Badges, Bug Bites, and Becoming

It is midday. The sun is high in the sky, with a few clouds floating around pretending to offer shade. A few drops of sweat roll from your forehead into your eyes, and without much thought, you wipe them away. That is until the sunscreen melts into your eyeballs and starts to sting and make them water madly.

Somewhere along the way, summer camp seems to have become less about camp and more about collecting badges, as if they were trading cards or something to brag about. And that is a little sad.

Not because merit badges are bad. They are not. A good merit badge class can open a door. It can introduce a Scout to a skill, a hobby, a career, or a subject they never would have explored otherwise.

But summer camp is supposed to be more than a week-long badge factory. It is not another "school".

You are sitting in your fourth, or maybe eighth, merit badge class of the day. This one is in Scoutcraft area for Pioneering. There is a rope in your hands, a knot in your brain, and some guy up front is tying things with a flick of his wrist like he was raised by magical squirrels. You try to explain you have the dexterity of a buffalo, but he pays no attention.

It is a full week away from home. It is green eggs and ham for breakfast, or pancakes that may actually be flour-based Frisbees. It is crispy dry hamburgers, mysterious bug bites, damp socks, and that one Scout who somehow loses their flashlight before the first night even arrives.

It is the hike to the top of the mountain to watch the sun rise. It is the cold splash of a polar bear swim before your brain has fully agreed to be awake. It is flag ceremonies twice a day, camp-wide games, fire drills, buddy checks, silly skits, songs, stories, and the deep personal embarrassment of being asked to act like the camp jester during the campfire program.

That is camp. Messy, awkward, tiring, funny, sweaty, and somehow wonderful.

So why are so many Scouts and parents racing through summer camp trying to chase every badge under the sun? Why are we treating camp like a checklist, and Eagle like a finish line to cross before a Scout’s voice even cracks? For each and everyone of the answer is different, but its worth a few moments of ponder.

Merit badges should be trail markers, not the trail itself. They can point a Scout toward something interesting. They can give structure to learning. But the badge is not the purpose, adventure, or for most the fun that from scouting.

The real growth often happens between the classes. It happens when a patrol figures out how to get somewhere on time. It happens when a homesick Scout makes it through the week. It happens when someone shares sunscreen, teaches a younger Scout a knot, laughs at a bad skit, or realizes they can survive being uncomfortable for a little while.

That stuff does not always fit neatly on a blue card. But it just might actually matter more.