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The Principle of Scouting (Archived #0202)
This section is specially put up as part of our goal to promote Scouting throughout Malaysia as well as to the world. It serves as a guideline to parents, students and Scouters alike. These guidelines provide information on what Scouting is exactly and why should you be part of it.

WHAT IS SCOUTING?
A MOVEMENT OF SELF-EDUCATION FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
Scouting is a movement of self-education for young people. The Scout Movement comprises national Scout organisations to which the individual members belong. The individual members are the young people that Scouting serves and adults who join in order to contribute to the development of Scouting’s youth members. The unity of the Movement is ensured by the World Organization of the Scout Movement which serves recognised national Scout organisations.

Its purpose
All over the world, members of the World Organization of the Scout Movement are united by a common, active commitment to Scouting’s purpose which is to help young people to develop their full physical, intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual capacities as individuals and as members of society, and thus contribute to the development of a better world.

Its principles
Wherever they may be, members are actively committed to the principles (i.e. the values) on which Scouting is founded, which form both the basis of the code of ethics which governs the Movement as a whole and a personal code of living to which each member adheres. These principles are about a person’s active and constructive commitment to the spiritual values of life, to society and to oneself.

Its method
All members are equally committed to the way in which Scouting seeks to help young people to develop through Scouting’s unique method of progressive self-education. The Scout Method is a comprehensive educational framework composed of elements which work together as a system to provide young people with a rich and active learning environment. It is based on how young people naturally develop, taking into account their evolving characteristics, needs and interests at different stages of development.

Voluntary
Scouting is voluntary. All members young people and supporting adults join of their own free will. There is no compulsion to join the Scout Movement, nor to remain a member. Scouting is not like school, at which attendance is usually compulsory between certain ages.
Every member young or adult who does choose to join is required to make a personal commitment to the Scout Movement. First and foremost, this commitment is to respect and act according to the code of ethics inherent in the fundamental principles of the Movement.
More globally, this voluntary commitment also extends to achieving the educational purpose of Scouting, as every member commits him or herself to the educational proposal of the national
Scout association to which he or she belongs. For youth members, this commitment concerns their own personal development. For adults, this commitment is to help provide the conditions necessary for young people to develop.

Non-political
Scouting is non-political, in the sense that it is not involved in the struggle for power of party politics. At the same time, Scouting’s educational system aims to help young people to be, and develop as, responsible and constructive individuals and members of society. Young people cannot do so in a vacuum, divorced from the socio-political realities of the world in which they live. Scouting’s educational approach, therefore, encourages young people to develop their own powers of judgment, and to take an active and constructive role in society which is in harmony with the values for which Scouting
stands.

Independent
While the Movement works in partnership with a number of outside bodies and receives sup-port from benefactors all over the world, Scouting, at all levels, is independent in the sense of being free from control by any outside body or individual.
Complementary to other forms of education
Scouting is a non-formal educational movement. In other words, it is not part of the formal educational system (school, etc.), nor is it informal (friends, media, etc.) as it does offer a structured approach to education. Scouting does not seek to reproduce what school, family, religious institutions, leisure clubs, etc., are already offering young people. It seeks to complement what others are doing by helping to fill gaps that may not be being met by others.

Relevant to young people
Scouting seeks to be relevant to young people in the various socio-cultural environments in which they grow up, and to continuously ad-just to meet the needs of young people in a rapidly changing world.
As a movement, this is one of our greatest challenges: continuously adjusting so as to be even more relevant to young people’s aspirations and needs while remaining faithful to Scouting’s purpose, principles and method. Being able to determine what is essential and invariable from what is not essential and variable is not easy for newly constituted Scout associations who are considering this issue for the first time. The task is not an easy one either for Scout associations that have existed for decades, some for almost a century, steeped in rich memories of “the way things have always been done”.
“Here are some of the things that Scouting is not:
it is not a charity organisation for people in society to run for the benefit of the poor children;
it is not a school having a definite curriculum and standards of achievement;
it is not a brigade of officers and privates for drilling manliness into boys and girls;
it is not a show where surface results are gained through payment as merit badges, medals, etc.;
These all come from without, whereas the Scout training all comes from within.”
- “Aids to Scoutmastership”, Baden-Powell, 1919 edition.

