Learning by doing means developing as a result of first-hand experience - which, after all, is a very effective teacher!

Learning by doing:
  • Reflects Scouting’s active approach to education. In other words, young people are helped to develop through opportunities for concrete, “hands-on” experience as opposed to passively listening to a lecture or watching a demonstration.
  • Applies to the way in which young people gain knowledge, skills and attitudes in each of the areas of development and thus progress towards their educational objectives. Learning by doing is thus not limited to “doing” in the sense of learning practical or manual skills. For example, young people learn the meaning of responsibility through taking on responsibility. 
  • Reflects Scouting’s practical approach to education based on learning through the opportunities for experiences that arise in the course of pursuing one’s interests and dealing with everyday life. In other words, Scouts do not gain knowledge, skills and attitudes in an abstract context, divorced from reality. In Scouting, young people would not learn to sew for  the sake of knowing how to sew, but because, or example, they want to put on a play and want to make their own costumes. Or, for example, Scouts would not learn to manage conflict simply through a specifically-designed activity, but through the natural process of sorting out whatever disagreements arise in the group (in a manner which is consistent with the Scout law!).