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Robert Baden-Powell as an educational innovator
Famous for his contribution to the development of Scouting, Baden-Powell was also able to make a number of educational innovations. His interest in adventure, association and leadership still repay attention today.
Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell (1857 - 1941) was an accomplished soldier who became first came to wide public notice as the ‘hero of the Siege of Mafeking’(1899 - 1900) during the Boer War. He is better known as the founder of the Boy Scout movement. This achievement and his concern with 'old values' has sometimes obscured the innovational nature of his educational thinking. What is overlooked is his concern with the social lives and imagination of young people, and how he was able to build on this to develop an associational educational form. Robert Baden-Powell placed a special value on adventure; on children and young people working together - and taking responsibility (his 'patrol' building on the idea of 'natural' friendship groups and 'gangs'); on developing self-sufficiency; and on 'learning through doing' (he was deeply suspicious of curriculum forms). In this article we examine some of the key aspects of his approach.
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