail them at this stage. It doesn’t teach them anything, nor send the right message. Let them try and if they fail, they fail for proper reasons. Like cheating, or not being safe, or not finding the checkpoint. Not for trivial reasons like this.
Do I think they’ll even read this? No. But in the slim chance they do, I hope they respond. These are 16 year old boys trying to work hard for something they want. Are we nurturing young lives by showing them that such efforts do not pay off?
It really made me sick to hear the phone call and makes me feel sick thinking about all the effort. In a sense I almost feel it’s my fault. I should’ve asked to see a copy of the log before they submit it up the ladder. Is this what I’ll leave them with after four years? Failure to support them at the final steps of their journey?
Hi,
I’m also another 16 year old scout, who also happened to fail the cheif commissioner’s award hike yesterday. Yet, i do not fill disheartened because i understand the reason that i failed and i know that the examiners failed me so that they can uphold the highest standards.
If your scouts are motivated, they would not give up, and continue to strive hard for this award. There is another hike coming up in December and your scouts can still try again for it.
@another student: Thanks for the input! Nice to hear from other scouts. I’m curious, what’s the reason you failed? You’re right that there are lessons to be learnt… but there are proper lessons and there are trivial lessons. All I’m saying is there needs to be a distinction.