2002-08-29 - 9:51 p.m.
DELICATE BALANCE
Handing off power is always a delicate thing. I believe in delegation but I crave control. It is within the tension between delegation and control that my Cadette Girl Scouts operate. Each of the past few years, we have tried a slightly different system for getting all the tasks done. I want the girls to lead but I also want my task to remain doable and the troop to remain viable. It�s a delicate balance.
In fourth grade, I matched up girls and, two at a time, they planned the meetings within a framework that I had set. They did something similar in fifth grade except that they had the freedom to dispense with the framework of two major activities and a game and they picked their own partners. Then, last year, I tried to work on the longer term planning skills. I had rotating planning councils. Each one met once and planned four or five meetings. The girls are so busy that I had trouble getting them together for the planning and they were at that stage in a girl�s life that I was doing as much refereeing as facilitating.
This year, we are trying something new. As a group, we will set a calendar for certain events such as service projects and field trips. We also will pick out one or two interest badges or pins to work on and assign them to certain meetings. I will assign half the troop to do the various scut work jobs such as attendance and phone chain for the first half of the year and the other half of the troop for the second half of the year. Not everyone will get a chance to do every job during the year. Most will only get to do one of the jobs. Welcome to the real world, girls!
Then, and only then, will people pick partners and meetings for planning. Each girl will get to plan two meetings but she will not get to work with the same partner each time. I�m sure there are some holes in my current plan because there always are but it will be interesting to see where I go wrong this time. (Actually, as a general rule, I must be going mainly right because I have one of the smallest attrition rates in the area as we�ve gone from first grade to our current seventh grade. I have one of the larger Cadette troops in the area and one of the few that is still viable in the middle school.)
And then will come the hard part. As happens every year, I will have to take a deep breath and let go. I will have to let girls fail in their planning from time-to-time because failing is a part of learning and growing. I will have to do it while keeping my own sanity and keeping feet on the ground. I will have to do it while sneaking in the occasional guidance activities that they seem to need�the discussions on friendships, the work on conflict resolution, and all the rest.
I�m sure that tightrope walking is not a sanctioned activity. I�m sure it isn�t in the girl scout safety bible Safetywise. But every good leader learns to do it anyway and just hope she doesn�t lose her balance�her delicate balance.
LAST YEAR: No Entry Due to Computer Trouble
LAST FIVE ENTRIES:
All Wet
Paradoxically
Those on the Ground Floor
Finding My Rhythm
My Mother, the Potential Terrorist
previous - next
|
Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
