“Scouting” an extra curricular activity for character building

September 17, 2019 Educator's Corner

Filipino teenagers are ones considered as the Hope of our Nation. But it was observed through the years that it have been lost today. This observations leads to failure of school education, lack of proper behavior in general.

Behaviors that against the good characters, ethical, and moral values of the school. Acts of violence such joining gangs and fraternities which lead to fighting among students, drug, abuse, cutting classes, disobedience and lack of respect and proper discipline.

Efforts to establish the character in accordance with the national culture is not only performed at the school through a series of learning activities, but also through life habituation, such as religious, honest, disciplined, tolerant, hard work, love of peace, and responsibility. These values and characters need to be nurtured by students because they will ultimately be a life reflection for the school.

Therefore, schools have a major role in the development of character education. According to Kmdiknas(2011) school plays a role as a civilizing centre through a cultural approach to the development of school and extracurricular activities in high school.High school life is considered as the most exciting time in a students school life where memories were made. According to Gholson,(1985); Haensly, Lupkowski, & Edlind,( 1985) those memories and lessons can be moulded through involvement in activities and are critical to adolescent.

According to Gambone & Arbreton, (1997)Previous studies showed that adolescents who participated in the variety of activities having more opportunity for leadership enhancement .Students’ participation in extracurricular activities has been identified as an important aspect of the higher education experience.

A study conducted by Hancock et al. (2012) revealed that youth perceptions of their leadership skills are influenced by extracurricular activity involvement and support of their parents and other adults. He suggested that educators should consider facilitating youth leadership trough extracurricular activities involving younger high school students. And according to him Scouting program is one of the extracurricular activities that outside the normal curriculum of school which provide and teaches proper character and values.

Extra curricular activities guided students and prepare them for the future by giving them many skills such as leadership, patriotism, creativity, personality and noble character. This is consistent with the purpose of scouting movement. The Scouting movement aims to support young people in their physical, mental and spiritual development, that they may play constructive roles in society, with a strong focus on the outdoors and survival skills.

This statement is proved by Stanford. According to Stanfort (1985) extracurricular activities is the other half of education. In fact, participating in different extracurricular activities such as scouting develop attitudes, skills, and knowledge to be successful academically and have higher academic aspirations toward school (Holland & Andre, 1987).This was observed to students who are active scouts and was a better individuals after high school. The benefits of Scout activities are endless, but the primary goal of all scouting activities is to boost student achievement in the classroom and to prepare them to face all the challenges in life.

 
Francis Lee N. Dumanas
Baguio City National High School