Woefully Unprepared29thApril
I debated if I was going to write about this, but here goes. Apparently the Boy Scouts now offer a Video Game badge.
This may well be the seventh sign of the new apocalypse. You see, the international scouting movement actually has a long rich and powerful legacy of trying to get kids outside! Before I get started, please don't hear this as an indictment of the Scouting movement, please hear this as indignation for how our entire culture celebrates mediocrity with our future generations.
While the award makes alms at getting younger kids to understand video game ratings, the reality is that it all boils down to the icon on the badge, a game controller. While many folks have pointed out that it's actually a belt loop and pin offered to the younger cub scouts (even dumber) is doesn't change the fact that the Scouts are trying to turn a mass marketed toy into a civil accomplishment.
One might say every organization (including Trackers) reaches out through media. Sure enough. We are media geeks. The original Scouting for Boys written by Robert Baden-Powell was innovative for its time. Yet a video game award does not feel innovative, or part of a rich story and vision that can change the world (as Scouting once did). It feels like most of the experiences I've had teaching many scout troops. They are woefully unprepared: they can't light a fire, they can't find their way through the woods or they never had a real experience of ever getting dirty and living a truly wild life. My two simple hours with them rarely ever change that.
This award is pandering pure and simple. Instead of putting bows, arrows, crossbows, knives, sewing needles, throwing sticks, buckskin, obsidian or fire into their hands, they opted for a game controller. Instead of making nature, the woods and care for your community so freaking awesome and engaging someone took the lazy way out. What ever happened to making nature the rock star alternative?
Actually, I can look at this from quite a few perspectives and understand "why" they decided to offer it: connecting with kids, inclusivity and more. Yet, it still does not change the fact that the road to heck is paved with good intentions. It insidiously waters down what we expect from our youth. An individual in an office decided that when in Rome… Well, I guess the Scouts will keep fiddling; yet at least Trackers Kids will have the skills to survive once it burns;)
Please Note My apologies, I don't normally like to blog with such incensed ranting. I also have plenty of solid Eagle Scout friends. I bet most of them would agree.