WHAT DOES SCOUTING SEEK TO ACHIEVE?
“EDUCATION? BUT THAT IS SCHOOL!”
Scouting is an educational movement for young people. However, “education” means different things to different people. In everyday language in some parts of the world, education is primarily associated, at its most basic level, with learning to read, write and master basic arithmetic and, on a higher level, with gaining academic knowledge and vocational skills through school, university, and so on.
In Scouting, however, education is considered in its broad sense as being the process through which each of us develops our various capabilities throughout life, both as an individual and as a member of society.
The aim of education, in this broad sense, is to contribute to the full development of an autonomous , supportive, responsible and committed person.

Note:-The term “autonomy”, like education, often means different things to different people. In an educational context it means being able to make up one’s own mind (as opposed to, for example, blindly copying one’s peers) and to manage one’s life (for example, being able to manage one’s time). Autonomy here does not mean total independence, nor does it imply being self-centred.

THE PURPOSE OF SCOUTING
According to Scouting’s educational philosophy, each person is born with a unique potential which can be developed in a constructive direction.
Making this potential a reality involves developing all of one’s capacities - physical, intellectual, philosophy emotional, social and spiritual in the direction of the goals to be achieved. Evidently, as education is the work of a lifetime, Scouting cannot fully develop anyone’s potential in all areas. Scouting can simply accompany each Scout, for a time, along that person’s path of development and help each person to develop the inner resources he or she will need to continue to develop without Scouting’s help. After all, if Scouting were a crutch on which people relied all their lives, it would certainly have failed in what it is trying to achieve.
Scouting, therefore, simply seeks to make a contribution to this process of self-education during the years when a person can truly benefit from its structured educational support system. The age range for which Scouting can most benefit young people corresponds approximately to the second decade of life. By encouraging young people to use and develop all of their capacities in a constructive way today, Scouting seeks to help young people to realise that they have within themselves what it takes to already make difference - to their own lives and to the world in which they
live. As they become ready to expand their horizons and seek new challenges, Scouting helps them to use their experience and to further develop their capacities to live and grow as fulfilled individuals and as active and constructive members of society. Whether or not a person will actually develop that potential depends, amongst other factors, on the presence of a supportive, structured environment during the formative years which stimulates the young person to bring out of him or herself - and develop what is constructive, to the detriment of what is destructive. Scouting seeks to offer young people such an environment.

“The aim of development is the complete fulfilment of man, in all the richness of his or her personality, the complexity of his or her forms of expression and his or her various commitments - as individual, member of a family and of a community, citizen and producer, inventor of techniques and creative dreamer.”
- ”Learning: The Treasure Within”, Report to UNESCO of the
International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first
Century, 1996.

It is Scouting’s principles (generally referred to as “Duty to self”, “Duty to others” and “Duty to God”) which provide these guidelines. They are the basis of the value system which governs the Movement as a whole. These principles, therefore, give direction to Scouting’s educational policy as a Movement, to the educational approach used with young people and to the way in which the elements of the Scout Method are used so as to give constructive and coherent direction to the development of the young person.

Duty to self
Each person has a duty to develop one’s autonomy and assume responsibility for oneself.
This includes:
- taking responsibility for one’s own development (physical, intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual);
- striving to live life in a way which respects oneself as a person (e.g. taking care of one’s health, standing up for one’s rights as a human being, making decisions that one feels deep inside are right for oneself as a person, etc.).
Being able to do so presupposes striving to get to know oneself better in all the richness and complexity that characterizes each person with strengths and weaknesses, hopes, needs, and so on.

