La educación física en la obra de Baden Powell (1875-1941)

Abstract

Baden Powell (1857-1941) can be considered as the creator and driving force of an educational movement for leisure and spare time, Scouting, which became greatly widespread from the beginning of the twentieth century until our times. The beginnings and the methodological approaches of his educational project form a corpus made up of aspirations for the complete forming of the person (personal, social, civic and transcendental) and which finds two of its privileged educational means in games and Nature. Physical education should thus be understood as a component of an integral education. Baden Powell proposed a physical education that sought «physical health» through the development of two closely related areas: strength, resistance and vigour, and healthy habits. All of this was staked on predominantly natural methods and an appeal to personal responsibility and the small continuing effort of each individual. Baden-Powell thus took up a position opposed to the old nineteenth century gymnastic schools and on the side of the new trends that were dawning with the twentieth century, which was undoubtedly accompanied by a change in educational ideas.