Scout Factory

Our educational system is heavily influenced by the industrial revolution.

Production lines replaced craftsmen and interchangeable parts handmade components. Mass production makes technology cheaper and more accessible so more people enjoy the benefits of technology. Mass production is efficient, but it has it’s limitations.

Industrialized education is efficient; students go through assembly lines where they are stamped with the curriculum, tested, and out for distribution.

Problem is students aren’t commodities they are people and the handicraft of education looses much when it is mechanized.

Baden Powell warned that scouting should not " trench the work of schools " but should lead scouts to learn “naturally and unconsciously, to develop for themselves their knowledge.” If we industrialize scouting by adopting cirriculums and methods similar to formal education we miss the point. The job of the scoutmaster is to inspire a sense of inquiry, instill the skills of learning and encourage independent motivation; not to lead a plodding schoolike ‘class’ through a curriculum of lecture and activity.