Re: Dunk tank? HAZING? NEED ADVICE!
Posted by Pete on January 19, 2025 at 01:22:23
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in Reply to: Dunk tank? HAZING? NEED ADVICE! posted by SwimmerBen on January 17, 2025 at 01:45:49:
To start with, I don't have any knowledge of what the Boy Scout rules are here. I technically was a boy scout for a brief time when I was a kid, but it was a very disorganized effort. I doubt the official boy scouts organization had any knowledge of our informal group. In my adult life, I was surprised to the learn that the boy scouts oversee the "Exploring" program, which connects high school students with career shadowing in fire departments, police, health care, and other fields. But as I understand it, these Exploring programs have a completely separate set of rules and policies and have nothing to do with what 99% of people think of when they think of "boy scouts." I've had to do some training that covers the topic of hazing in order to work with our explorers. I don't recall it being anything that seems unreasonable, and I don't recall hearing anything that would prohibit us from running a dunk tank if they wanted to - but maybe the "normal" boy scouts have different rules that I don't know about.
I think I do see how there might be SOME aspect of hazing involved with a dunk tank. Part of why it can be fun to dunk the school teacher or principal, coach, police officer, etc is because it shifts the "power" away from them and onto whoever is trying to dunk them. Plus, it might be embarrassing/uncomfortable for them to fall into the cold water and get soaked. But that's maybe one ingredient of hazing - but its not the only one! I've always learned that an aspect of hazing involves an initiation - but that's not what was happening here. I also think for it to be considered hazing, the people being hazed need to feel forced, or at least pressured, into participating in the activity. But that's also not what you described here.
So, if I'm being VERY generous, I can see how this MAYBE falls into a gray area. But to me its pretty clearly NOT hazing, based on how you described it. So I'd be curious to hear your scout master's reasoning, if you're able to find out and willing to come back and share that with us.
One option, if you can't convince your scout master to let you do the dunk tank, would be to just go directly to whoever's in charge of the dunk tank and ask them if you and your friends could sign up just as individuals, and not as part of scouts. Maybe they'd need a permission slip from your parents or something if you're under 18 - but if they don't have a problem with it, you could just go around the boy scout rules if that's all the problem is.
- Re: Dunk tank? HAZING? NEED ADVICE! SwimmerBen 01:01:15 1/22/2025
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