What Do Girl Scout Leaders Think of the Daisy Program

 

One part of Girl Scouts that has changed a lot in the last 15 years is Daisies.  Originally it was a one year program focused on learning the Girl Scout Law.  The only "badges" were the petals and since it was often October or November before troops were up and running, they were really enough for the year.  

When my sixteen year old was in kindergarten, the current program started and Daisies became a two  year program.  The awards expanded to include the leaves and the three original Journeys (actually one was added per year for three years so my daughter could have only earned two).

A few years later GSUSA went though a couple of years of "girls' choice" badges and added Buddy Camper and Outdoor Art to the Daisy portfolio.  Then they substantially expanded badge choices at all levels focusing on STEM, and Daisies got even more badges, an Outdoor Journey and three STEM Journeys.  

I was curious what badges and Journeys Daisies work on, how they do them and what they think of them.  Since surveying Daisies is hard, I surveyed leaders who are members of various Facebook groups for Girl Scout leaders and at the time I started the post, I had 168 responses.  While I did not gather data about the leaders, in past experience with surveying members of these groups, I have found that those who reply tend to be older than the average Girl Scout leader and tend to have been leading longer than most.  Whether that is true of the respondents to this survey I do  not know.  

The Daisy Petals    

Every leader but one who responded said the troop worked on the Daisy Petals.  I really figured that if there was one place where leaders would follow the book and do what they were told, the Petals would be that place, since they are often troops' first activities.  On the other hand, in my opinion the petal stories leave a lot to be desired.  

85% thought the petals were a worthwhile program.  However, only about 16% followed the plans put out in the GGGS and/or VTK.  41% pretty much came  up with their own plans.  39% used different approaches with different petals. 

Daisy Journeys

About 73% of those who responded said their troops did at least one of the original three Journeys.  Of those who did, 87% said their girls enjoyed it.  However, as with the petals, few followed the VTK/GGGS plans--only about 17%.  Other published plans such as Girl Scouts River Valleys were common, at 14.3%, 13.6% did not do an original journey and 6.1% attended a program put on by someone else.  37.4 came up with their own plans.  

64% of those who responded did not do a "Think Like a..." Journey, but several commented that those Journeys were not part of the program when they had Daisies.  While 13% said their girls did not enjoy the original Journey they did, only 7% did not enjoy the "Think Like a..." Journey.  

Again the norm was to create your own plans (57%) as opposed to following the VTK plans (25%). 18% of those who did these Journeys did so via a program run by someone else.  

While the Take Action Project is baked into the original Journeys, with the Think Like a Journeys, girls are supposed to use skills developed during the Journey to conceive of and execute a Take Action Project.  I asked how the troop TAP was chosen and 5.7% said it was the girls' idea.  47% had the girls choose between leader-presented options and in 24% of cases, the leader picked the TAP. 

Comments About Journeys

These are some representative responses to an open-ended question, to say anything you want about Daisy Journeys:

