There are two good options for this, NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) and Outward Bound. I went on an Outward Bound expedition where we kayaked for several days on Lake Superior, and I have a number of friends involved with NOLS. NOLS and Outward Bound are similar; they both teach outdoor skills in a group setting. Outward Bound has a little more emphasis on group dynamics, but they're both great programs and they offer a wide variety of courses in beautiful locations.
NOLS: http://www.nols.edu/
Outward Bound: http://www.outwardbound.org/
The Boy Scouts of America currently can't be supported by me no matter their merits because of their stances on gays and the non-religious.
I also don't support sex segregation in scouting.
Keep the BSofA for the people who want that sort of thing but let's support inclusive scouting organizations as well.
I am an Eagle scout who was openly an atheist while going through the program. A lot of this depends on your local leadership; the national organization stays out of it.
The program is a great program as noted above, for all its flaws. If you have a child interested, you can have a huge effect on the local program simply by becoming involved.
I would probably feel out the group first if you intend to do this, it wasn't a pleasant experience at the time.
Sorry but joining an organization that is openly exclusive to you and your values then trying to change it to be inclusive to you and change their core values seems very wrong. Having your child being an unwelcome outsider during your personal crusade. why not join, create, and support alternative scouting organizations that welcome you and your values?
But I do seem to meet a large number of young adults that could benefit from a similar experience to Scouting, in terms of learning valuable life skills, building self-confidence, and as a way of broadening their experience outside of urban life.
Lord Baden-Powell as he was or a hypothetical version of him with modern morality applied?
"No man is much good unless he believes in God and obeys His laws. So every Scout should have a religion....Religion seems a very simple thing: First: Love and Serve God. Second: Love and serve your neighbour." - from Scouting for Boys. And, generally, he seemed to consider that pretty important.
I'm not making any argument about what the Boy Scouts should or shouldn't do, but rather responding to the statement that Lord Baden-Powell would be disappointed by it or parts of it rejecting atheists, which is clearly false.
Things like
>Selecting a campsite, leaving no trace when you leave, water purification and management, building and containing campfires, land navigation with a map and compass, how to safely use a rifle, knife use and maintenance, first aid... I learned all of these as a kid.
I suppose.
Sorry, this goes against my core beliefs and I couldn't perosnally support or send a child to such an organization no matter what their other merits may be.
http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/11/02/beginning-next-y...
I was a boy scout in the Bay Area and we had openly gay scouts and almost all of the kids and parents were atheist.
From my link above:
>What’s new is that beginning Jan. 1, 2016, every rank from Tenderfoot to Eagle Scout (plus Eagle Scout palms) will include a “duty to God” requirement
I'm not aware of any perfect scouting-like groups nor of any imperfect ones that, all things included, would be better for my own boys than the scouting group across the street.
I don't have to take umbrage at everything that has some relationship to something I don't agree with. I guess there is more that one kind of "inclusiveness".
Hopefully this isn't too political, but I will try and answer your question.
Part of self-reliance is the ability to make your environment safe. This is why you learn first-aid, CPR, how to use a fire extinguisher, how to properly use a knife, etc.
In the United States, there are more firearms then people. This trend shows no signs of stopping any time in the near future.
Statistically speaking, in a group that focuses on outdoor activities and self-reliance, there will be multiple gun owners. Some will probably have concealed weapons permits.
Taking a gun into the wilderness is a sensible precaution. There are any number of dangerous critters, especially the ones with rabies.
While in the backcountry, you will also run into other people that are armed.
Our hypothetical non-gun-person is therefore going to be around guns.
Guns are dangerous.
Not knowing how to safely handle a gun makes non-gun people potentially dangerous to both themselves, and other people.
The responsible thing is therefore to learn how to safely handle a weapon, including how to unload and clear it.
They don't need to ever buy one, own one, or even like guns.
But knowing gun safety is right up there with knowing CPR.
You don't learn CPR by reading a book. You do it by practicing in a controlled environment.
Same for gun safety.
It just seems so much easier to just avoid wildlife in most places.
I've hiked in probably 30 of the 50 states, and have met a very small number of people openly carrying guns of any sort (maybe some had concealed pistols for defense against people; that's a reasonably common thing, and there's a permit for concealed carry in most states).
There is a non-trivial portion of the population
that feels encryption only exists to hide illegal
activity. How would you convince them to use a VPN?So, playing Devil's Advocate, here is what an anti-encryption person would say in response:
Nobody really needs encryption, and the common availability of military-grade encryption powers terrorism on a global scale.
