Last night was Scout night. It was pretty interesting, to say the least. It just amazes me. I think every youth leader hopes to have something impact the lives of a young person in a positive way. Try as we may, it never seems to work out if you plan it. But sometimes accidents occur and you make a difference. Or at least you hope you do.
I had planned to talk to the Scouts about the upcoming summer camp scheduled for later this year. The leaders’ guide has just been released so I wanted to get them filled in with all the information that they needed to have a good camp. So, of course, no one listened and I spent most of the night effectively talking to the wall while the boys goofed around.
I did notice that one of the boys in particular was poking fun at one of the leaders sitting in the back. The leader seemed to be pretty good natured about it and shrugged it off, but it kind of stuck in my craw. I guess that I am a bit sensitive to the whole concept of making fun of someone since it was something that happened so much to me, so I got a whim and launched into a discussion about teasing and making fun.
Don’t get me wrong; I am as apt to tease someone as anyone else in the world. In fact, that is one of my specialties. And maybe I wasn’t as good at recognizing the difference between teasing and making fun when I was younger, but being on the side of the ‘being made fun of’ more often than not, I am quite sensitive now to it.
We got into how making fun of someone was hurtful and how some of those things can really damage people. I told them that any time you poke fun at someone because of a physical quality it was making fun and was hurtful. Even if the person could shrug it off, there was somewhere deep down where that person would feel like there was something wrong with them that they couldn’t change because it was who they were.
I told them that I got made fun of because I had red hair. Their response really kind of floored me, though. They said they thought red hair was really cool and they were envious of anyone who had red hair. Boy, times sure change! My generation was brutal to me because of my red hair. This generation thinks it’s cool! Or, at least this group of kids did. But I digress.
There was one kid who was definitely not taking any of this serious. He kept cracking ‘yo momma’ jokes. I told him that some people would be inclined to do serious bodily harm to someone if they cracked jokes about their mothers. Even that seemed to not penetrate his lack of seriousness.
I started to tell them the story of the Columbine kids that shot their high school up because they were bullied. I told them that it wasn’t one person and it wasn’t one incident. But it was accumulated over years that built up to the point where those two boys were so angry, they bombed their school and shot and killed 13 of their schoolmates, and then themselves. I was trying to get them serious and all this kid could ask was if it was shotguns or pistols (surely that’s beside the point, isn’t it?).
One of the other leaders came in late and added his input to the conversation. He had lived not far from Columbine High School prior to that incident and knew a good portion of the people affected by that terrible day. He told what an impact it had on their lives and what a different place that area is now. I thought it was good input.
Then, just as we were about to finish up, this kid that wasn’t serious rattled some word or phrase off in Spanish and this leader just perked right up. He asked the kid if he knew what that phrase meant. Of course, the kid had no idea. The leader seemed a bit agitated and told him that what he had just said in Spanish was one of the most vile and despicable things a person could say and that in some parts of the world (like Central America where he had served his mission), if you said something like what that kid had said, would likely get you shot right on the spot.
The leader’s tone was pretty strong and although I don’t think he was really angry with the kid, he was definitely offended by what the kid had said in Spanish. I tell you, that kid was suddenly very serious. I asked him if he knew what the word meant or had any idea it was so offensive and he said, basically, that he didn’t know. I told him that was the point I was trying to make that you have to be careful what you say and respect people’s feelings or you could seriously hurt them or create a situation that may not turn out very good.
When we finished up, I looked around the room at 6 boys that had their eyes opened up a little bit. I asked them if they had learned something that night, and most of them emphatically shook their heads, “Yes”. Hopefully it was positive and wakes them up to the reality that what we say can hurt people. Of course, they were trying hard to get the leader to tell them what the word meant, but he wouldn’t say (of course). I can’t blame him. If it was that offensive, I don’t want to know, and those boys shouldn’t know either.
On another unrelated incident (other than it was Scout related), I recently started up a website where I could post information about the troop with a calendar and a forum/billboard format to keep parents and Scouts informed on the internet. I started it up around the first of the year. Well, after about 6 weeks, the spammers found it.
The registration protocol for the website was such that bots cannot register and post their spam. I know there are bots out there that look to do that so these guys don’t have to personally go in and register to post their garbage, but my site isn’t like that. It has one of those random generated images you have to type the number in for and make them match or it won’t let you register. Long story short, someone had to personally go in and register their account.
They posted their garbage on the billboard where I had put information about the winter camp. Now, you tell me. Isn’t there something fundamentally wrong with someone posting advertisements about Viagra and Cialice on a website dedicated to Scouts? These people are sick.
I deleted their posts and removed their usernames. I also made it so I had to approve of any new registered users before they can post anything, so the garbage stopped and I got rid of what was there. Still.
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