Small Rant

I know there's not anything that I can do about this, but it is exceptionally frustrating, so I just need to get this off my chest. We were at cub scouts last night and it came out that all of the boys but one have earned their Bear badge and will be getting their awards tonight. Although there was no chance of completing the requirements in time to get the award, the mother of this last boy was hunting through his book trying to find anything he had done that he could sign off on.

Once she'd signed off anything that remotely applied, she went through looking for things that were really easy to do (really fast) and hit on an achievement that teaches various things about nature, requiring learning about how animals live, building a birdhouse, finding out what animals are on the endangered species list and which have gone extinct in the last 100 years (there are a LOT more than you'd think) and a few other items, and each of those things is a separate requirement towards completing the achievement. So she asked if any of us knew any animals that had gone extinct in the last century and those of us who had already done it with our boys chimed in right away with several answers, and also supplied a few suggestions for animals that are on the endangered species list. I guess I was thinking that it would help provide her with a direction to go for helping him do it later, but that's not what happened. After a 2 minute conversation that SHE had with US, she signed off on the requirement. Granted, her son was standing close and could hear the conversation, but he didn't have to do anything which means I seriously doubt that he learned anything. The whole point of scouts is to build character and teach them to value the areas of God, Country, Family and Self. Last night I watched her teach her son how to skirt the work and still get the reward.

I have two real issues with this. The first one is that this boy is going to get the same award for no work that my son will get for doing the research and finding the answers to the questions himself. The second is that she is cheating her son out of the truly valuable lessons that are the entire object of the scouting program.

Like I said, there's nothing that I can do about either of those two issues. Her son won't gain as much from the program as he could, and I will have to be satisfied knowing that Kellen actually learned something from completing his requirements fully, but it rankles that there are (probably lots) of parents out there who are doing that... Anyway, so that's my rant and I'm going to shelve it now :)