Wood Badge

Tucker earned his Wood Badge Beads last month...after much hard work. He was very excited, and we were proud of him for completing this task. If you need more scout jargon, read the excerpt below :-). Way to go Tucker!!

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Wood Badge is a training course for Scouters which finally results in their receiving a certificate, a small neckerchief, a leather slide, and two small wooden beads on a leather thong. Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, directed the first course in 1919.

Wood Badge is, further, Scouting's premier training course. Baden-Powell designed it so that Scouters could learn, in as practical a way possible, the skills and methods of Scouting. It is first and foremost, learning by doing. The members of the course are formed into patrols and these into a troop. The entire troop lives in the out-of-doors for a week, camping, cooking their own meals, and practicing Scout skills.

Thus it was that Baden-Powell developed a practical course built around the operation of a troop and it's patrols. Yet this is only the most well-known of three parts in the entire Wood Badge experience. The practical course--the week in the out-of-doors--was originally scheduled to follow a "theoretical" part 1, which consisted of answering a series of questions about the aims and methods of the Scouting program. Part 3 then followed the practical course and required a 6-month application period while the Scouter practiced in his home Scouting situation what he had learned in parts 1 and 2.