Den Chiefs and Elephants

It wasn’t too long ago that scientists who study the way animals think thought African elephants were less intelligent than Asian elephants.

They devised an experiment to see if elephants were self-aware. They marked a spot on the elephants’ heads with paint. Some elephants they left alone. Others, they put in front of mirrors.
The Asian elephants who saw themselves in the mirrors almost always probed at the paint marks on their heads with their trunks and even after the mirrors were gone, they continued to poke at the part of their heads where the paint was, while those who did not see themselves in the mirror paid no attention to the paint.

Thus, they concluded, these Asian elephants knew it was their reflection in the mirrors and that the paint was on them, and that the elephants were self-aware.

Not so with the African elephants. Those who were shown the mirrors pretty much ignored the paint marks and smashed the mirrors with their tusks. Those without mirrors also did not pay attention to the paint.

Because the African elephants almost always smashed the mirrors, scientists concluded the African elephants saw their reflections as a threat, not as themselves. So they were deemed to be lower on the scale of intelligence than their Asian counterparts.

A few scientists thought there was something wrong with the experiment, and thought about it for a while. They spent time observing how both Asian and African elephants interacted with strange things – like mirrors – placed in their environment.

They noticed Asian elephants explored new things with their trunks, probing at them, feeling them, manipulating them, quite often with finesse and great care.

African elephants, on the other hand, used their tusks to probe at new objects. And when the objects were fragile, like mirrors, they got broken.

So these scientists did the test on self-awareness with mirrors the African elephants couldn’t break. And discovered that with the unbreakable mirrors, the African elephants became as curious about the paint marks on their foreheads as did their buddies in Asia.

Both types of elephants were equally self-aware, equally intelligent. It was the scientists who got it wrong.

There’s a German word I want us all to learn right now: Umwelt. In German, it means “an organism’s subjective perceptual world”. In other words, umwelt is how each living thing, whether an elephant, a mouse, or a human, sees the environment and its place in the environment.

By learning more about the African elephants’ umwelt, scientists discovered these elephants are just as intelligent as those in Asia.

How does this apply to Scouting?

Well, as adults, we have a pretty good handle – most of us – on how we fit into our environment. When we’re at a scout meeting, we know we’re pretty much the ones in charge. But sometimes doesn’t it feel like even though we’re in charge, the scouts have a different perception of the situation?

Their umwelt might be, “Here we go again. Another adult telling me what to do. But I’ve got enough buddies here, we outnumber this adult. Commence the shenanigans.”

How do we bridge that gap of perception?

One way is through having a den chief.

A den chief isn’t an adult. A den chief is a Boy Scout, preferably a good number of years older than the scouts in your den. Den chiefs, being younger than you, have a better perception of how people his age and near his age perceive the world, and how they fit into it.

A den chief has a better understanding of what it feels like to be young, because they’re young too. Adults, we kinda forget. And we get more goal-focused: “Get me through this den meeting and we’ll get everyone in the room passed off on this requirement but WHY ARE YOU HAVING A GRASS FIGHT WHEN WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE LEARNING ABOUT TOOLS?”

Den chiefs can help us bridge that gap. They can help us by helping our scouts use up some of that energy they come with. They can help us by showing the younger boys that learning a new skill can be as fun as having a grass fight. They can show our young Cub Scouts that there’s a Boy Scout who wants to hang out with them and help them learn and have fun with them, and when they see a good den chief in action, their umwelt changes a bit to “Den Chief Chris makes Cub Scouts more fun! And he helped me to learn how to use a hammer!” It’s an older scout helping a younger scout.

Having someone in your den who understands a bit better the umwelt of your Cubs can help you see that Cubs can be as intelligent and teachable and wonderful as an older Boy Scout. We need all the help we can get to understand how others work. Den chiefs can help you do that. Please get one. Or two. You’ll still have elephants capable of smashing mirrors in your den, but you’ll have a better perception on how they interact with the world around them.