Duty to others
In broad terms, this is one’s responsibility towards everything material that is not oneself.
This means:
- recognising and taking into account in the way in which one lives one’s life that one is not the only important person on this earth, that each person has rights, feelings, hopes, needs, etc.;
- recognising that people are interdependent, i.e. no one can live in isolation from others. Everyone needs relationships with others in order to fulfil themselves as persons and every-one can benefit from the contribution that each person makes to the world.
Each person, therefore, has a responsibility towards others. This involves:
- respecting each person’s dignity;
- playing an active and constructive role in society and making a personal contribution to it;
- helping out in times of need and defending the defenceless, whether they are one’s next-door neighbour or whether they live in a very different environment at the other end of the world.
- recognising and taking into account, in the way in which one lives one’s life, the integrity of the natural world.

Duty to God
Each person has a responsibility to search beyond what is material for a force higher than mankind. This involves seeking:
- a Spiritual Reality that gives meaning and direction to one’s life; and
- to discover meaning in spiritual values and to live one’s daily life in accordance with these values.
When these three simple principles are truly part of a way of life and are adhered to simultaneously, any form of fundamentalism or fanaticism is necessarily excluded.

THE SCOUT LAW AND PROMISE
The Scout law and promise are considered as one element of the Scout Method because they are closely linked. However, as their specific educational functions differ, they are treated as separate items in this chapter.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
A personal code of living
By trying to reflect the code of living more often in a young person’s daily life and in the growing number of new situations which a young person encounters, the young person is in fact developing him or herself.
As this code of living is based on the principles of Scouting (and thus on the values underlying
Scouting), it guides the direction of the young person’s development towards a personal exploration of these values. This code of living is therefore personal, related to each person’s development.

THE SCOUT LAW
WHAT IS IT?
The Scout law is a code of living based on Scouting’s principles. It is a personal code of living in that it serves as a reference, guiding the way in which each member of the Movement lives his or her life today, and guiding the direction of development for tomorrow. It is also a collective code of living in that it is the basis on which the Scout unit functions. The Scout law is therefore at the heart of the
Scout Method.

WHAT IS IT INTENDED TO DO?
As a concrete personal and collective code of living, the Scout law provides a simple way of helping each young person to become familiar with what Scouting seeks to help him or her to achieve and to discover the meaning of the various aspects of this personal and collective code of living through experiencing it in practice. Ultimately, the Scout law can serve as a reference in the subsequent development of a young person’s value system.

A COLLECTIVE CODE OF LIVING
In addition to being a personal code of living, the Scout law is also a collective code of living. It therefore serves as the law of a microsociety of young people in which each person has the same rights and duties towards him or herself and others.
As the Scout law is the basis on which their small community is founded and operates, the young people are exposed to a way of living with others which is democratic, respectful of each person and which promotes a sense of belonging, sharing, solidarity and cooperation.

“The boy is not governed by DON’T, but led on by DO. The Scout Law is devised as a guide to his actions, rather than as repressive of his faults.”
- “Aids to Scoutmastership”, Baden-Powell, World Brotherhood
edition, 1944.

“Is it possible to devise a form of education which might make it possible to avoid conflicts or resolve them peacefully by developing respect for other people, their cultures and their spiritual values?”
- "Learning: The Treasure Within”, Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century, 1996.

