From: stank@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (Stan Krieger)
Subject: Re: What is an Eagle Scout?
Organization: Summit NJ
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 23:46:15 GMT

>To Fellow Scouters,
>		Would someone explain your training schemes over there in 
>the USA. Reading this group and someone says that they are an Eagle Scout 
>doesn't mean anything to me in Tasmania(Australian state) unless I can 
>relate it to our own training requirements....

Here's mynderstanding of what it takes to reach the rank of Eagle; I
am Eagle Advisor in my son's Troop.

There are six ranks that boys advance to in the U.S.A.- tenderfoot,
second clas, first class, star, life, and eagle.  For the first
three ranks (tenderfoot to first class), the emphasis is on basic
Scout skills, such as cooking, camping, first aid, citizenship,
service, and hiking.  To get the boys on-board and interested,
BSA has set a goal "first class/first year"; also, the requirements
are such that there is very little the boys can do 100% on their
own; most of the requirements require Troop, Patrol, r small
group training/working sessions.

For Star, Life, and Eagle, the overall requirements basically come
down to-

     1.	Earn a certain number of merit badges
     2.	Serve in a leadership position
     3.	Perform community service
     4.	Show Scout Spirit

Now, specifically for Eagle-

     1.	The merit badge requirement is to earn 21 merit badges;
	11 of which are specified.  Five of these  11 are outdoor
	type badges and can be earned at camp; the boys need to
	earn the other 6 (which are Citizenship in the Community,
	in the Nation, in the World, Communications, Safety, and
	Personal Management) on their own.

	One rule that we work under is that we cannot run a
	Troop program that directly results in a boy earning one
	of these 6 badges.  We can get them started, we can tell
	them what they have to do, but they must phone a merit
	badge counselor to whom we assign them (the districts
	maintain a list of qualified counselors) to actually get
	the merit badge.  About 1/2 the effort is just calling the
	merit badge counselor, so the boys learn how to interface
	with other people.

	Also, I find that of the 10 optional merit badges, the
	boys usually earn at least 8, and sometimes all 10,
	at camp.

     2.	There are a number of jobs that BSA lists as qualifying
	as leadership jobs for Star, Life, and Eagle.  In our
	Troop, the job that boys typically hold to get the Eagle
	leadership requirements are Patrol Leader, Instructor,
	Assistant Senior Patrol Leader, Senior Patrol Leader,
	or Junior Assistant Scoutmaster.  We do evaluate the
	work they've done, and it usually takes them more than
	the minimum 6 months before we approve it.  As an
	example-  suppose we give an Instructor or ASPL the job
	of teaching some 6th graders (11-12 year olds) the
	first aid requirements for Second Class.  We'll see how
	well he knows the material, how well prepared he was for
	the session (i.e., did he bring any First Aid equipment
	that's needed), and whether he has prepared a general plan
	or if he's just reading it out of the Boy Scout Handbook
	one step ahead of the students.  If he didn't approach
	the job seriously or accurately, we'll slip out the 6 month
	effective leadership target date.  For Star, Life, and Eagle,
	our standards do get stricter, and if a boy barely got the
	Scoutmaster's approval for leadership for Star or Life,
	we will tell the boy that he will need to do better for
	Life or Eagle.

     3.	For the community service requirement for Eagle, the boy must
	seek out, formally plan, carry out, and formally write up, a
	community service activity (for the other ranks, it's just a
	matter of working 6 hours on some project).  To give an example
	of the effort involved, for the last boy I worked with, whose
	project involved refurbishing a hiking trail in a county part,
	I made sure that in his plan he provide a detailed map of the
	refurbished trail, describe in detail exactly what he would be
	doing, identify any tools he would need and where he would get
	them, describe how transportation to the site would be arranged,
	what safety precautions he would make considering that it
	involved work in the woods in the summer, and anything else
	that I felt needed detail or a contingency.  The total amount
	of actual work should be at least 100 people-hours.

     4.	For the Scout Spirit requirement, he basically has to show that
	he lives by the Scout Oath and Scout Law.  One of the ways we
	do this for Eagle is that he needs to have three people, usually
	a parent, religious leader, and teacher, fill out and return
	to the Eagle Advisor a questionaire and comment form about him.

Finally, BSA's official policy is once and Eagle, always and Eagle,
which is why adult leaders who earned the rank of Eagle while they
were Scouts refer to themselves as Eagle Scout.
-- 
Stan Krieger                     All opinions, advice, or suggestions, even
AT&T UNIX System Laboratories    if related to my employment, are my own.
Summit, NJ
smk@usl.com