How Does It Work ?

As young people have a natural desire for action, challenge and adventure, Scouting channels their energy and provides them with a rich learning environment which encourages them to explore, experiment, discover and thus to develop. Learning by doing stimulates an active  approach to life, encourages young people to be actively involved in everything that affects them, helps them to discover all of their capacities and make constructive use of them, to take charge of their lives, and be actors, not spectators, in their community. The motor which drives the educational experiences is the activities that the young people take part in.
 

In other words, it is the combination of experiencing a code of living, the difficulties and rewards of responsibility, the joys and tribulations in the relationships that develop with peers and supportive adults, setting and striving to reach personal and collective goals, etc., all woven into progressively challenging activities that they find stimulating and useful that contributes to holistic and balanced development. As the young people develop through a vast range of experiences, opportunities for new and richer experiences come within reach.

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What Is It Intended To ?

Learning by doing is a way of helping young people to develop in all dimensions through extracting what is personally significant from everything that they experience.

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What Is It ?

Learning by doing means developing as a result of first-hand experience – which, after all, is a very effective teacher!

Learning by doing:

• Reflects Scouting’s active approach to education. In other words, young people are helped to develop through opportunities for concrete, “hands-on” experience as opposed to passively listening to a lecture or watching a demonstration.
• Applies to the way in which young people gain knowledge, skills and attitudes in each of the areas of development and thus progress towards their educational objectives. Learning by doing is thus not limited to “doing” in the sense of learning practical or manual skills. For example, young people learn the meaning of responsibility through taking on responsibility. 
• Reflects Scouting’s practical approach to education based on learning through the opportunities for experiences that arise in the course of pursuing one’s interests and dealing with everyday life. In other words, Scouts do not gain knowledge, skills and attitudes in an abstract context, divorced from reality. In Scouting, young people would not learn to sew for  the sake of knowing how to sew, but because, or example, they want to put on a play and want to make their own costumes. Or, for example, Scouts would not learn to manage conflict simply through a specifically-designed activity, but through the natural process of sorting out whatever disagreements arise in the group (in a manner which is consistent with the Scout law!).

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What Are Some Of The Implications For Programme Implementation ?

The way of explaining the promise to the young people requires attention. They need to understand the implications of making a promise – that they are giving their word and that they are giving their word to do their personal best. It should therefore be presented as an important act, but not something that they need to feel apprehensive about. Another factor to be borne in mind concerns when a young person should make the Scout promise. Evidently, he or she will need to have had time to become familiar with the Scout law and its practical application in the group (i.e. that he or she will be expected to make an effort to develop and to adhere to the group’s code of living), and to decide whether or not he or she wishes to formally join Scouting. From a young person’s perspective, making the Scout promise is not simply about whether the code of living seems reasonable or not. Doing so is also a decision to continue to take part in activities with the young people that he or she has come to know. 

External factors apart (schoolwork, other interests, etc.), whether a young person decides to make the promise or not will therefore also depend on how interesting the activities seem and, especially, on the extent to which the young person feels integrated in the group. On the whole adolescents are likely to want more time than pre-adolescents to make up their minds. At the same time, from an educational perspective, a balance needs to be struck between giving the young person time to make up his or her mind, and the need for the real educational process to start. Until a young person makes the Scout promise, he or she is more or less a visitor to Scouting and cannot experience the richness of what Scouting can offer. In addition, the prolonged presence of “visitors” (i.e. those who simply turn up occasionally for activities) is disruptive for the young people who are committed to Scouting, to the group’s projects and life together.

Making the promise is a personal act of commitment. The adult leader’s task, therefore, is to encourage the young person, but not to force him or her before he or she is ready to do so, nor to withhold the right to make the promise, nor to ignore the matter altogether. A simple way of encouraging the young people would be to propose several dates over a period of several months. The adult leader needs to consider how to make the moment of making the promise a significant one for the young person – a small ceremony at the end of a camp, for example. 

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What Are Some Of The Implications For Programme Delivery ?

Preparing adult leaders in this respect involves emphasising the educational function of the Scout promise. A key aspect in this respect concerns the concept, and implications, of “doing one’s best”. As this concept is closely linked to personal progression, it is discussed in further detail in the chapter on this aspect of the Scout Method.

