Articulate the Issue

"Don’t dance around problems -- articulate the issues as precisely as possible."
--Victor Lipman, writing at Forbes

This is incredibly difficult for many adults, and most of our Gold Award girls!  I think that for some girls, especially the 9th graders, critical thinking is not perceived as an everyday need.  So, maybe they haven't had much practice exercising that part of their brain. Or perhaps they've been spoon-fed information for such a long time, that the girl just waits for someone to give her the answer, instead of doing the work  herself, to research and synthesize and come up with an answer.

We need to let the girl figure it out!  We are there to encourage, support, provide resources and be a sounding board for the Gold Award girls, NOT the solver of their dilemmas!  And this takes time!  Using the GSLE model, we should be turning over the girl experience to the girl, in age appropriate ways. So that by the time she's a Senior/Ambassador, she is leading her own GS experience.

Think of what valuable skills she's learning over her GS time.  How to dig deep, how to suss out the problem and then figure out how to solve it.  And it starts small:  designing a menu for an overnight.  Then planning a Day Camp.  Going on a destination. Completing a Silver Award Take Action project.  


Then, when she's ready to start her Gold Award, she has the tools, the skills, to articulate the issue and understand the root cause so that she can Take Action in a meaningful way.  I encourage all of us to support the girl in her efforts. They will make us proud!