• Need more moving media options, more crafts, less stories and talk. GS should create animated versions of stories.
• The stories and layout of the original journeys are not the best. As leader's we can adjust them to make them better and work for our scouts. The point is they learn what they need from them.
• Journeys at all levels are confusing, difficult to follow and lack the structure of steps to follow that the girls learn when they earn badges.
• The original ones take too long.
• I think Daisies would be better served learning about community service projects instead of journeys. I’m just not convinced they understand the concepts behind the journeys but especially not the TAPs.
• I think Daisies would be better served learning about community service projects instead of journeys. I’m just not convinced they understand the concepts behind the journeys but especially not the TAPs.
• The original are awful!
• Too time consuming and drawn out for 7 year olds. 14 hours for one journey? That’s absurd when we only meet 2 hours a month. TAP is also tough at this age.
• I often find I come up with better ideas than the suggested activities
• The stories are awful!
• I wish they incorporated more skill building. I hate the plans. It’s all too lengthy and laborious. I would prefer to teach a lot in a short time than a little in a long time.
• GSUSA provided plans are awful -- girls will not stay focused for 4-5 meetings on the same topic. River Valleys plans were much better -- 2 or 3 meetings for a journey with activities that the girls enjoyed.
• The newer journeys need better guidebooks and all the journeys need a better path to TAP. Many of my girls just don’t understand the point of the TAP or how to decide why they should be 
  moved to action. I think TAPs should start at 2nd grade (Brownies and up).
• Journeys in general are a ridiculous hot mess.
• Too convoluted and too many characters
• Journeys would be less daunting to leaders if there were more clear guidelines about what to do. I’ve been a leader for a long time and have no compunction about changing program when needed- but new leaders are often overwhelmed. The vagaries of the leader guide and lack of structure are frustrating to many.
• They need a lot of help. But ultimately it starts then on the right path for when they are older.
• Original Daisy Journeys - too hard, but the Think Like A....they are just right for difficulty.
• It really depends on the journey. I feel some of the new ones are too complex and need to be brought to their level developmentally the old ones are very basic/boring and need to be added to

Daisy Badges

Badges other than the petals and leaves are a relatively new addition to the Daisy program. You can follow the link and look at all the numbers, but I'm going to talk about a few of the results.

Most Popular Badge: 

The most popular Daisy badge, according to my survey, is Outdoor Art.  105 people said their troop did  it.  If memory serves me, that was one of the first Daisy badges.  It is also part of the Daisy Outdoor Journey.  Another 25 people said their troop planned to do it, and only 23 said they had not done it and did not plan to.  Of the people who did it, 90 thought it was well-done, 9 said "meh' and no one said it flopped. 

Second Most Popular Badge:

The second most popular badge is also one of the early ones--Good Neighbor.  76 people had done it, and 31 said they planned to do it.  While it was popular, it wasn't quit as loved. 50 said it was well done, 25 said "meh" and 2 said it was a flop.  Of the people who did it, 36 followed VTK/GGGS, 39 came up with their own plans and 7 attended events.  I skimmed through some of the individual responses trying to get an idea of whether the people who had been less than impressed with this badge followed GSUSA's plans or came up with their own, and I found it was mixed.  

Badges Done Via Programs

One question I asked is whether leaders used the GSUSA plans, came up with their own, or attended a program to earn the badge.  The programs most likely to have been done via program are the new automotive engineering badges, the Coding for Good badges, the Cybersecurity badges, the Robotics badges, and the Space Science badge.  The new Toy Business badge was also often earned via a program.  

Most Disappointing Badges

People were asked to rate the badges their troop had completed as good, meh, or a real flop.  Badges which showed up most often as "flops" were Cybersecurity Basics, Cybersecurity Investigator and Democracy (5 times each).

Badges which had a significant number of "meh" and/or "flop" scores compared to the total included the three above, and the other cybersecurity badges, Ecolearner, Good Neighbor, Coding Basics, Board Games and the Robotics badges.  

Most Highly Rated Badges

Badges which were generally rated as good, with few "meh" or "flop" votes were the Snow/Climbing Adventure and Trail Adventure badges introduced last year, Model Car, Roller Coaster, Outdoor Art, and Space Science.  I did not put any of this year's new badges in this category because few people had done them.  

Most Likely to Have Been Done GSUSA's Way

GSUSA provides word-for-word scripts for many badges via VTK.  Nevertheless, many leaders choose not to follow them, or to use the activities in the GGGS.  Rather, they develop their own plans to meet the overall purpose and objectives listed on Badge Explorer.  Badges for which most leaders said they followed the VTK/GGGS instructions were the Coding for Good series and the Cybersecurity series. Those were the only badges for which following the GSUSA plan was more popular than making your own plan.