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What Are Some Of The Implications For Programme Development ?

The young people make the Scout promise upon entering each new age section. The fact of doing so is a symbolic commitment to embark on a new phase in the voyage of development and to share the way of life inherent in the Scout law with a new group of people. The wording of the promise and law therefore needs to reflect the progression in the maturity of the young people from one age section to the next. For the law and promise to fulfill their educational functions, the young people that the Scout association addresses need to have developed the capacities to understand and to agree to do their best to adhere to a code of living. In other words there is a minimum level of maturity below which a child is unable to voluntarily agree with a code of living if the child is unable to think beyond his or her own immediate needs and desires and does not yet distinguish him or herself from other people with their own needs and desires. By the same token, the kind of social interaction required for teamwork cannot take place either – and thus the Scout Method cannot function. 

The minimum level of maturity required for the Scout law and promise (and, indeed, for the entire Method to function as a whole) is an essential point to bear in mind when a Scout association is considering the minimum age at which a young person may join the Movement.

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What Is Promise Intended To ?

Through the promise, the young person accepts Scouting’s invitation to develop by making a voluntary decision to accept the Scout law and to assume the responsibility of that decision through personal effort. Making the promise is the first symbolic step in the process of self-education. Making the promise does not imply that the young person must have proved to be a “perfect” Scout. It is a starting point, not the finishing line. The fact of promising to “do one’s best” refers to making a personal effort to the extent of the young person’s capacity. From an educational perspective, the effort is as important as the achievement of the objective. The effort is a personal one, and progress can only be evaluated in terms of how the young person was
before.

By making the promise in front of peers, the young person makes his or her commitment public. This not only makes the personal commitment “official”, it also symbolises a social commitment to the others in the group. By their presence, the others in the group show that they accept him or her as a member.

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What Is Promise ?

The Scout promise is a pledge that every young person makes before a group of peers when he or she chooses to join the Movement. By making the Scout promise, the young person acknowledges that he or she is familiar with the Scout law and makes a personal commitment to do his or her best to live according to this code of living.

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What Are Some Of The Implications For Programme Implementation ?

While its function as an educational tool may seem quite complex, it is not difficult to apply in everyday life with a group of young people. The Scout law is deliberately phrased in simple, everyday terms, often referring to qualities, so that each young person can easily understand what is meant and can do his or her best to reflect these in everyday life. As the Scout law is a personal code of living and a collective one, it needs to be the foundation on which the Scout unit is structured and operates if the young people are to be helped to discover for themselves the values on which it is based. Concretely, the Scout law translates into the rules of the group: the rights and duties of each member, the sharing of responsibilities, decision-making processes, conflict management, and so on. Young people should be involved as much as possible, and in ways appropriate to their level of development, in establishing the rules of the group. For one thing, this helps them to deepen their understanding of the Scout law and, for another, young people have much less difficulty in accepting, even enforcing, rules that they have contributed to establishing. Evidently, the adult leader needs to ensure that rules concerning safety measures, etc., are included.

The Scout law provides an excellent evaluation tool, both in terms of bringing out the connections between the degree to which the code of living was adhered to and what went well or badly with activities, camps, projects, group life, etc., and what could be improved; and in terms of a personal evaluation of the extent to which each young person feels he or she has made progress in reflecting the qualities. When a young person breaks a rule, he or she should be encouraged to reflect on whatever consequences it may have caused. The purpose is not to make the young person feel terrible, but to understand and, if possible, to remedy the situation.

The code of living applies to both adults and young people. The code of living is not a set of rules which apply only to young people because “they have got to respect rules”. The code of living reflects basic ethical principles or values which Scouting believes are valid in life in general. If the adults do not reflect the code of living, why should the young people?

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What Are Some Of The Implications For Programme Delivery ?

Preparing adults for their work with young people at local level should involve opportunities for them to explore the values underlying the Scout law and how this code of living translates into their everyday work with the young people. This would include examining the kinds of relationships to be promoted, the implications of the Scout law on the way in which the group should function, etc. For example, any practice that could be potentially humiliating would not be consistent with respecting the dignity of others.     

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