Woodcraft

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The Woodcraft movement is an educational movement developed by Ernest Thompson Seton , which is based on living in tent camps , experiencing nature and making crafts . Seton integrated numerous elements into his concept that he owed or ascribed to the North American Indians . In 1902 he founded the Woodcraft Indians , which grew rapidly in numbers and from 1910 onwards, with Seton's consent and cooperation, became part of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA).

In the United States , Seton's ideas were used in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) movement established there in 1910 , and the experience-based and youth-oriented "Indian culture" inspired numerous organizations in other countries. In Great Britain , the Quaker and pacifist Ernest Westlake founded the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry in 1916 as a spin-off from the Scout Association . A little later, the boy scout leader John Hargrave developed Seton's ideas further and in 1920 founded the Kindred of Kibbo Kift . After Seton's separation from the Boy Scout Movement, the Woodcraft League of America was formed in the USA in 1915 under his leadership, which after a short time numbered 5,000 members.

The scout movements in Germany, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Czechoslovakia also adopted elements and methods from Woodcraft in their work. Of particular note are the Fédération Nationale des Éclaireurs et Éclaireuses du Luxembourg , the storm troop scouts, a German knighthood of the forest and the new scouts in Germany, who introduced the woodcraft-inspired concept of tribal education into German scouting work around 1925 .

In the interwar period , multiple woodcraft groups emerged in Europe. The Czech or Slovak Woodcraft League (Czech. Liga Lesní Moudrost , Slovak. Ligy lesnej múdrosti ), which was founded in 1912 by the Prague teacher Miloš Seifert , deserves the greatest attention . Although it was banned for more than half a century, first by the National Socialists and later by the Communists , the Czechoslovak Woodcraft League was able to survive in secret and become active again after the fall of communism. Today in the Czech Republic and Slovakia there is a small association with members of all ages.

The Woodcraft Folk in Great Britain was created in 1924 from the three roots Kindred of the Kibbo Kift , the Scout Movement and the Cooperative Movement and works according to the method of education from below . The Woodcraft Folk cooperates with social democratic and socialist youth associations and, like SJD-Die Falken , is part of the International Falcon Movement . Another British organization aligned with Ernest Thompson Seton is the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry (OWC) founded in 1916 by the naturalist and anthropologist Ernest Westlake (1855-1922 ), which still exists today.

In addition to Great Britain, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, there are also small organizations in Poland that are part of the Woodcraft movement. Today's Forest School Camps (FSC) in the USA and Great Britain see themselves as a legacy of Seton's woodcraft pedagogy.

The Ernest Thompson Seton Institute (ETSI) in the USA and Canada provides information and research on Seton and Woodcraft.

International youth meetings were called Woodcraft Gatherings and carried the motto “Blue Skies”, taken from an Indian greeting.

literature

  • Brian Morris: Ernest Thompson Seton, founder of the woodcraft movement, 1860-1946 . Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston 2006. ISBN 9780773454743
  • Derek Edgell: The Order of Woodcraft Chivalry, 1916-1949, as a New Age alternative to the Boy Scouts. Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston 1992. ISBN 077349197X .
  • Heinz Reichling: Ernest Thompson Seton and the Woodcraft movement in England. Hanstein, Bonn 1937.
  • Mary Davis: Fashioning a new world: a history of the Woodcraft Folk. Holyoake, Loughborough 2000. ISBN 085195278X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.infed.org/thinkers/seton.htm , accessed on July 21, 2006