Olympic pedagogy is Olympic learning in four subject areas, embracing integral development of sporting, social, moral and intellectual education, which promotes individual sporting ability as accomplishment, as competition and as fair play, as a means of developing various positive social experiences and moral value orientations for the individual pupils. Experience of the ethico-moral principles of the Olympic idea in sporting activity, plus knowledge of moral behaviour and knowledge of the values and ideals of the Olympic movement, should enable pupils to experience and learn moral conduct in sport and should also convey knowledge about such conduct and shape their conscience for their daily life. These task complexes address standards and values in sport and in children’s and young people’s daily life. As an individual development task, children and young people should come to link subjective sporting ability, social conduct, moral behaviour and Olympic knowledge with the objectively desirable fundamental and historico-pedagogic behavioural standards of the Olympic principles. Sporting effort, social conduct, moral behaviour and Olympic knowledge can be considered as four subject areas of an ascending spiral curriculum, i.e. each subject area is equally important, they are mutually dependent and thus complement each other. In this way they together define the integrated approach to Olympic education. Pierre de Coubertin’s vision and concept of Olympism and education he briefly described in his Olympic letter No, III in October 1918. According to Pierre de Coubertin, Olympism is a state of mind, not a system. Nevertheless he also described four major tasks of education in the context of the harmonious development of body and mind. Coubertin wrote: “...to distinguish ... only the body and the mind, ... is too simplistic, but rather the muscles, the understanding, the character, and the conscience. This corresponds to the four-fold duty of the educator” (Coubertin, 2000, 547). If the educator is to have a four-fold task as his duty to educate in the spirit of Olympism, then the pupils will have a four-fold subject area of Olympic learning, to learn about the physical, social, moral, and mental domains of modern Olympism in physical activities and sports competitions, at their school lessons and in the other settings of their daily life.

The importance of Olympic Education had grown consistently since the concept was first mentioned in International Olympic Academy’s session in 1970s. What is more, the establishment and development of National Olympic Academies is still growing worldwide. Lithuanian National Olympic Academy as one of the leaders among the 143 National Olympic Academies, in twenty years of existence has reached a lot of goals, yet more are to be reached in the future. The aim of the work was to analyze the system of Olympic Education in Lithuania by presenting its background, current situation and potential development. Lithuania can be characterized as an active member of the Olympic Movement. Since the establishment of the National Olympic Committee in 1924 and re-establishment in 1988, Lithuanian athletes have proudly represented the country in International sport events, NOC has been working to ensure best conditions for athletes, also cooperated with NOA towards organization of conferences, seminars and lectures in order to ensure the overall development and spread of Olympism and Olympic Movement in the country. Olympic Education program for formal education institutions was created in the year 2000 and is one of the successful projects that are being implemented in Lithuania. 82 schools are voluntarily participating in Children and Youth Olympic Education project. The existence of the project was extended until 2015 by the organizing institutions. Formal education institutions actively involve themselves into Olympic Education and care to spread Olympic ideals to the pupils. In the future number of schools involved should grow up to 200 and sport schools, summer training camps could become a part of the project. As a part of project management theory internal evaluation is implemented by schools, external evaluation should be established for further improvements.

Today, fair play is one value with an important extension outside the sport sector into many areas of public life, business affairs, and the environment at large. Fair play is no more only an attitude for personal human interactions; it has become a value which leads to many personal-environmental relationships including the protection of exploitation of material resources and of our nature on a global level. Fair play has also been focused as a part of value education in the context of school curricula and particularly as value education in physical education and school sports. There exist also examples of fair play as a cross-curriculum subject how the spirit and the notion of fair play fit in different school subjects as one Olympic ideal and as a part of Olympic education programmes (cf. Naul & Holze, 2011). Thus, the following four strands of modern value education at school may be highlighted:

1. Mutual respect is demanded as an inter-personal behavioral pattern, as a matter of non-discrimination of gender, ethnic, religious and political differences among participants and their peoples with the benchmark of fair play for any personal interactions inside and outside the sports ground, as well as in any school education context and in any other life-setting of children and youth (in particular – general education and religious education).
2. Harmonious education of body, will and mind should grow as eurhythmics character building through physical activities and sports in accordance with their rules and in cross-curricular combination of PESS with the subjects of fine arts, poetry and music (Olympic education).
3. Sustainability of natural resources and protection of the environment at large has become a new topic in the range of value education, particularly in different school subjects of science education (e.g. biology, chemistry, geography) and in some new teaching subjects, such as policy studies, economy and ecology.
4. Health enhanced PESS with the promotion of a healthy lifestyle has become a major item in many new European PE curricula, as well as demanded and promoted by the IOC on the occasion of the implementation of the OVEP programme. However, a sound value education outside Olympic education efforts, but inside the general school curriculum, is insufficient in many EU countries and overdue. We have to make sure that fair play is not in the shadow of new Olympic ideals and is taken more seriously for the purposed of new physical education, including sports.

