Every so often a topic that makes the rounds on Girl Scout Facebook groups is our higher awards--the Gold, Silver and Bronze awards--and how they compare, at least prestige-wise to BSA's Eagle. One thing I've noted over the years both by observation of my parish's troop and by on-line conversations, is that a reasonably high percent of boys (now youth) who stick with BSA through high school seem to earn the Eagle, whereas it seems that few girls earn Gold.Today I got my council's Annual Report, and I decided to do some math. For the record, I'm a word person, not a numbers person. I have made a lot of assumptions in my figures and the post will tell you what those assumptions are, but I'll tell you right now I know they aren't super accurate. They are easy, and I think get me close to where I want to be without needing to borrow my daughter's graphing calculator.
Girl Scouts Louisiana East had 10,281 girl members during the covered year. Of those 24% were Juniors, 12% were Cadettes, 3% were Seniors and 2% were Ambassadors.
Juniors is a two year program. If you assume that EVERY Junior earns the Bronze and that there are equal numbers of 4th graders and 5th graders, then 1,233 Bronze Awards should have been earned. (.24x10,281 girls/2 years of Juniors). Instead, 159 were earned. 159 is 12 % of 1,233, so roughly 12% of our Juniors earn Bronze.
Cadettes is a three year program. If you assume that every Cadette earns the Silver Award and that there are equal numbers of girls in each grade (and I know that's not true--here we have a big drop off in 8th grade when the girls go to high school--yes, here Catholic high school starts in 8th grade) we should have about 411 Silver awards per year. Instead, we had 46, which is 11%.
Girls have four years during which they can earn the Gold Award. 5% of our girls qualify age-wise, or about 514 girls, so if 100% earn Gold, we should award 128 per year. Instead, we had 14 Gold Award Girl Scouts this year, so about 10% of eligible girls earn the Girl Scout Gold Award.
I had no idea what these numbers were going to be when I started computing, but what surprised me is how consistent they are--12%, 11% and 10%. Of course that begs the question--is that where we want those numbers? Also, why aren't they higher? Do girls not want to work on higher awards, or do leaders not want to lead them, or both, or ???
I sort of agree for some troops. We have always promoted Girl Led so it does not always fall into the parents/leaders. I am a leader and a mother of a Cadette that has received her Bronze and will Silver once the virus restrictions are lifted. My daughter ended up doing her Bronze alone (without troop) and probably would have earned her Silver already if it was not for it being a troop activity. The girls have to be motivated to do it and it is not all on parents/leaders. We should be the taxi, nothing more. She should want to do the awards on her own. And then Gold is girl only so I say teach them early with B and S that they need to be the driving force to get it done. I will support my daughter and the girls in my troop but I won't do the work for them.
ReplyDeleteI sort of agree for some troops. We have always promoted Girl Led so it does not always fall into the parents/leaders. I am a leader and a mother of a Cadette that has received her Bronze and will Silver once the virus restrictions are lifted. My daughter ended up doing her Bronze alone (without troop) and probably would have earned her Silver already if it was not for it being a troop activity. The girls have to be motivated to do it and it is not all on parents/leaders. We should be the taxi, nothing more. She should want to do the awards on her own. And then Gold is girl only so I say teach them early with B and S that they need to be the driving force to get it done. I will support my daughter and the girls in my troop but I won't do the work for them.
ReplyDelete