My Christmas Survey: A Closer Look

I'm old as dirt and my upbringing reflects that. Though I attended public schools after the Supreme Court ruled against school prayer, the unspoken rule was to see what you could get away with. My elementary school had a Nativity pageant with traditional Christmas carols. One teacher asked if we had been to church or Sunday School for Easter. A daily devotional was blasted over the intercom when I was in junior high. There was clearly an expectation that "everyone" was Christian, or at least should be. Of course, even in those days, not everyone was.

Christmas: An Outsider's View

 I recently ran a survey of members of a bunch of Facebook groups for Girl Scout leaders about what was appropriate to do during the holiday season.  You can read about the survey results here.

One question I asked was "For those who are non-Christian or who do not celebrate Christmas is there anything you wish you could tell the rest of us about the holiday season and your children?"  This post is a compilation of the responses to that question.  I know it is long but I really thought the best way to share these people's thoughts was to show them in a fashion only edited for clarity, spelling etc., so grab your favorite drink, put up your feet and scroll away. Each paragraph below is the response of a different person.  

Holiday Celebrations with Diverse Troops

I will do my best to be...considerate and caring...to respect myself and others...and be a sister to every Girl Scout.  We begin all our Girl Scout meetings with these words, but do we live up to them?  

I am writing this the Sunday before Thanksgiving and a few days ago I was perusing my Facebook feed which includes quite a few Girl Scout leader Facebook groups and the topic of holiday parties came up.  I don't remember what I read, but I know the thought crossed my mind "Would the non-Christian she is talking about see it that way?" What I read wasn't someone saying "We are a Christian troop, you can choose to belong or not", or "everyone is declaring war on Christmas".  Rather it was someone who sounded like she wanted to be open and inclusive who said something that struck me as not quite right.

Brownie Create and Innovate

This year GSUSA came out with three new "maker" badges for Daisies, Brownies and Juniors.  This post takes a look at the VTK plans for the Brownie version of Create and Innovate to give you an idea of where this badge is going without having to dig through the whole  VTK plan.  As with the other badges in this series, the talking points are as important as the craft. 

Junior Math In Nature Survey Results

 This is the last in a series of posts looking at the Math in Nature badges as well as what people believe is necessary to earn them.  I surveyed members of some Facebook groups for Girl Scout leaders to acquire the data presented and I make no representations about the data other than stating how I got it.  I have three other posts in this series:

• General information and conclusions
• Daisy Math in Nature badges
• Brownie Math in Nature badges

Junior Shapes in Nature 

Symmetry is the main topic for Juniors.  "Identify Symmetry in Nature" deals with lines of symmetry. "Explore Bilateral Symmetry in Nature" is about Bilateral Symmetry. "Create Nature Inspired Art with Circular Symmetry" is, yes, about circular symmetry.  "Find Fractals in Nature" is about defining and identifying fractals, and "Search for the Fibonacci Sequence" is about recognizing it in nature.  

Brownie Math In Nature: Survey Results

This is the third of four posts about the results of my survey of members of various Facebook groups for Girl Scout leaders on the subject of the Math in Nature badges released by GSUSA a couple of years ago.  The first post talked about the people who responded and about the badges in general.  The second post focused on the Daisy badge.  I plan to write about the Junior badges but haven't gotten there yet. 

Survey Results: Daisy Math in Nature Badges

This post is the result of a survey I did of members of a bunch of Girl Scout leader Facebook groups.  I wanted to look at two things: 

1. The Math in Nature badges--did people like them, and how did they do them
2. Related to that, what did people think was required to earn them.

I think (at least hope) that all of us would agree that looking outside for round things and then counting them is not enough to earn these badges.  I doubt there are many, if any, people who would say that you have to read the VTK scripts to the girls and do activities exactly as planned there.  However there is a wide gap between these two, and I wondered what most people thought was actually required to earn a badge.  

You can read the survey from which this post was derived here, but obviously there is no point in responding at this time.