- Guscon
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- Exalted Mythic Member
This is not a thing in the UK, but I'd quite like it to be.
That said, I'm talking about the random chance that someone will come to your door to sell you saccharin food products, rather than the idea of getting Girl Scouts to go around selling -blam!- to strangers.
Looking through the website I can't say I disagree with most of the goals they advertise. Getting young people to be confident when talking to people, giving them money management skills, building confidence, building good relationship ethics, etc. These all seem worthwhile.
Business ethics, however, seem to be somewhat apart from the skills a Girl Scout should be taught, in my opinion. In my mind Scouting (whether for boys or girls) is more about camping, survival, leadership, community work and the like.
Now it may well be that the idea of 'business management' is a wholly worthy skill for a child to learn, or at least get to grips with at a young age, and than I've just become a traditionalist with regards to Scouting (or perhaps Scouting in the US is just different to Scouting in the UK), but it seems awfully specific and... well 'tailored' is perhaps the best word that I can come up with, for a child to learn. In my mind Scouting is about giving a child a wide base of skills that can be useful in many different situations, skills that can apply to many problems. Upon encountering a problem, whether large or small, a Scout should have the skills and experience to bring some measure of educated solution to the fore. Knowing how to build a shelter in an open forest, knowing how to start a fire, knowing what should go into a first aid kit, these seem like more 'Scouting' traits to me.
I could well be wrong. It may well be that business acumen is as (and perhaps even more) important for a youth to know than it is for them to know how to tie a bowline, or how to dress a wound.
I have to ask (as a non-resident of the US) do the Boy Scouts (or whatever the 'male' version of the 'Girl Scouts' is) have a similar business confidence scheme going on? It may simply have not crossed the Atlantic, but I've never heard of Boy Scouts going door to door selling cookies.