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Sixteen years later
I finally have an idea for my Gold Award project. It came to me in a dream.
Let me back up.
I was a Girl Scout. (Hard though that is even for me to believe.) I actually started out as a Bluebird (the Camp Fire Girls* equivalent of a Brownie), but my Bluebird troop "flew up" to be Junior Girl Scouts on account of a lack of Camp Fire Girls troops. So I was a Junior Girl Scout and then I was a Cadette and then I was a Senior Girl Scout (all of which seems to be now subsumed by Studio 2B which is seriously GIVING ME HIVES and would have ensured I quit Scouting a whole heck of a lot earlier than I actually did. I mean, really. When did Girl Scouting become about style and when did it start marketing itself like those repulsive girly teen magazines that made me think I was never going to be able to get this femininity thing right?), and I earned badges like a mad thing (talk about enabling overachievers) and I earned my Silver Award, and then I was a high school senior and supposed to be working toward my Gold Award (the Girl Scout equivalent of making Eagle Scout, and, yeah, "Gold Award" vs. "Eagle Scout"--lame, I know) . . . and I quit Scouting instead.
There were lots of reasons for that, including internecine politics which meant that my troop went from being extremely small--10 girls or fewer I think--to being part of a troop of 30 and that we went from having a scout leader whom I adored to having a scout leader whom I disliked very much, but one quite genuine reason was that I could not think of a project for my Gold Award.***
Well, now I've thought of one. I couldn't have done it when I was a Scout, and actually, I don't think it would have been nearly as necessary in Oak Ridge--which has an astonishingly good public school system. But goodness knows the college students I've taught here in the Upper Midwest could have used it. To wit: a one week course in how to close-read a text. Start with literature, sure, but the last day have everyone bring in a text of their own choosing. Advertising, politics, the damn mission statement of the Girl Scouts of the USA. Bonus if you bring in something that isn't text and close-read it anyway. You make it self-perpetuating (which is a condition of the award now and probably was in 1992 also) by having a younger scout serve as a teaching assistant/apprentice, on the understanding that she'll teach the class next year with an apprentice of her own. Make it something that students sign up for and make it available to everyone, not just kids in college track classes. I have a hobby horse about close-reading, but it is an actual skill and in a culture of spin and hype, it's actually pretty darn valuable.
So there. Closure. Weird and pointless, but closure nonetheless.
I do actually feel better.
---
*I notice that Camp Fire USA now prides itself on being coeducational**, which I think is pretty darn cool, actually. But back in the '80s in my hometown, no such thing.
**Whereas Girl Scouts prides itself on being girls only and Boy Scouts of America seems largely unaware that girls exist at all--and somebody could do a quite interesting study on the differences in presentation between these three organizations; finding the page where Camp Fire says "coeducational" and Girl Scouts says "girls only" took less time and effort than trying--and failing--to find anything on the BSA site that mentioned inclusion/exclusion policies. The "Organizational Identity" page is about copyright and trademark. I do notice that "Venturing" is at least nominally coed, but boy is that not where BSA is putting its money and its mouth. (And I wonder a little about how many teenage girls actually have the balls--if you'll pardon the expression--to stick it out when they're, in essence, joining a boy scout troop.)
Okay, longest digressive footnote in history, I'll stop now. Except that I should add that I'm well aware of the debate, both past and ongoing, about whether girls-only is a good thing or a bad thing. Having personally had rotten experiences with both teenage boys and teenage girls, my feeling is really that it isn't the sex of the group members that matters, but how they're taught to treat each other. It's certainly true that boys can be poisonous little shits to girls (and vice versa), but it's also true that girls, like boys, can be poisonous little shits to each other. So, I think girls-only can be a positive thing (cf. Carol Gilligan et al.), but I also think coeducational could work just fine, if the adults have a big stick handy and are willing to use it to whack the culturally conditioned sexual harassment bullshit when it rears its head. (And if the big stick is actually effective in getting it through kids' heads that what they're doing is cosmically Not Okay.) I also hope that the culturally conditioned sexual harassment bullshit isn't as bad as it was when I was a teenager, but, you know, I'm not holding my breath on that one.
Um. Oops. Okay, really stopping this time.
***Notice the requirement to purchase something. And then the further requirement to earn "charms" as steps along the way. Which, yes, the individual girl scout will have to purchase. This was a constant source of tension between scouting and family: the sheer amount of crap that Girl Scouts insisted you had to buy. For instance, Juniors, Cadettes, and Seniors all had different colored uniforms, which meant a new outlay of money every two or three years. Plus the handbooks. And all the insignia and badges and patches and this and that and on and on world without end. And let's not even get STARTED on the godforsaken cookie sales. Materialistic. Yes. And oh look. Of course they have an online store and a "boutique" aimed at the girls. Can't teach 'em too young to start searching for gratification through consumption.
Ahem.
I wasn't a really good match with Girl Scouts as a teenager, and I'm clearly even less well matched now. Although it seriously makes me want to start a program called Geek Scouts. Boys can come, too.
