Twenty Thousand Youth and Fifty Years

A vision in the mind of one man fifty years ago has led thousands of youth and adults to pursue a dream: that the skills of leadership can be defined and taught. So it might be a good time to reflect and ask, does the program work?

Evaluating Real Results

Since 1958, with programs currently in two locations, White Stag has put on 63 summer camps for an estimated 20,000 youth. Today, the children of participants from the 1960s and 1970s are taking part in the program.

As a non-profit, not held to the gun of showing a return for shareholders or adding to the bottom line, we are often satisfied to evaluate the success of our efforts in anecdotal terms. We see the enthusiastic response of the participants to the program, we witness their cheers and songs, we watch faces light up in recognition of new-found knowledge, and we even see youth apply their learning in new situations during camp. But does the program work?

Does the Program Work?

Our summer camp programs cost more than the typical summer camp. We advise all participants, "This isn't a fun-time camp." We give participants challenges and precious few direct answers. They go to bed well after dark, usually get up at dawn, and rarely get a break. They get intensive learning sessions two or three times a day. And every year, units repeatedly send youth to the programs' summer camps every year. We must be doing something right.

Yet the real measure of our success is whether the participants actually retain anything taught and are able to take it home and apply it. How do we know that we know?

How Do We Know That We Know?

The best measure of our success is writing effective, measurable objectives. Only in this way can we define our success.

Writing meaningful, clear, concise goals and objectives is one of the most important activities we assume as managers-of-learning. If we cannot clearly state the outcomes desired, we must ask ourselves if we really understand the subject well enough for us to teach it to others.

Suppose you want to assess whether the participants have learned how to plan, so you give them a challenge to build a bridge. Your objective: "The candidates will use the five step planning process to build a foot bridge." They use all the steps of planning, and at the end of the day, you find that every lashing is tied correctly, but the bridge doesn't reach the other side of the river. Did they learn how to plan? By your objective, they were successful.

Writing Effective, Measurable Objectives >>