Eduard Vallory, World
Scouting: Educating for Global Citizenship
Vallory’s book is doubtlessly the best book that I have read
on modern Scouting and Guiding.
This is of course a rather broad statement to make, and a
part of the key is in the adjective, modern Scouting and Guiding (in the following text, I shall generally follow Vallory in using “Scouting” to refer to both). The books by Lord Baden-Powell that form the basis
of our movement even today are, however, not about modern Scouting and they
need to be read with an eye to adapting what is said to the where the Movement is
today.
Vallory’s book takes its outset in precisely that: where
Scouting and the Scout Movement is today; combining a deep respect for the
history of the Movement with a good understanding of where we are today and a
keen eye for the challenges our Movement is facing and where we may find
solutions.
World Scouting:
Educating for Global Citizenship is divided into three parts. The first
part deals with the history of World Scouting; the second part is about the
ideology of the Scout Movement (WHY and HOW we do Scouting today) and how
Scouting is organised in the two world organisations; and the third part deals
with the citizenship education of the book’s sub-title.
In the first part of the book Vallory sets out by outlining
the starting point of Scouting in a specific British Imperial context, tracing
the evolution of Scouting until the 1920 formal establishment of the
international organisation as the beginning of World Scouting.
The establishment of a democratic international organisation
for World Scouting does, of course, not mark an abrupt change in the values and
methods of Scouting, but it is nonetheless an important milestone, and a
practical marker in discussing the changes that did occur in this period, as
Scouting became World Scouting under the guidance and leadership of Lord
Baden-Powell (B-P). Vallory describes the evolution of World Scouting,
following this up with an overview of censuses of the World Movement.
The second part of the book focuses on the international
Scout Movement as it is today, represented by the two world associations that
organise all Scouting world-wide. Vallory first sets out the fundamentals: the
definition of Scouting and Guiding, the Purpose and Principles explaining WHY
we do Scouting, and then the Method of Scouting describing HOW we do Scouting.
The method is then discussed in more detail, emphasizing the
educational impact of the method, and its highly intuitive nature. In this
section Vallory also gives an introduction to some of the results of modern
cognitive science that support the value of the Scout Method as an educational
approach, emphasizing that the Scout Method is superior to the traditional
industrialist classroom in terms of getting the young people to learn – a
difference that B-P described as the difference between educating the Scouts
and instructing them. In this section one can sense that Vallory is more
engaged with his subject: the application of a theoretical framework to assist
the reader’s understanding, and the contagious enthusiasm for the understanding
of why the Scout Method is so good at creating a conducive learning environment
for young people are evident in this part of the book.
The discussions of Scouting’s learning environment are
followed with a discussion of the organisation of the Movement. Here the
balance that is achieved between the concepts of a movement (suggesting a very
loose network structure) and an organisation (suggesting a more hierarchical
structure) is investigated, with an emphasis on the ability of the Movement to
ensure both the dynamics of a movement and the unity of purpose, values and
method that is more characteristic of an organisation. The importance of the two world organisations and of
their monopoly on characterising Scouting and Guiding world-wide is stressed in
a chapter on the recognition policy, where it is again clear that Vallory is
feeling strongly the importance of the unity of the Scout Movement lest it
loses its good name due to abuse by groups, whether local, national or even
transnational, that are not recognized, nor recognizable, by any of the two
world organisations. Scouting, in order to remain Scouting, must also remain
one thing.
In the third part of his book, Vallory discusses the
citizenship education that is a part of B-P’s original aim with Scouting (B-P even sub-titled
his foundational book, Scouting for Boys:
A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship). Looking at the subtitle of Vallory's book and on the page counts (this part takes up 58 pages against the 44 and
54 pages of the earlier parts), it is immediately evident where Vallory’s focus
lies. This is also evident from the theoretical apparatus that he brings to
bear on the question, starting with a highly enlightening summary of approaches
to citizenship and to citizenship education, and in the way this apparatus is
used to assist the reader in understanding the subsequent discussions of the
concept of citizenship inherent in Scouting and of Scouting’s approach to
citizenship education.
A discussion of some of the issues that can be divisive to
the Scout Movement (both between WOSM and WAGGGS, but also internally between
various cultures) illustrate how these are all tied up with the concept of
citizenship in Scouting. Some of the
issues that Vallory discusses are the degree of active advocacy by the
organisations of Scouting (as opposed to the scouts as individual citizens);
the conflicts between Boy Scouting and Girl Scouting in the US, the
relationship of Scouting to religious organisations, and the weight between
obedience (mentioned in the Scout Law) on one side and critical thinking and
individual judgement (emphasized by B-P) on the other.
This leads Vallory to a discussion of the synergetic double
emphasis on local and global citizenship that is a characteristic of Scouting,
and of Scouting’s stress on peace, human rights, and community development as
positive values, and in the close relationship between Scouting and
international institutions and organisations, spearheaded by B-P in his embrace
of the inter-war period’s League of Nations (it was entirely new to me that B-P tried to make Scouting a youth organisation of the League of Nations).
The book is based on Vallory’s Ph.D. thesis in political and
social science, and though my own field is in the natural sciences, I never
felt that Vallory let his readers get out of their depth. The academic theories
that are discussed in the book are explained so as to allow an un-schooled
reader to grasp the concepts and instead of being an obstacle the theory helps
provide a framework for the understanding of the subsequent discussions.
However, it still did take me somewhat longer to finish the book than
is usual for me with a book in English, but this was not because it was
difficult. Rather it was because I found myself engaging so strongly with the
book at every turn that I was unable to move forward until I had thought
through the point in question, and considered its applicability to my own
particular experiences and situation in Scouting … often I would realize this
when I had read on for a couple of pages only to discover that nothing of what
I had just read had actually registered – I had been too busy engaging with an
earlier passage to take in the new stuff as I tried to read on.
As a man of the natural sciences working regularly with
statistics, I would of course have loved to see a more rigorous statistical discussion of
the census data, but I realise that this would be completely extraneous to the
point that Vallory is trying to get across.
All in all, this is the book that I wish I had had when I
started out as a Scout leader many years ago, but which I now feel will help me
be a better Scout leader – not through practical tips and tricks, but by giving
me a far better understanding of some of the key goals of the Scout Movement, and of how the Scout Method actually works.
– Troels Forchhammer
