At its best Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting makes a transformational contribution to a learner’s lifelong learning journey. So how do we construct meaningful learning experiences for all learners in Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting? Growing and Learning will explore the characteristics of quality learning and development, and how they fit together to support our members to reach their fullest potential.
CONNECTED BY A SHARED PURPOSE,
WE USE THE GIRL GUIDE AND GIRL SCOUT APPROACH
AND CREATE SPACE TO GROW AND LEARN,
OFFERING R.E.A.L. LEARNING EXPERIENCES
SO LEARNERS CAN REACH THEIR FULLEST POTENTIAL
Imagine this journey as light passing through a prism. The light is focused by our shared purpose. The prism is the experience we offer, shaped by our approach and the spaces we create. Inside the prism, the light is changed and we see the eight growth outcomes as a result.
A lifelong learning journey
Every member of our Movement is on a learning journey.
Youth and adult members are on a continuous journey that spans a person’s lifetime (lifelong) and is impacted by all parts of their life:
- home and family
- education
- faith
- relationships
- work etc (lifewide).
Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting contributes to each member’s learning journey by offering varied and connected learning experiences at each age and stage.
- A learning experience is a personal experience, interaction, session, training or programme in which learning takes place.
- A learning journey is the pathway that individuals take when growing and learning. A learning journey is made from many connected learning experiences, has long-term outcomes and is personal to each learner.
How we contribute to our members’ learning journeys is different for youth and adults. Youth members participate in the youth programme; the educational expression of our purpose in action. Delivering the youth programme is the reason Girl Guide and Girl Scout organisations exist, and everything we do should, directly or indirectly, contribute to our youth member’s learning journeys.
However, supporting adult learning and development is an essential foundation to this. By working with adults as whole people and recognising and supporting their personal learning journey alongside the technical training they need to perform their roles, we can support positive role modelling, improved intergenerational collaboration, better teamwork and more motivated and committed volunteer resources.
Youth programme the totality of learning experiences children and young people can access in Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting | Adult learning and development the support we provide for adults to develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours to be positive role models for young people and carry out their roles in the organisation. |
Youth and adult members also have different experiences of learning and development:
Youth members are constantly learning and developing; their bodies noticeably grow, their ability to express themselves and interact with their surroundings develops, and their understanding of the world around them is changing as they experience new things. | Adult members have reached a more stable state of being - they continue to grow and learn but more gradually and with more focus, not with the same developmental leaps that youth experience. |
Learning is always a choice. To be a lifelong learner, a person needs to be able to create meaning from their own experiences, both across their lifetime (lifelong) and from the different spaces of their life (lifewide).
How this meaning is created changes at different stages:
Youth members need more support to discover themselves and the world; they are still rapidly gaining knowledge and skills, their sense of self is emerging and being tested by each stage in their development. | Adult members who are more physically and cognitively developed are better able to consciously draw on their life experiences when learning new things, but only if they have a strong foundation from their youth and retain openness to learning. |
The transition from youth to adulthood is not the end of one journey and the start of another but a continuous process. Individuals travel their own path, at their own pace, with huge diversity of experience and development. For our members, Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting is one space among many that impacts their development over time. Our challenge is to be able to identify the specific ways Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting made a difference.
Growing and Learning recognises and acknowledges youth and adult experiences in Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting as part of one learning journey.
This enables us to:
- Make the connection between different learning experiences stronger.
- Promote and role model lifelong learning, and the benefits it brings for inclusion.
- See adult members as learners who are prioritising their personal development through their
roles. This helps them not only to fulfil their roles but bring their whole selves to their work
with, and in support of, young people. - Put a greater focus on modelling the attitudes and behaviours that will support meaningful and
supportive intergenerational leadership across the journey. - Make it easier for different people to be part of the Movement at different stages of their lives.
- Be more aware of gaps and barriers that can “break the journey” for our members..
The Girl Guiding & Girl Scouting Journey
Young people and adults join and leave the Movement at different points in their own lifelong journey. Some join as youth members and stay involved for the rest of their lives – but many more join for a brief time because it fits a certain stage in their lives.
Both our youth programmes and adult learning and development should be designed with this in mind, so each stage is within itself complete and as meaningful as it can be, having the greatest possible positive impact on a learner who may only stay involved for a short time. The majority of youth members who leave the Movement do so at transition points between sections, especially around the ages of 14-16. Some members also leave then rejoin later, as their lives change.
Everyone should be welcome and able to join the Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting learning journey and move in and out of it according to their situation. We can support this by making each stage of the journey, and the roles and learning experiences on offer, clear to everyone. Creating clear pathways and connections between stages of the journey can help members stay engaged, and flexible opportunities that can fit with complex lives help people feel welcome and valued. Recognising that Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting is part of not only a lifelong but lifewide learning journey, we should also construct our learning and development opportunities to value, and build on, the knowledge, skills and behaviours members have gained outside the Movement.