Now I'll demonstrate the wrong way

Among the many things Wood Badge teaches are diversity, teamwork, and listening.

I had an interesting experience where the staff of a Wood Badge course I'm serving on was going through some training. The goal in these trainings is to be prepared to teach but to also practice the very things we're teaching in order to become a high performing team just in time for the course.

We were in a little bit of a hurry, trying to wrap up in time for some things a few people had to get to, and it had been a long day.

I should also point out that there were several of the staff who had served on one or more courses together previously, and throughout the time we've met together, they are always talking about things that happened in other courses. Most of the time, the Course Director was very good to explain what they were talking about and point out that there shouldn't be any types of insider jokes and discussions. That's part of the diversity thing. If you have to have it explained to you, however, that still makes you feel like an outsider.

Brother Lindsay, who will be serving as the course Senior Patrol Leader was trying to help keep the agenda moving along so we could wrap up. I have to say that he is one of the most interesting, kind, funny people I've ever met and is obviously a wonderful leader. However, he totally blew off some of the core principles we had just barely gone over in his hurry to get through everything.

We were planning ideas for a campfire, and when we got to having some type of spiritual or touching story as the fire is dying down, he pointed at one of the other staff members who happens to be a Bishop and volunteered him to do that piece, and we moved on. Whoa, what just happened? I actually had a story in mind that I was thinking about. It's a dear experience to me, so I didn't want to go blabbing about it, but it would be very applicable in such a situation. I still have a chance to share it, as I'll just talk to the guy in charge of the campfire. I just have to go out of my way to do it now. If it wasn't important to me or if in some way I actually felt like I had been slighted, I'd just blow it off and stew about it.

For me, the incident wasn't a big deal (in spite of my blogging about it now), and doesn't change my opinion of him; it just helps to make me more aware of how hard it is to be on your game all the time. If a man as good as him fails at using the principles we've just barely been talking about, how much more do I need to try to make sure I'm not forgetting the same things? That is part of why we do so many meetings before the course, so we can build relationships with each other before the course starts. It's always a work in progress.

I can totally see where some of the problems arose in the old Wood Badge. There used to be these insider groups that ran all the courses, and there wasn't a good way to get on a staff. It was always just the same group. This led to some inbreeding and stagnation of sorts that put people off. Because of this, they put some rules in place with the current course where once you've been a Course Director, you can no longer serve on a Wood Badge staff, and a certain percentage of every staff has to be comprised of first time staffers. I think this is a good thing, but it doesn't prevent all problems.

Storming

Michael, one of my boys who is a little more rambunctious than some, can jump back and forth between being the sweetest kid in the world to being a total hellion. At least you never have to wonder which one it is. You will always know what he is up to. There's no sneaking around or hiding emotions with him.

I had been teaching a Sunday lesson a few months ago where most of the boys were being rowdier than normal. After trying to ignore them or redirect their conversation for as long as I could stand it, I finally blew my top a little. Now, with me, that's actually a pretty rare occurrence, and a calculated one at that. That is, I'll let the anger loose a little for show.

So I let them have it, sucked out any spirit that was left in our quorum meeting, and started trying to get back into the lesson. A few minutes later, Michael was the one who had the misfortune to be the first to act out of line again, and I actually did let it go. My patience had been worn down enough, and with the spirit gone as it was, I harshly told him he was dismissed from the class.

He actually looked a little scared as he left the room, and the Bishop's counselor followed him out to talk to him for a minute. I felt bad the rest of the meeting. I saw his dad in the hall after church and told him what happened, just so he'd have my explanation of what happened before he got Michael's explanation.

After talking to his dad, I immediately biked over to his house, which is just a couple blocks from the church, and apologized to him. I can't really even remember what I said, just something about appreciating him in our quorum, and I shouldn't have kicked him out, and we can work together, etc. He seemed to be okay with it.

Over the next month or so, nothing seemed to be much different one way or another, other than I was still feeling bad. Then I was sitting next to him in quorum meeting several weeks later when someone else was teaching. The whole time we were making little jokes back and forth about whatever, to the point that we would just look at each other and start laughing. I kept it under control as much as possible, disrupting the class as little as possible, but there was a little bond forged there. Ever since then, he often says things about how he wants to sit by me so we can joke around or that we know what each other is thinking without even having to say anything.

We learn in Scouts and elsewhere that as teams and relationships develop, something that really bonds people is going through hard things together. Never stressing or testing a relationship means that the relationship has never been properly forged to begin with.

While down inside I still feel bad for kicking Michael out of class that day, I know he doesn't. He would say something if he did, since you always knows what he's thinking, good or bad. I've also grown to respect him more than I did before. Having worked through some frustration with him and seeing the ease with which he could forgive and forget, he has been an example to me.

Our Cookies

Last week we made some cookies at my ASM's house to bring to people who were helping with our camp fundraiser. His wife was listening to us make cookies in the kitchen and got worried that we were messing up the recipe. She came in when we were almost done with the first batch and gave us some pointers. She then proceeded to mix up the second batch of cookies for us.

It was her kitchen and recipe and ingredients. But it was our cookies. It's unfortunate when adults are so worried about the boys failing at something that they do it for them. The way I look at it, if we have to do it for them, we have failed.

By the way, both batches of cookies were delicious. Other than the different type of chips we mixed in the two batches, you couldn't tell the difference even though the first ones were mixed up wrong.