Most Likely to Have Been Done the Leader's Way

For many badges only a few more leaders chose to create their own plans rather than using GSUSA's, but over twice as many people created their own plan for Buddy Camper than used GSUSA's.  Last year's Adventure badges were also likely to have been done the leader's way.  Democracy, Ecolearner, Space Explorer and Outdoor Art also got a lot of leader-written plans.  

About the Leaves

Because the leaves have been out much longer than the badges, and because they seem to complete the flower, I think leaders were more apt to have done them.  Therefore I looked at them independently of the other badges.  Close 150 respondents worked on each leaf, or planned to do so.  About 40% of people rated them as "meh" or "flop". Leaders were slightly more likely to create their own plans as opposed to using GSUSA's.  

Comments About Badges

Here are some representative responses to the open-ended question about Daisy badges

• Petal stories need to be updated. They did not interest my girls at all.
• The badges are as involved, hands on and as fun as you make them. I always recommend checking vtk, pinterest and even googling the badge to see ideas if stumped. Then piece together and adapt ideas. The badges are a guideline list of what they want you to cover. You can make a badge harder or easier, or more successful.
• Too much stem and not enough variety of topics for the age level. Need more art, animals, etc.
• If you only have a year, there's nearly no way to do petals, badges, and journeys with the current requirements.
• There isn’t much variety. I don’t mind the STEM ones.
• I wish there were more badges that aligned with the brownie/junior badges (multi level troop) instead of doing these cool painting/pottery/jewelry making badges for the older girls then just trying to fit in a petal or fun patch to go with the activities.
• They need more crafty kinds of badges. Many of them seem to involve a lot of talking points or guest speakers, but that’s only so interesting for K-1.
• There is really nothing related to traditional skills like sewing, cooking etc for their level
• It seems like gs light, I’m glad to see that they are adding badges. It’s rough finding engaging activities at that age, topped with a relatively weak program...i would see it as a hard sell for girls to continue if a leader wasn’t creative
• I liked them because I had a chance to step into being a leader with some ease. I also used a ton of outside help: police officer, bee keeper, pediatrician, assisted living facility etc. I think it would be hard to do these activities online
• I feel like so much isn't covered by daisy badges that I'm constantly looking for fun patches.
• The girls were pretty bored with reading a story for each petal so we started adding movements for key words or having girls act the story out, like Charades.
• To many stem, not enough outdoor skill building or things like sewing. The GS suggested activities are not very good for many different reasons. I always come up with my own activities.
• Some of the sponsored badges are ridiculous. Would love more outdoor badges and basic skills badges (a knot tying badge for shoe tying, maybe?)
• Some badges want an understanding that is waaaay above a daisies developmental capabilities (this is coming from a physician and mother who is trained/knows these things). This is mainly the newer badges that came out this year. The older badges are very simple and I often add activities to them for more fun.
• Many of the badge requirements overlap or are straight up the same. It limits the scope on what girls can do in a year while still earning official badges. My girls end up earning a bunch of “fun” patches because there aren’t official GS badges for things they’re actually interested in. Not every girl wants STEM shoved in their faces. Some want to learn SKILLS and still earn.
• I feel some of the Daisy materials were written by people who have never worked with the age group. For example “write a letter to your future self”... most of my Daisies barely have mastered writing their name (!) They may or may not get the concept of “future self” and composing even a basic letter is beyond their skill set.

Conclusion

Despite GSUSA's love affair with coding, cybersecurity and STEM in general, the most popular badges, both in terms of those done and those which the leaders believe the girls enjoyed tended to deal with traditional scouting activities like camping, outdoor adventure or art.  Despite the effort GSUSA has put into providing word-for-word scripts, leaders aren't using them, either because they find them wanting or because they don't want to go to the trouble of dealing with VTK.  The question I have (and which will become the subject of another survey and blog post one day) is what are people doing instead of following the written plans?  How different are your choices from GSUSA's?  

If you want a more complete look at the survey results, you can find them here.