Let me back up.
I was a Girl Scout. (Hard though that is even for me to believe.) I actually started out as a Bluebird (the Camp Fire Girls* equivalent of a Brownie), but my Bluebird troop "flew up" to be Junior Girl Scouts on account of a lack of Camp Fire Girls troops. So I was a Junior Girl Scout and then I was a Cadette and then I was a Senior Girl Scout (all of which seems to be now subsumed by Studio 2B which is seriously GIVING ME HIVES and would have ensured I quit Scouting a whole heck of a lot earlier than I actually did. I mean, really. When did Girl Scouting become about style and when did it start marketing itself like those repulsive girly teen magazines that made me think I was never going to be able to get this femininity thing right?), and I earned badges like a mad thing (talk about enabling overachievers) and I earned my Silver Award, and then I was a high school senior and supposed to be working toward my Gold Award (the Girl Scout equivalent of making Eagle Scout, and, yeah, "Gold Award" vs. "Eagle Scout"--lame, I know) . . . and I quit Scouting instead.
There were lots of reasons for that, including internecine politics which meant that my troop went from being extremely small--10 girls or fewer I think--to being part of a troop of 30 and that we went from having a scout leader whom I adored to having a scout leader whom I disliked very much, but one quite genuine reason was that I could not think of a project for my Gold Award.***
Well, now I've thought of one. I couldn't have done it when I was a Scout, and actually, I don't think it would have been nearly as necessary in Oak Ridge--which has an astonishingly good public school system. But goodness knows the college students I've taught here in the Upper Midwest could have used it. To wit: a one week course in how to close-read a text. Start with literature, sure, but the last day have everyone bring in a text of their own choosing. Advertising, politics, the damn mission statement of the Girl Scouts of the USA. Bonus if you bring in something that isn't text and close-read it anyway. You make it self-perpetuating (which is a condition of the award now and probably was in 1992 also) by having a younger scout serve as a teaching assistant/apprentice, on the understanding that she'll teach the class next year with an apprentice of her own. Make it something that students sign up for and make it available to everyone, not just kids in college track classes. I have a hobby horse about close-reading, but it is an actual skill and in a culture of spin and hype, it's actually pretty darn valuable.
So there. Closure. Weird and pointless, but closure nonetheless.
I do actually feel better.
---
*I notice that Camp Fire USA now prides itself on being coeducational**, which I think is pretty darn cool, actually. But back in the '80s in my hometown, no such thing.
**Whereas Girl Scouts prides itself on being girls only and Boy Scouts of America seems largely unaware that girls exist at all--and somebody could do a quite interesting study on the differences in presentation between these three organizations; finding the page where Camp Fire says "coeducational" and Girl Scouts says "girls only" took less time and effort than trying--and failing--to find anything on the BSA site that mentioned inclusion/exclusion policies. The "Organizational Identity" page is about copyright and trademark. I do notice that "Venturing" is at least nominally coed, but boy is that not where BSA is putting its money and its mouth. (And I wonder a little about how many teenage girls actually have the balls--if you'll pardon the expression--to stick it out when they're, in essence, joining a boy scout troop.)
Okay, longest digressive footnote in history, I'll stop now. Except that I should add that I'm well aware of the debate, both past and ongoing, about whether girls-only is a good thing or a bad thing. Having personally had rotten experiences with both teenage boys and teenage girls, my feeling is really that it isn't the sex of the group members that matters, but how they're taught to treat each other. It's certainly true that boys can be poisonous little shits to girls (and vice versa), but it's also true that girls, like boys, can be poisonous little shits to each other. So, I think girls-only can be a positive thing (cf. Carol Gilligan et al.), but I also think coeducational could work just fine, if the adults have a big stick handy and are willing to use it to whack the culturally conditioned sexual harassment bullshit when it rears its head. (And if the big stick is actually effective in getting it through kids' heads that what they're doing is cosmically Not Okay.) I also hope that the culturally conditioned sexual harassment bullshit isn't as bad as it was when I was a teenager, but, you know, I'm not holding my breath on that one.
Um. Oops. Okay, really stopping this time.
***Notice the requirement to purchase something. And then the further requirement to earn "charms" as steps along the way. Which, yes, the individual girl scout will have to purchase. This was a constant source of tension between scouting and family: the sheer amount of crap that Girl Scouts insisted you had to buy. For instance, Juniors, Cadettes, and Seniors all had different colored uniforms, which meant a new outlay of money every two or three years. Plus the handbooks. And all the insignia and badges and patches and this and that and on and on world without end. And let's not even get STARTED on the godforsaken cookie sales. Materialistic. Yes. And oh look. Of course they have an online store and a "boutique" aimed at the girls. Can't teach 'em too young to start searching for gratification through consumption.
Ahem.
I wasn't a really good match with Girl Scouts as a teenager, and I'm clearly even less well matched now. Although it seriously makes me want to start a program called Geek Scouts. Boys can come, too.
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