Posted on 09/04/2007 10:53:06 AM PDT by fgoodwin
Old-school skills boys can learn
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzMTMmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTcxODg3MDcmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3
http://tinyurl.com/2b5oqa
Sunday, September 2, 2007
By JIM BECKERMAN
STAFF WRITER
Do you know how to ...
Skim stones? Build a go-cart? Hunt fossils? Make a periscope? Recognize cloud formations? Fish? Fold a paper airplane? Tie a knot? Use a slingshot? Erect a treehouse?
If you're male, age 45 or older, chances are the answer is yes. Or was, once.
And if you're under 45 ...?
Well, maybe you know how to build a Web page.
"The Dangerous Book for Boys," by British brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden, created a minor sensation in England last year by suggesting that kids were in danger of losing all the traditional, Tom Sawyerish skills of boyhood in an age of Nintendo.
The Americanised -- er, Americanized -- version of their bestseller arrived on these shores this summer, which coincidentally marks the 100th world anniversary of the Boy Scouts. (The book sat at No. 3 recently on The New York Times' non-fiction bestsellers list.
The book, aimed at kids and purporting to teach "what every boy needs to know," gives detailed instructions on how to make a bow and arrow, how to play stickball, how to make a spy code, and other arcane sciences of youth -- along with statistics on baseball's "most valuable players," stories of famous explorers, and other things that kids ought to have filed away, somewhere in their craniums.
The cultural conversation begun by "Dangerous Book" has raised questions about whether 21st-century kids, computer-savvy though they may be, should be able to change a bicycle tire or recognize poison ivy.
It's also shed a new light on groups like the Scouts -- lately tarred as retrograde by progressive parents for some of their social views.
Now, to many, the Scouts look more like the flame-keepers for a whole set of childhood skills that could go the way of penny candy and Saturday serials.
"I really believe [kids] don't know what they're missing," says Chuck Shotmeyer, assistant scoutmaster with Troop 77 of the Boy Scouts of America in Wyckoff. "And quite frankly, they probably feel they aren't missing anything, because they're into video games with their friends."
Do kids today have less real-world know-how than their parents and grandparents?
Certainly, alarming statistics about childhood obesity (15 percent of children, according to recent studies) suggest they don't get out as much.
But not everybody is blaming the kids, glued to their Gameboys, for the problem.
Blaming parents
The very title "The Dangerous Book For Boys" points an accusing finger, not at kids, but at their safety-conscious parents -- obsessing over every skinned knee and sprained ankle.
"I think parents should let kids be kids," says Mike Hosier, program director at the Boys & Girls Club of Lodi, a branch of the national organization founded in 1906 as The Boys Club of America.
"Kids are going to fall, they're going to get dirty, they're going to get into trouble," Hosier says.
In an age of bicycle helmets and childproof houses, it's bracing to remember the kind of pastimes that were considered routine for kids, once upon a time. The "Dangerous Book" waxes nostalgic for a day when kids had adventures in the real, rather than the virtual, world.
George Boothby, for one, remembers those days.
"I enjoyed all the skills I learned," says Boothby, 55, a former scoutmaster for Troop 334 in Montvale, who is still active in the Boy Scouts.
Even before he joined the scouts as a kid in Brooklyn, Boothby recalls the kind of projects he and his friends would dream up -- two parts Popular Mechanics and one part "Little Rascals."
Building a soapbox racer, for instance.
"You had wheels and a board and a box," he says. "You took the wheels from old roller skates, or you attached roller skates to the back of a board. At the time, fruits and vegetables came in wooden boxes. You picked them up at the grocery store."
He was about 14 or 15, he recalls, when he and his friends boarded their go-carts and went whizzing down First Street in Brooklyn, from Prospect Park West to Eighth Avenue. All this in traffic-filled streets.
More threats to kids today
"You had to stop at Eighth Avenue and not cross it, because it was the main thoroughfare," Boothby says. "You had to put on the brakes. Basically, that was using your Keds or PF Flyers and dragging your foot down to stop it."
It's a different world now, of course. Very different.
