Does scouting really matter now?

November 24, 2018 Educator's Corner Opinion

“A week of camp life is worth six months of theoretical teaching in the meeting room”
– Robert Baden-Powell
Scouts singing in chorus, flags with symbolic picture of an animal placed in a banner and raised in a pole, tents constructed in strategic locations are exciting scenes of scouting.
Scouting is one of the most exciting extra-curricular activities every pupil would like to join and be part of as a club. It is an opportunity where one experiences physical activities and encounters real people. There are always sufficient ways by which social, communication and artistic skills are brought out in scouting. Mental activities in scouting fill the so called gap in individual learning by promoting peer, group or cooperative teaching. Scouts will learn how to live up in their own ways like adults as if they live in their own home. They learn how to produce fire, fetch water, cook their own meals, produce handicrafts and clean the surroundings hence, positive discipline is acquired. This is what scouting means in the old days.
Today, learners spend so much in the classroom sitting down, listening to the lectures and writing in notebooks. Physical activities are diminishing. Sometimes teachers may even refrain from giving activities for fear that students acquire injury. Avoiding unnecessary conflicts with parents is the motto, especially that laws and jurisprudence is replete with an overflowing protection to the rights of learners. The right of teachers imposing positive discipline by physical contact has no place in the educational system. Moreover, kids and even adults when scouting month arrives are glued to television shows, cell phones, and internet activities.
So is there a way by which scouting will be promoted? One way to advance the benefits of scouting is a well-informed parent. Therefore, forums and seminars and even parents’ participation regarding scouting must be supported. By: ALICE B. MASIDONG, Irisan Elementary School