My visit to Houston's Scout Troop 55 has “torched up a fire inside of me” to quote Mike Scott of The Waterboys. I love America – literally. I am unwilling to consider seriously her foibles and shortcomings; her drawbacks and weaknesses I will overlook. Her greatness, her advantages, I shall praise to the skies. Were I free to do so I would come to live and work in the USA and in time seek to become a citizen. But (also a Mike Scott line from the same song - "When ye go away"): I am spoken for anyway.
This has been brought to the surface by my visit to Troop 55, wherein I saw at first hand the fundamental cultural differences between the USA and the UK. And that difference is this: In the USA the healthy individual accepts complete responsibility for his or her own welfare and destiny, whereas in the UK, we are all too willing to implicitly and often explicitly cede responsibility for our welfare, our lives, even our destiny, to others – to the State.
The whole concept of “youth work” as we do it in the UK is that we are imparting knowledge, passing on wisdom, inherently patronising young people, working – to use French – de haut en bas – from high to low. What we ought to be doing is facilitating the Scouts own growth by allowing them room to take charge themselves. This creates MUCH more work, as Troop 55’s handbook readily admits, and is quite upsetting, as it flies in the face of almost everything we do as Scouters.
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