Olympic pedagogy as a theory of development of ethical and humanistic values in education

Abstract

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.