Terrorist groups use encryption to organize and coordinate attacks, such as the mass shooting in Paris that claimed 137 lives, with an additional 400 injuries.
If this technology could be countered by intelligence agencies and law enforcement, it would become almost impossible to use the Internet to coordinate terror attacks, or to secretly support terror groups.
Thousands of innocent lives could be saved if we just limited encryption to low-strength variants, which are still strong enough to safeguard emails and documents from nosy coworkers.
And really, what legitimate use is there for strong encryption? If the government wants your salsa recipe, they are just going to throw you in prison until you tell them. Your online payments will still be secure if the government holds a master key. The only reason you would need strong encryption without government oversight is if you have something dangerous to hide.
This is not true, and you should not allow someone to get away with statements like these. The Paris attackers made extensive use of unencrypted burner phones. Far from supporting it, this actually deals a fatal blow to the idea that terrorists could be stopped, if it weren't for that pesky encryption. They demonstrably can't.
I'm frightened that, as a meme, "paris attacks demonstrate the need to weaken encryption" actually got off the ground. It demonstrates the power of government propaganda is sufficient to completely invert the lessons of an event to suit them.
As a non-american scout my experience includes all the same things, except the shooting.
Correct. Hunting rifles are typically much more powerful and lethal than handguns and "assault style" AR-15 and AR-derivative rifles.
They shoot farther and with more velocity, they use larger (sometimes much larger) projectiles and are much more accurate.
We want to have certain things, and once you have accumulated the resources to get them, you can purchase them.
But I'll note that part of the reason the gun debate is so poisonous is advocates that are unwilling to draw a distinction between the use of guns against animals and the use of guns against humans - regarding any distinction between different types of guns or contexts of ownership as heretical.
"There is a non-trivial portion of the population that feels rifles only exist to kill other people."
I find it odd that you say people think rifles only exist to kill people. Pistols are used in the vast majority of shootings, and rifles in the vast majority of sport uses.
For what it's worth, there is also a non-trivial portion of the population that feels that confidence with weapons is an integral part of the American individualist spirit.
You are asking how do we convince people who refuse to use guns how to learn how to use guns safely...
Maybe you could just let them not use guns?
In our local area we have several drownings a year, tourists who don't understand the power of the ocean. That and people falling off cliffs. Our education system (UK) is very out of touch with nature. Very few students get to swim in the ocean, climb a cliff, light a fire or camp out in the woods.
The UK isn't big but I don't think you can generalise here because my experience is very different. Scout groups seem very popular (so popular it's really difficult to get your kid a place in one), schools offer the optional Duke of Edinburgh award which teaches camping/orienteering and is pretty popular, and in the UK a hell of a lot of people live pretty close to the ocean and know how to use it safely (surfing is very popular in Ireland and south cost of England/Welsh coast). When I was younger my friends and I would go camping a few times a year as did many other groups of friends (the reason was mostly so we could get drunk without getting caught but still we hiked 12 hours to get there, figured out how to cook, get water, build a fire, pitch tents etc.).
On the other hand I've been pretty shocked this Summer that every sunny weekend it seems half a dozen people get killed in the ocean here. I'm only in my mid-20's but maybe the education system has been lacking in recent years to cause this? Or is it maybe that kids don't play outdoors very much anymore so don't have an easy way to learn and practice the skills? In the 90's video games were just hitting/becoming affordable so we could build huts in fields, play football everyday, ride bikes, play on building sites, camp several times a year. Looking at younger family members they don't do any of these things. Maybe it's not education but lack of practice. Schools can teach you how to swim but if you never actually go to the ocean or a pool after learning you're going to be out of practice when you go and try to swim in the ocean in the summer.
Don't forget the Cadet organizations too e.g. https://armycadets.com
This is one of the reasons that I am glad I was a Scout and spent a lot of time in the backcountry.
I grew up thinking that this is how everybody grows up, but having lived in several major world cities, it has never ceased to amaze me how few city-folk know any fundamental outdoor skills.
Selecting a campsite, leaving no trace when you leave, water purification and management, building and containing campfires, land navigation with a map and compass, how to safely use a rifle, knife use and maintenance, first aid... I learned all of these as a kid.
Spending that time "roughing it" really helps you appreciate the benefits of both preserving nature, as well as the wonders of modern civilization. It also builds some serious self-reliance skills, which have served me well in life.
Maybe we need a program similar to Scouting, but for adults that have lived all of their lives in or around cities? Would help to bridge the urban-rural divide in both directions. Does such a thing exist?