Order of the Arrow: then and now

It was a week of recognition for my grandsons, Paul and Miles.

Paul got the spotlight. He both graduated from high school with honors and was awarded his Eagle Scout Badge by the Boy Scouts. He is a conscientious, hardworking, fine young man of whom I am extremely proud. His parents threw a lovely open house for him on Sunday afternoon, the room decorated with memorabilia from Paul's first 18 years and a slideshow of memorable faces the kid has made over the years.

But younger brother Miles also was recognized this weekend. He was inducted into the Boy Scouts*' Order of the Arrow. From the official Boy Scout website:

For over 100 years, the Order of the Arrow (OA) has recognized Scouts and Scouters who best exemplify the Scout Oath and Law in their daily lives.  This recognition provides encouragement for others to live these ideals as well.  Arrowmen are known for maintaining camping traditions and spirit, promoting year-round and long term resident camping, and providing cheerful service to others.  OA service, activities, adventures, and training for youth and adults are models of quality leadership development and programming that enrich and help to extend Scouting to America's youth. 

Although only in 7th grade, Miles was recognized by his troop for his leadership and, I like to think, his cheerfulness. In a weekend initiation at a Boy Scout camp near his home, he was expected to maintain a vow of silence and do a service project.

While never achieving the rank of Eagle (only Life), this grandfather was also a member of the Order of the Arrow. In the mid-late 1960s, the award was given during a week-long Boy Scout Camp that was held at a now defunct camp near West Okoboji, Iowa.

On the Thursday of the camp, all Scouts gathered in a large circle around 3 huge bonfires late in the evening. Ceremonies included past OA scouts dressed as Native Americans (wearing war paint, of course) and dancing with garter snakes in their mouths, drums thundering in the night. But at one point, these same scouts began running inside the circle with flaming torches. Once each round, these frightening figures would face an inward facing scout, and with a scream and forceful shove, push the unknowing boy into the arms of other scouts behind him. This is how we learned we had been inducted into the OA.

We were then drug to our tent to gather our sleeping bag and led blindfolded to a remote wooded part of the camp. There we were expected to spend the night alone and find our way back to the dining hall the next morning. On getting back to camp, our breakfast consisted of a raw egg. We did not have the option not to eat it.

During the day, we too were to maintain a vow of silence. We were also to carve an arrow from a shaft of wood which would then later hang in the dining hall along with past years' OA arrows**. If we talked during the day, we had to carve a notch in our arrow and if we cut ourselves, we were to adorn the arrow with a drop of blood. (No, I am not making this up.) I don't remember anything else of the ordeal.

I did not see Miles induction into the Order of the Arrow. I only got to pick him up at camp early Sunday morning. In the past 50 years, I expect the ceremonies have become more culturally sensitive (or maybe not given the images on the camp totem pole) and a good deal safer. Having qualified to be an adult scout leader***, I know the Boy Scouts take the safety of the young men and women in the troops very seriously.

But I sense from both boys' involvement in Scouts that it is still a great deal of both fun along with useful learning and experience. It was for grandpa, anyway.

My paltry collection of merit badges from the late 1960s.

* I like to refer to the Boy Scouts as my favorite para-military youth organization.

** I had heard the arrows from the Okoboji camp were sent to a camp in Nebraska when it closed. I have no idea if this is true or not.

*** I've been lucky enough to accompany the grandsons on a number of Scouting camp outs and trips, including a High Adventure outing to the Boundary Waters in 2015. Planning to do Philmont with Miles in 2020.

The travel phone

I have an old iPhone I keep in a drawer at home just to use when I travel abroad. As soon as I get to a international destination, I head to the nearest cell phone store and purchase a new SIM card and a pre-paid data plan - usually about 5 gig. Total bill is around $20-$30 and the data lasts for at least a couple weeks.

I only realized on this last trip to Europe just how dependent I've become on this old device.

Its primary uses are for navigation and photography (which needs no explanation.) I do feel totally dependent on GoogleMaps whether walking, driving, or even taking mass transit. (A librarian in Tokyo taught me how to use GMaps to use the city's complex metro system.) I love how GMaps will predict walking time and has the directional indicator that shows which way you are facing. For me, one of the most confusing parts of a subway is figuring out exactly where you are when you come up on to the streets. When I do a lot of driving, I have a commercial app called CoPilot that I like because the maps are downloaded and one can still navigate without having a cellular data connection. 