The Olympic Charter states the relationship among Olympic philosophy, ethics, and education. Fundamental Principles are as follows: 1) Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will, and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles. 2) The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity. This is a values education mandate. Some of the specific, positive values referred to in these principles include a respect for balance in the human character between aspects of mind, body, and spirit, an understanding of the joy found in effort, an emphasis on peaceful behaviour, and respect for others (here described as preservation of human dignity). The principles, while somewhat awkward in their English wording, also include direction for an Olympic pedagogy. That is, the fundamental principles seem to suggest components of a possible teaching and learning strategy. Note the references to such strategies as, “blending sport with culture and education,” setting “good examples,” and encouraging participation in sport as an educational situation in which these values can be developed. “Olympism,” in the words of Pierre de Coubertin, “is not a system; it is a state of mind. It can permeate a wide variety of modes of expression, and no single race or era can claim to have the monopoly of it.” The International Olympic Academy provides a unique opportunity for students, academics, athletes, artists, and officials from all over the world to exchange ideas and share this “state of mind” in Ancient Olympia. The wide variety of educational sessions, academic programmes, and in depth research studies that are offered all aim towards serving the vision of the International Olympic Academy for the new century: to explore and enhance the contribution of Olympism to humanity. The mission of the IOA is: to function as an International Academic Centre for Olympic Studies, Education, and Research; to act as an International Forum for free expression and exchange of ideas among the Olympic Family, intellectuals, scientists, athletes, sport administrators, educators, artists, and the youth of the world; to bring together people from all over the world, in a spirit of friendship and cooperation; to motivate people to use the experiences and knowledge gained in the IOA productively, in promoting the Olympic Ideals in their respective countries; to serve and promote the ideals and principles of the Olympic Movement; to cooperate with and assist the National Olympic Academies and any other institutions devoted to Olympic Education; to further explore and enhance the contribution of Olympism to humanity.

Background: the Olympic movement associates the range of values. Some of them have a real impact; others remain at the level of desirable. Objective of this study was to find out how 12-19 year-old Czech young people (1274 boys and 1090 girls) know the main facts of the Olympic movement and distinguish between values which have real impact and those that remain rather as desire. The second aim was comparison in knowledge of Olympic facts and between values of the identical surveys carried out in the years 1998 and 2008. Methods: the “Olympic questionnaire” has been used for the assessment of the knowledge of Olympic facts and Olympic ideals. The frequency of the respondents´ participation in sport was measured by means of the COMPASS methodology. Results confirmed the hypothesis about the positive impact of participation in sport on the knowledge of the Olympic facts of the respondents. Conformity in the assessment of the most desirable and real Olympic ideals was found in values associated with sport performance: physical fitness, competition, sportsmanship, etc. The real impact of some ethical Olympic values like honour, cultural understanding, broadmindedness, nobility, modesty etc., was assessed as less significant. Conclusions: participation in sports positively affects level of knowledge about the facts of the Olympic Movement. The order in which young people evaluate Olympic values (their desirability and reality) did not change over the period of 1998 – 2008.

It was found that Lithuanian students tend to assign those values to Olympism that are connected with human values and social virtues. The least important values are connected with personal development. So firstly, students associate Olympism mostly with honesty, then they relate it as a way of respect, cultural awareness, optimism, strength of the will, generosity, tolerance towards other nations, etc. Such results are determined by opinion about the Olympic Games itself. When analysing research results, it has emerged that social values, bonded with Olympism, are important for the students. They find it very important: the sense of community, heartiness, goodness, better world, gentlemanly behaviour, body and mind harmony, etc. As the least connected thing with the Olympic Games was named personal development, artifullness, career, collaboration, etc. It was found that the students, who have had Olympism classes at university, better understood the Olympic values and regulations. Olympism programs are held for schoolchildren but not for students in Lithuania. There is no system that would involve the Olympic Movement. The students shall experience Olympism through learning, Olympic education, sport competitions and also through the sense of the beauty of sport, alternation, depth of emotions and feelings, bless and underlying of strength of values. Students, as young people, are full of enthusiasm, energy, drive for improvement and learning. They admire the Olympians and Olympic heroes and their deeds. Thus, this shall be used to open the system of the Olympism values.

We think that it is very important to find out, whether there are programmes on Olympism at universities and how we can spread Olympic ideas among students. First of all, we examined the literature sources. Scientific literature analysis led to easier understanding of the importance of moral values, Olympism and Olympic education as well as enabled to reveal the peculiarities of moral values and absorb how sport activity influences moral attitudes and culture. The aim of the study was to investigate and identify Lithuanian students’ attitudes towards noble and honourable sport contest and the values that are developed in sports. We have interviewed 218 students from 16 higher education schools of Lithuania for the research. The research group was chosen randomly as the questionnaire was distributed in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, and Šiauliai higher education schools. The main part is devoted to investigate students’ attitudes towards noble and honourable sport struggle, comparing those attitudes of the ones’, involved in physical activity and having Olympic event or lectures about Olympism values and norms, with other universities students’ presented data. After receiving the results, we can make a comparison of students’ opinions on honourable and noble sport fight. In this research, quantitative and qualitative analyses have been accomplished. For the statistical procedures, there was the SPSS 15 for Windows via the setting used. For the analysis of quantitative research data, various statistical analysis methods were employed as well. Inside compatibility of questionnaire scales was determined by counting the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Students’ attitudes towards the values of Olympic structure were estimated using the essential components of extraction and Varimax factor rotation method. Differences were considered statistically reliable at the maximum of 5% of the error (p < 0.05). [...].