‘Olympic and Paralympic Education Lesson-Building Workshop’

Centre for Olympic Research & Education (CORE)) held a workshop on lesson building for Olympic and Paralympic education on Sunday, December 21 2015, in conjunction with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and the Jigoro Kano Memorial International Sport Institute.

With the Olympic and Paralympic Games being held in Tokyo in 2020, much interest has arisen in drawing on these major events for course materials that can be utilized in school settings. At this workshop, information on previously used educational activities and theoretical frameworks was shared, and the teachers from each school engaged in group activities. In total, 32 teachers participated in the group work, including elementary, middle-school, high-school and university faculty as well as non-teacher participants. In addition, 17 persons participated as observers.

At the beginning of the workshop, Professor Hisashi Sanada from Tsukuba University, who serves as CORE’s administrative chairman, summarized the status of Olympic and Paralympic education domestically and abroad and introduced practical cases from the 1964 Tokyo games, the 1998 Nagano games and the recent 2014 Sochi games.

Next, three teachers described case studies of programmes implemented in schools.
1. ‘Understanding the Disabled: Blind Soccer’ (middle school)
Tatsuki Nagaoka, Tsukuba University Affiliated Middle School
Nagaoka reported on the experiential class to which he invited a guest lecturer from the Japan Blind Soccer Association. He explained that through the class, students were able to deepen their understanding of people with visual impairment and learn the importance of viewing things from others’ perspective.

2. ‘Comprehensive Learning Time’ (middle school)
Shoko Kunikawa, Tsukuba University Affiliated Middle School
Kunikawa reported on the ‘Olympic Course’, which used comprehensive learning time. She described a class on newspaper writing, an ancient Olympic experiential class and a visit by a guest lecturer from the National Sports Science Center, who spoke from a sports support organization perspective.

3. ‘Olympic/Paralympic Education at a Preparatory School’
Takashi Ueda, Hachioji Municipal Yokoyama Second Elementary School
Ueda reported on the approaches being adopted at the abovementioned school, one of the preparatory schools designated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. He described how students deepened their understanding of the Olympics and Paralympics through holding the ‘Yoko-Second-lympics’, in which the children planned and managed events based on the knowledge they had obtained in the course.

Next, Associate Professor Akiyo Miyazaki from Tsukuba University, who served as a coordinator, introduced the tool kit (Olympic Values and Education Program (OVEP)) issued by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), presented the following framework and explained how to proceed with the group work.

Subject Education Model: Using course material within a subject area
Comprehensive Model: Using comprehensive learning time.
Function/Announcement Model: Holding special school functions (cultural festival, sports festival etc.)
Event Model: Holding events (e.g. lectures or experiential classes) regarding Olympic education
Lifestyle Model: Activities that relate everyday life (motor activity) to the Olympics
Exchange Model: One School-One Country activities, learning another country’s culture or language, exchanges with schools in other countries

Other

For the group work, the 32 teachers ranging from elementary school teachers to university professors as well as other participants were divided into eight groups. Furthermore, approximately 20 observers also participated in it. Each group engaged in discussion for 90 minutes and completed a plan. Then, each group presented its plan; and all participants voted on these plans.

The presentations delivered by each group were as follows:
Group 1 (high school, comprehensive learning time): Thinking critically about the Olympics

Group 2 (grades 5 and 6, comprehensive learning time): Raising the next generation’s leaders to popularize the Paralympics

Group 3 (elementary school, comprehensive learning time): Learning how to communicate in a timely manner through Olympic education

Group 4 (grade 6, social science): Japan and the world—studying a country related to Japan, understanding its language and customs and learning about foreign and our own culture

Group 5 (elementary school, school function): Addressing Olympic education by using each subject and comprehensive time as an entire school, in preparation for sports and cultural festivals

Group 6 (middle and high school, comprehensive learning time): Learning the relationship between Japanese territory and history and physical exercise through aquatic exercises related to the Olympics

Group 7 (middle school year 3, physical education theory): Understanding various countries by learning about episodes related to the Olympic Games in each country

Group 8 (special support high school year 2, comprehensive learning time): Learning about various countries by making newspapers related to the Olympics and Paralympics

In the closing session, Group 5 was selected as the best presentation by all participants’ votes. Next, Mr. Atsuyuki Asano, Olympic and Paralympic general manager for the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, offered comments on future expansion of educational activities nationwide.

In this workshop, information was shared by teachers who have taught classes related to the Olympics and Paralympics, and specific activity plans for Olympic and Paralympic education were created. CORE will be holding this workshop annually, striving to deepen its contents, while spreading and developing both practice and research in the area of Olympic and Paralympic education.