Merit Badges

When I was a Scout, Tenderfoot Scouts could not earn merit badges. Second Class Scouts could, but with restrictions. At camp, no more than two. Scoutmasters steered younger Scouts away from badges they weren’t ready for and told them to put advancement to First Class as their priority. By the time a Scout was seriously pursuing merit badges, he was First Class, typically around 13, with months of outdoor competence, patrol participation, and skill development behind him. He was ready.

Those filters have been removed. The consequences are cascading through the program.

TOO YOUNG, TOO FAST

The BSA now allows Scouts to join at 10 under some circumstances. The New Scout Patrol speeds advancement through First Class in months rather than years. Combined, these changes produce 10- and 11-year-olds who take merit badges that were designed for Scouts significantly older with several years of experience behind them.

A merit badge counselor teaching a class at summer camp once faced a room of 13- and 14-year-olds who had spent two or three years in the program. Today, that same counselor may face a room that includes 10-year-olds who have been Scouts for four months. The badge requirements haven’t changed. The Scouts sitting in front of him have. Likewise, a Counselor teaching an entire troop as a class, which is common now but uncommon before these changes, has lots of 11-year-olds in his class.

THE COUNSELOR’S IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE

The merit badge counselor now faces a situation that has no good outcome. Teach to the level the badge was designed for, and the youngest Scouts can’t pass. Teach to the level the youngest can handle, and the badge is gutted for everyone. Most counselors split the difference — they lower the standard enough to get everyone through and call attendance completion.

This isn’t the counselor’s fault. He’s been handed a room full of Scouts at three different developmental levels and told to teach a single badge to all of them. The system created the problem. The counselor absorbs the cost.

The result: the badge becomes a participation trophy. The Scout who attended receives the same recognition as the Scout who mastered the material. The blue card doesn’t distinguish between the two.

THE CLASS SIZE PROBLEM

Because Scouts start taking them earlier, Merit badge classes at camp, in a troop meeting, or at a district opportunity have grown large. When dozens of Scouts sit in a single class, only a handful do the talking. The rest listen. Or don’t. The youngest Scouts, already struggling with material designed for older minds, disappear into the back of the room. For them, merit badge class is indistinguishable from school. Except at school, the teacher grades their work individually.

In a class of thirty, the counselor cannot detect whether each Scout is actually participating. He sees a sea of faces. A few are engaged. Some are trying. Others are simply present. When the class ends, the pressure to pass everyone who attended is enormous — from the Scouts who sat through it, from the parents who paid for camp, and from the Scoutmasters who expected their Scouts to come home with blue cards.

The counselor who holds the line and fails a Scout for non-participation faces complaints. The counselor who passes everyone faces nothing. The incentive structure rewards the wrong behavior from everyone involved.

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

Many merit badges include requirements that begin with “research”: find information, gather facts, investigate a topic. When these requirements were written, “research” meant going to a library, reading a book, asking an expert, or observing in the field. It required initiative, time, and effort.

Today, “research” means looking it up on a phone. For a 14-year-old with a smartphone, this is trivially easy, which already weakens the requirement. For a 10-year-old without a phone (many don’t have one) it’s impossible without adult assistance. The counselor either provides the answer, lets an older Scout share his screen, or waives the requirement in practice while signing it off on paper.

In none of these scenarios did the Scout actually research anything.

I have tried the “older Scout shares his screen with the younger Scout” approach. It works great if the older Scout is a good instructor. Otherwise, it is just the younger Scout glancing at an uninteresting screen.

THE INTELLECTUAL GAP

Beyond the research problem, many merit badges require a level of abstract thinking, written communication, or analytical reasoning that develops with age. A 13-year-old can discuss the ethical dimensions of citizenship. A 10-year-old is still learning what ethics means. A 14-year-old can analyze the environmental impact of land management decisions. An 11-year-old is still learning what “environmental impact” means.

This isn’t a criticism of younger Scouts. They’re not deficient. They’re young. The developmental gap between 10 and 14 is enormous. Larger than the gap between 14 and 18. Merit badges were designed for the older end of that range. Pushing the younger end into them doesn’t accelerate development. It produces the appearance of achievement without the substance.

As a merit badge counselor at Camp La-No-Che, I see this firsthand. When a discussion requires tying ideas together, drawing inferences, or connecting concepts across domains, the youngest Scouts cannot participate at all. They sit silently. Or if urged, shows their lack of understanding of what is being discussed. The material is beyond their developmental reach. They aren’t learning. They’re waiting for the class to end.

“In Scouting, a boy is encouraged to educate himself instead of being instructed.” — Baden-Powell

A Scout who is too young to educate himself in a subject isn’t being educated. He’s being processed.

WHAT THE FILTERS PROVIDED

The old restrictions — no badges for Tenderfoot, limited badges for Second Class, Scoutmasters guiding choices — were not arbitrary gatekeeping. They were developmental sequencing designed into the program.

First, they ensured readiness. A Scout who had reached First Class had demonstrated months of outdoor competence, patrol participation, and skill development. He had the foundation to handle specialized study.

Second, they protected the merit badge’s value. When younger Scouts were limited, the counselor could assume a baseline of maturity and experience in most of his class. He could teach to the badge’s intended level without compromise.

Third, they created anticipation. Merit badges were something you looked forward to, something you earned the right to pursue fully. That anticipation itself was motivating. When they’re available from the start, they become routine rather than aspirational.

Fourth, they kept younger Scouts focused where they belonged: in their patrol, learning Scout skills, building the foundation. They weren’t sitting in a classroom working on Citizenship in the Nation. They were learning to start fires and read maps and cook for their patrol. The age-appropriate work came first.

Fifth, the Scoutmaster’s role as guide mattered. He knew his Scouts. He knew which ones were ready for which badges. He steered them toward appropriate challenges and away from frustration. That individual guidance is impossible when the system treats every Scout as interchangeable regardless of age and experience.

THE CASCADE

Each change seemed reasonable in isolation. Lower the joining age: give more kids access to Scouting. Speed advancement; don’t make them wait. Remove the merit badge restrictions: don’t limit opportunity. But together they produce a cascade:

Younger Scouts join. They advance to First Class in months. They flood merit badge classes unprepared. Classes grow large. Individual participation becomes undetectable. Counselors face pressure from every direction to pass everyone who attends. Standards collapse. Badges become participation trophies. Eagles are built on hollow badges. The public assumes an Eagle Scout can do things he was never actually required to learn.

No single change caused this. But no single change can fix it, either. The solution is to restore the sequence: join, learn Scout skills in your patrol over time, reach First Class as a genuine milestone, then pursue merit badges with the readiness and guidance they require.

“We do not want to make Scout training too soft.” — Baden-Powell

For how speeded-up advancement to First Class destroyed the patrol method, see Race to First Class. For how weakened Eagle requirements hollow out the rank’s meaning, see Trail to Eagle.