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In this tutorial I will share how it is encouraged to customize the Girl Scout program to fit your troop's needs.
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Almost everything is a process. Understanding a process will give you the confidence and security to carry out that process. Once understood then you can start tweaking the process to fit your needs.
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The process we are talking about here is the Girl Scout program. The Journeys were designed as a process. Once familiarized with them, they are intended to be fully customizable, flexible, and tailored to meet a group's interest. They should be supplemented with other activities such as badges, field trips, events and the fall and cookie product programs. For suggested activities to add to your troop's expereince be sure to view the tutorial "Suggestions on Incorporating Badges, Trips and other Girl Scout Traditions into your Journey activities".
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Journeys provide the Discover, Connect, and Take Action component of the Girl Scout Leadership Experience in a well-rounded manner. They are the framework for developing leadership skills in girls.
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Badges focus on a single topic and build hands-on skills that can be used to enhance the Leadership Journey.
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All these components go together just like peanut butter and jelly!
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Even the simple task of making a PB & J sandwich can be thought of as a process. Take two pieces of bread. Choose your favorite PB. Choose your favorite jelly. Put PB on the knife. Spread it on the side of one piece of bread. Scoop up the jelly with the knife. Spread it on the other piece of bread. Put the first piece of bread on top of the second piece of bread. Use the knife to cut it in half. There you have your PB & J sandwich.
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Now let's go into a little more detail with this process. Are all PB & J sandwiches the same? Would your sandwich be exactly the same as mine? Probably not. More than likely there would be slight differences that would make each of our sandwiches unique and our own. So let's go through this process again.
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Choose your favorite type of bread. Is it white, whole wheat, multi grain, rye, sourdough or something else?
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Next choose your favorite PB. Crunchy, smooth, natural?
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Now choose your jelly. Strawberry, grape, cherry, raspberry and so on...
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Now put your sandwich together. What happens if it is put together in the wrong order? How is the sandwich affected? What if the PB was on the outside? It might get a little messy, right? It is no accident that the name of this tutorial is PB & J. PB stands for proficiency badges and J stands for Journeys. It's a metaphor about how you can integrate them together to make a satisfying meal. We can compare the metaphor of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich to a troop experience integrating badge work and Journeys together.
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So how are proficiency badges like peanut butter? Peanut butter can be smooth or crunchy. It adds texture and interest to the sandwich just as the proficiency badges add a new dimension to the Girl Scout experience.
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And how are Journeys like jelly or jam? Jelly comes in a wide range of flavors and adds the sweetness of fruit. For example, one sandwich might use grape jelly while another might use pinapple. Just like the Journeys may be customized and take girls on a 360 degree exploration of a topic they might not think about otherwise.
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How can you relate the bread to what you do with your troop? What does the bread do for the sandwich? It holds it together. What holds a troop together? You might say "the leaders", but do they really? Isn't it the FUN? If the experience isn't fun the girls won't come back next year. The bread serves the function of holding it altogether. Bread is the FUN. And like jelly, bread comes in a wide variety of choices. A sandwich might be made with sourdough or wheat bread. It could be made from pumpernickel or rye.
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These are your Girl-Led activities such as field trips, events, sleep-overs, campouts and so on, that are planned and carried out by the girls. The girls will plan the fun! The activities should be linked back to what you are doing with the proficiency badges and Journeys.
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The most important thing to remember when working with PB & J is to keep it fun. Use the interactive Journey maps on the GSUSA website for suggestions to link badge work, field trip opportunities, product programs and other Girl Scout traditions to what you are doing in the Journey.
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Now there are still a few more things that are needed to make a delicious PB & J sandwich. What about the knife? A common criticism that is sometimes made about the Journeys is that they are too much like school and the girls don't like them. Here is where the knife comes in. The knife is your delivery tool. It puts the PB and the J on the bread. A heavy hand with too much pressure can tear the bread apart. Even doing dishes, taking out the trash and cleaning their rooms can be made fun for girls if it is posed with a light hearted attitude, they get to do it with their friends, they understand why they are doing it, and there is something they look forward to at the end.
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Now for the plate. The plate is the foundation upon which everything rests. It helps to keep the sandwich in a focused place and prevents the environment around it from getting messy and dirty. The plate is "you, the leader", with the knowledge of what's appealing to your girls, how girls behave at a specific grade level, the understanding of how the process of building leadership in girls works, better known as the GSLE, and your confidence to use these tools to guide the girls to a satisfying meal they make their own by customizing their activities.
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Now for the plate. The plate is the foundation upon which everything rests. It helps to keep the sandwich in a focused place and prevents the environment around it from getting messy and dirty. The plate is "you, the leader", with the knowledge of what's appealing to your girls, how girls behave at a specific grade level, the understanding of how the process of building leadership in girls works, better known as the GSLE, and your confidence to use these tools to guide the girls to a satisfying meal they make their own by custominzing their activities.
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What happens if any of these components are missing or not in the right order? Your sandwich won't be the best it can be.
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Now remembering the process of making a PB & J sandwich and relating it to the Girl Scout program be sure to include both the Girl Scout proficiency badges and Journeys. Then customize the activities to include the Girl-Led "fun" component for an overall satisfying experience for the girls.
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Remember to check out the video tutorial Suggestions on Incorporating Badges, Trips and other Girl Scout traditions into your Journey Activities or view the interactive Journey maps yourself on the GSUSA website, www.girlscouts.org. Also learn how to link your Girl-Led activities to the Journeys and badges in the next tutorial.