Other apps on which I depend when traveling include:

• Speak and Translate -  real time lanuage translation 
• Spanish Anywhere - Spanish dictionary
• Fly Delta - boarding passes, updates of flights
• GlobalConvert - currency conversion, but also does metric length, weight, temperature
• Mobile Pass - easy go through immigration returning to US
• Uber - works around the world. Taxi drivers are corrupt in many places.
• HostelWorld, TripAdvisor, Kayak - on the fly booking for rooms, tours
• AllTrails - maps of hiking trails
• Bed Time Fan - creates white noise to help one sleep
• Facetime, Skype, GoogleVoice - calling home
• Compass - when you really just need to know what direction is actually north
• DropBox - storing and accessing pdfs of reservation confirmations, copy of passport, and other travel docs

I explained to a friend recently that one of the reasons I like to travel is I consider it a test of my aging brain. Can I still figure out how to get from A to B? Can I make myself understood when neither of us speak a common tongue? Can I still a book a room, rent a car, or sign up for a tour? He observed that travel asks us to use different parts of our brains than out daily life, and suggested that is perhaps why it feels like an effective test. I like that.

I've long wondered whether our devices are enhancements or replacements for our thinking processes. When the affordable pocket calculator came out in the mid-70s, I liked to think that I could use my mental processing power to solve problems rather than to remember multiplication tables. Does the GPS allow me now to learn more about where I am going rather than worry about how I get there? As language translation apps become more powerful and realtime, will I now be able to craft more effective communications with my host country friends? 

Or maybe, just maybe, my phone being smart helps compensate for me not being quite so smart myself.

Other posts on the same topic:

http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2007/2/14/travelling-with-sacagawea.html

http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2011/3/30/iphone4-as-a-travel-tool-esp-camera.html

http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2012/12/24/the-smartphone-as-a-travel-tool-redux.html

BFTP: Big C and little c creativity

Csikszentmihalyi differentiates between big-C creativity and little-c creativity. The big-C creative person is eminent, a person whose work is well known by people in a particular field. The little-c creative person is not. Big-C creativity leads to the transformation of a domain. Little-c creativity is used in everyday life, as in problem solving. Jane Plirto Duke TIP

Why do so many teachers think that creativity belongs only in the art room? Why do so many parents simply write creativity off as frosting on the high brow cultural cake? Why do so many of us feel intimidated when asked if we ourselves are "creative"?

It's because we don't differentiate between Big C and small c creativity. 

Psychology professor and popular author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi divides creativity into two types: big and little1. Big C creativity is that which most of us think of when we think of creative people: those who break the norms of art like Picasso, Presley, or Tharp. Those innovative scientists like Galileo, Edison, or Einstein. Those who invent new technology models like Ford, Bezos, and Jobs. It's those folks who influence what Csikszentmihalyi calls an entire "domain."

But Csikszentmihalyi also recognizes the small c of creativity - the everyday, often personal, problem-solving all of us do. We are all of us small c creative when we find that we're missing an ingredient in a recipe and need to substitute. When two of our children need to be at different places at the same time. When the lesson we planned can't be taught because the Internet is down. When we need to write something romantic in the Valentine's Day card to our sweetie.

We improvise.

We monitor and adjust.

We MacGyver.

I think of this as "duct tape ingenuity."

As much as I admire the Spielbergs, the Warhols, and the Beethovens of this world, I appreciate the really good small c creative people with whom I work everyday even more. The problem-solvers. The initiators. The teachers who do something a little crazy hoping the crazy thing may just capture the attention of some kids who weren't paying attention before. The tech who devises an ingenious work-around. The librarian whose library policies treat library users as people.

We need to honor small c creativity in our schools and classrooms - and we should be demanding our students demonstrate small c creativity instead of relying on adults to routinely provide the solutions - to personal issues, of course (I forgot my iPad at home) but to classroom issues as well.

Shouldn't we be asking our students for solutions for these sorts of problems?

• We have only 20 books for 26 kids in the classroom.
• When school dismisses early on snow days, some kids' parents can't come to get them until regular dismissal time.
• Jerry and Tom are always arguing.
• Alisha is getting cyberbullied.
• The chapter on the civil rights movement in the textbook is boring.
• The librarian only lets kids check out two books at a time.
• The wireless network is slow.
• Our newest student doesn't speak English as her native language.

Teachers should recognize that not all forms of creativity are demonstrated through big projects with formal assessments for a grade. Thinking of creative solutions to a problem is a habit of mind, a disposition, a personality trait - an integral part of personal responsibility.

That only gets stronger with practice.

 1. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. Harper, 1997. 

Original post 2/13/14