THE PATROL/TEAMSYSTEM
WHAT IS IT?
Young people have a natural tendency to form groups of roughly the same age. The team system is a way of making use of this natural tendency in order to provide an environment in which young people enjoy being and in order to channel the substantial influence that peers have on each other in a constructive direction. What young people gain from living and working together according to a code of living and the relationships that develop as a result of a multitude of shared adventures are as important in terms of their education as the activities in which they take part.
In Scouting, young people of roughly the same age operate in small groups of six to eight members. Each small group operates as a team. Within each team, the young people organise their life as a group and decide upon, organise and carry out their activities. Each young person has a specific responsibility which he or she carries out for an agreed length of time which contributes to the life and welfare of the team and the success of their activities. In each of the teams, one of the young people, acknowledged by the others to be the leader, assumes a general coordinating role and convenes meetings with the other members, giving each member the opportunity to take part in the decisions and to be fully involved in the life of the team.
Several of these teams (usually four to six) form a Scout unit, supported by an adult leader and adult assistants. The Scout unit is managed by a council involving the team leaders and the adult leader. Although the adult leaders are not members of the teams, they are nonetheless in close contact with each of the teams and with each young person. While the team is the basic grouping in which the young people operate, the young people are also part of the Scout unit as a whole. During the Scout year, there are activities which involve the whole of the Scout unit. These provide opportunities for each team to contribute to the well-being of the Scout unit as a whole and provide opportunities for the young people to get to know the others in the other teams. All these elements combined form an organised social structure and a democratic system of self-government based on the Scout law that Baden-Powell called the “patrol system”. Each person is involved in the government of this mini-society and has a share of the responsibility in ensuring the well-being of its members.
Despite the name, the “patrol system” was not in any way intended to reflect a military-style line of command in which the adult leader gave orders to be carried out by the patrols. Indeed, if it were to operate in this way, it would not be able to fulfil its educational function.

WHAT IS IT INTENDED TO DO?
The team system, based on the way in which young people naturally organise themselves as small groups, provides a framework within which the young people can:
- develop their personal and collective capabilities through pooling and building on their individual skills, talents and experience and through the development of a mutually supportive team spirit;
- develop constructive relationships with other young people and adults, based on mutual trust, which strengthen over time as a result of all the adventures shared together;
- learn to live according to a democratic form of self-government in partnership with adults.
It allows young people to experience building a consensus and resolving conflicts, expressing themselves and listening to others, to experience making decisions and accepting the consequences, cooperating and sharing, taking initiative and leading, taking on responsibility and following it through. Thus, everything that young people experience as a result of operating in teams can have a considerable impact on their development.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
Initially, the only certain thing that the young people have in common is their desire to take part in activities. Through appropriately designed activities, each young person comes to realize that many of the experiences are only possible through a collective effort and so they have to organise themselves as a group (both within the teams and as a Scout unit). Thus, the fact of needing to cooperate stimulates each person to play his or her part in making their experiences possible and enjoyable through developing and using his or her talents and skills.
Through taking part in this process with a small group of people on a regular basis, they get to know each other with their strengths and weaknesses and a bond is created between them.
This bond is important for several reasons:
- It contributes to a young person’s emotional development through providing a sense of belonging, a feeling of being appreciated and through providing the basis for the kind of close friendships that young people may have difficulty in developing elsewhere.
- A close-knit group provides a stimulating atmosphere in which each young person makes more of an effort to gain the skills and experience needed for their activities and life together. The greater the skills, talents and experience the young people are able to pool as a team, the more opportunities are opened up for challenging and meaningful experiences for the group and for each person.
- This bond helps the young person to develop a deeper understanding of the meaning of responsibility and solidarity. Initially, a young person may carry out a task, turn up at a rendezvous or help out another member because it is part of the “rules of the game”.
When the young people grow to care about each other, the young person will carry out a task because he or she knows that the others are counting on him or her and does not want to let them down.
- The young person who seeks the approval of peers observes the group’s reactions to his or her attitudes and behaviour, and thus provides a mirror effect. He or she can thus be encouraged to develop a greater self-awareness, often resulting in a change of attitude and behaviour. For example, the timid are encouraged to develop greater assertiveness; the “bossy” are made to sense the need to leave room for others.
It is intended as a partnership between the young people and their adult leader, based on dialogue and cooperation. The adult leader (and his or her adult assistants) are part of the Scout unit but they are not members of the teams. The adults are part of the Scout unit in order to fulfil a specific role, i.e. to help the young people to exercise and develop their capacity for autonomy, solidarity, responsibility and commitment, while guiding each young person towards his or her educational objectives.

“The patrol system leads each boy to see that he has some individual responsibility for the good of his Patrol. It leads each Patrol to see that it has definite responsibility for the good of the Troop.”
- “Aids to Scoutmastership”, Baden-Powell, World Brotherhood edition, 1944.