Silver on the Horizon: An Interview With a Troop Leader

 I recently spoke to Sarah about her troop's experience with the Bronze Award and published this post about it.   We also talked about how the girls in her troop grew through their experience with the Bronze award.

This post is taken from the same  conversation. As with my other interview posts, I spoke to Sarah and recorded the conversation.  I then formatted the post as a Q & A, using her words for the answers, but composing the questions while writing the post.  

Q.  What does your council require for the Silver Award?

A.  For Silver, of course, first we finish a Journey. Then the council has a very fun, very active info session. They did small groups where they actually started brainstorming and got live feedback right there.  They heard that this idea would be a good one or this one isn't--that as you are describing it, it is  community service right now. But then immediately that would be coupled with "What could we do to keep this thing you care about and move it to a take action project?" 

There was candy and  jokes.  It was very well run, very active. Besides the live version we attended, the council also offers an online version for girls who can't attend the live session.   

Next, the girls have to do a proposal, and proposals are reviewed by council.  You have to have an approved proposal before you start your hours, other than the two hours you get for the info session.    Most of the Girl Scouts left the info session with an idea.  

Q:  Tell me about the Proposal.  Is this a written proposal or do they have to go in and talk to somebody? 

A:  There's a form and it just asks them list out their thinking about what they want to do.  It has things like 

• What is the problem? 
• What community partners will you work with?
• What are you proposing?
• What materials would you need to create? 

So you don't submit it until you have a pretty developed plan.  They want to know who is going to be in your team--how many girls, how many family members, or how many community partners?  They want to know what you expect to spend money on as well as your timeline for completion.  They said they added that one because girls would have a plan for something to do with the school and then get it approved in April, with school ending in May.  Are they going to be able to finish if  nobody's in school until September?  The form  nudges them to think that through with each section of the the proposal.  It is a fillable pdf and pretty easy for the girls to navigate. 

Q.  If I'm filling out that form, do you think I could complete it and end up with a service project rather than a Take Action Project?  One thing you hear a lot is people saying, "I can do a really bang-up service project that is really useful to somebody,  but it's not good enough." or "My daughter had this really great idea, but they rejected at saying it was a service project. "  If my idea hypothetically is to pick up trash in the park, -- we've all all seen the paper that says picking up trash is a service project-- but if that is my idea, if I start filling out the form, am I going to realize  before I get done with the form that picking up trash in the park, even if I do it for 40 hours isn't enough? 

A.  I really don't think you could end up with a service project after completing the form.  It makes you put down things like "When you are done actively working on this project, who will need to be involved to carry it over?"  and it gives a couple of examples. So if you create a curriculum to teach about robots, as an example,  who would need to agree to keep this curriculum here.  Don't just make the lesson plan that no one knows about or wants to teach.  If you are creating something like building a buddy bench or a library or a pollinator garden, you have to state an underlying need,  and tell how the project meets that need.  

Basically our Bronze project was started as the girls wanting to clean up the place where they  go hiking. And and as they learned more about how the trash got there, the project grew.  We did end up having an event where a lot of trash was picked up, but it wasn't only that.  

 

So I think  in this council people don't get just told flat out "That's the service project don't do that. " Instead of no, they are told "That's a great idea, AND  how can we learn one more thing. how can we go one step deeper to make this even more effective, because you started with such a great idea, let's just go a little deeper."

Q.  Were any of your girls ideas rejected or told to go back and think again?

A.  No, but to be fair, we're at the stage where they are, like they're drafting the proposal.  The questions on the the form have been really helpful to them because the girls get really deep in one section and then their brain skips over other parts.  For example,  my daughter wants to do something for sensory-friendly lunch at school.  She knows which principles she wants to do and she has these models of things that have worked in other schools that she wants to propose.  She needs to know how many teachers they would need staff it and what kind of space, and she not thought at all about that.

She had to think about how she was going to present it to the school, whether she was going to have a script or  make a PowerPoint, or write a letter.  She needed to know who to talk to about the subject but she hadn't thought about how she would share the material.   So the form was really good about making her pause and slow down and say "Oops, I would have skipped that and showed up without it at the meeting"  So I think they'll be fine because the form really breaks it down, small enough that I can't imagine if you actually fill it out , that you haven't thought of everything you need for a successful project. 

You can ask me again in a month after they submitted and get their feedback.

Do you spend your meetings working on the Silver Award?  

A.  The girls all voted to do Bronze and use troop time for it.  When I asked about Silver, they weren't so enthusiastic.  The girls are all in different schools now,  now they see each other so infrequently. Half of them were saying they were in sports and would not have that much extra time, and they did not want all their Girl Scout time to be that.  They stay voted and decided that the eight (of fourteen) girls who are doing Silver, would have separate additional meetings for that. They're putting in this extra time but it was because they really value their troop time as friendship time because it's the only time they see each other.  They didn't want their meetings to be all business and I totally respect that. So, we'll see if I can keep them all, you know? I don't know that I'll be able to keep them all into high school,  but if I do, I think even less of them would want to do the Gold Award, for the same reasons--they want different things, but that's fine.   

Q. What are they doing for their Silver Award Projects?   

A. We've got one group that is honing in on some animal things. They're finding their partners right now. They they want to work with a wolf conservancy group and bring awareness about animals that seem scary but aren't.  For example, they have heard that wolves have an important place in culling deer. I don't totally understand the culling part because I don't think people let  wolves hunt deer, so I'm going to have to help them think that one through.  

Q.  Where are you?

A:   We're in Columbus, Ohio, so we're in a city but it's a city surrounded by a lot of rural areas.  We have access to a lot of really great rural places and there's some really cool wildlife conservancy within driving distance.  We met a wolf conservancy and they take care of injured wolves and do a lot of advocacy. Two of our girls, I think, are going to follow that, at least that's what they're writing for their  proposal now.

Q.  Are all the girls working on the same thing?

A.  No.  Two girls are very excited to get into some gender bias in the school dress codes.  One of them is at a uniform school and the only option for bottoms is khakis, so the middle school girls are spending a lot of time worrying about menstrual leaking.  The boys of course are not being distracted with that and my girls don't think that's fair. They believe it is taking away from the girls' learning so they want to change the dress code,  educate about adolescent menstrual needs and do some kind of a free pantry supply setup at that school.   They want to change the school dress code, but also want to make menstrual products easier and less shamefully available at school. So that's where they're going.

Q.  I've always wondered why most of the high schools here use plaid skirts for girls (or in public schools at least have the option to wear plaid skirts).  Thinking about it that way, it makes sense. 

And then I have some girls that are thinking about mental health at the elementary school.  They found that because lunch is so loud that kids with neurodivergency and sensory overload have a hard time being in that really loud chaotic thing. And so they have proposals that they want to work with the principal and the library and in the guidance counselor to create a sensory friendly lunch program that would continue there. 

A.  That could be a real lesson in competing priorities--some kids need that time to let off steam. I wish them the best with it.  

Thanks so much to Sarah for sharing her troop's progress from Bronze into Silver with us.  If you'd like to share your girls' projects with us, drop me an email at ruthjoec at aol.com, or message me on Facebook or leave a comment here about how I can reach you.  I'd love to interview you too.