Girls are now encouraged to have the same can-do spirit as boys, for one thing ("Dangerous Book" has sparked debate about its possible "gender bias"). And there are more threats, real and imagined -- not just from oncoming traffic, but also child predators, illegal substances, foreign terrorists and lead paint.
But worried parents should remember to cut their kids just a little common-sense slack, Hosier says.
"A parent should set boundaries," he says. "If you live on a busy street, [they] can only be on this side of the street. Or go to the end of the block. But don't keep the kids inside all day."
E-mail: beckerman@northjersey.com
--sidebar--
What every boy should know
Here are some of the essentials, according to Conn and Hal Iggulden, authors of "The Dangerous Book for Boys." Boys should be able to:
• Skim a stone
• Make a tripwire
• Create a secret code
• Make a go-cart
• Know about Gettysburg and the Alamo
• Build a treehouse
• Know the states of the United States
• Fold a paper airplane
• Fish
• Palm a coin
• Wrap a package
Fish, hunt, field dress a dear, raise a garden, can / freeze what you’ve raised, change a flat tire, change a worn timing belt, change plugs, oil, filters in the vehicles, replace a water pump on your vehicle, run a chainsaw, split wood, build a computer, build a shed, build a house, wire a house, build a computer, make a quilt, cook, sew, etc.....I reckon I spent too much time learning stuff I’d never need.
I am passing this on to my daughter to begin planning for her sony who is now 4.5 months old!
...apply for a federal grant, hire a lawyer, file a sex discrimination lawsuit, use a condom, know the hanky codes and how to tippy-tap yer toes on the restroom floor...
Please ping your Scouting list
Thanx
How did everyone miss build a fire?
Or use a pocket knife? Throw a baseball / football? Ride a bike? Build & fly a kite? Build a sling-shot?
There’s lotsa stuff I did as a kid that my own son doesn’t do (let alone other kids).
Throw papers? Mow lawns for money? Fuggedaboudit!
You’re right. I just figured a person would have to know first how to get his firewood together.
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzMTMmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTcxODg3MDcmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3
http://tinyurl.com/2b5oqa
As a BSA leader this book is near and dear to my heart. I saw it on display a few weeks ago and wanted to buy it. I think that it should be a supplement to the BSA handbook.
This past year we hosted a foreign exchange student from Germany. The second day that he was with out family he joined our BSA troop. At first he wasn’t too sure about it, but after the first camp out he was hooked.
A few weeks after he returned home, I received an email from him informing me that he had worked as staff at a church camp. The staff were required to put up their own tents. He was the only one that really knew how to put up a tent. By the end of the week his tent was the only one that made it through two major downpours. He asked that I thank all of the troop leaders for teaching him the outdoor skills that he learned while he was here.
Great article! Our families are lucky, and have always lived on farms, and our son and his cousin learned many of these things from an early age. They’re also successful hunters. The most difficult thing for young ones to learn is to be quiet and still. This they did when waiting to shoot the squirrels that knawed on tap lines. Patience is a virtue.
That's right. Consider; who bought that kid the Gameboy or X360? The kids can't afford them. Mom and Dad bought them. I'd no more buy one of those things for my kids (and didn't!) than I'd buy them a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of whiskey.
In Troop 69 of Burr Ridge, Illinois we take our Scouts rock-climbing and rapelling at Devils Lake in Wisconsin. We take them rafting and canoeing. We go biking (when enough of the kids have bikes with gears and such so you can do something besides ride down the block on them). We go to summer camp. But the helicopter parents say "Oh, rafting's too dangerous" "Oh, a week at summer camp is too much for my son to be away from home". And they get horrified when I tell them "No cell phones. If he gets hurt, we'll call you."
Own, sharpen and use a knife. Sharpen and use an axe. Use a hammer, saw, wrench, screwdriver, hammer and drill. Tie a square knot, two-half hitches, a clove hitch, and a bowline. Row a boat. Paddle a canoe, and get in and out of both without tipping them over. Swim 100 yards. Float for a minute. Take a dump in the woods without crapping up your body or your clothes.
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