Possible Learning Experiences

Developing a Positive and Responsible Attitude to Their Own Well-being

During the learning activities, students can be encouraged to consider this statement about the Olympic motto:

The Olympic motto, "Citius, altius, fortius" (Faster, higher, stronger), invites people to excel in the spirit of friendship, unity, and fair play.

Possible Learning Activities

What Do I Think and Why?

The first activity follows a social inquiry model with its six stages.

1. Orientation to the case
Introduce students to the idea that all people have a variety of attitudes and values associated with sport and that these are constructed from diverse influences and experiences. We can learn from each other and from understanding what influences us. You may wish to use newspaper images, video clips, stories, personal experiences, the Internet, or the Olympic motto to focus students' attention on this concept.

2. Identifying the issues
Students brainstorm some of the attitudes that people may have towards success, achievement, and disappointment.

3. Taking a position

Students identify where they personally stand on value statements that relate to sport. Place two signs, labelled "Disagree" and "Agree", at opposite ends of a room. Students can choose a place on the continuum according to what they think about the following statements:

"Winning isn't everything – it's the only thing."

"Nice people finish last."

"It's not whether you win or lose – it's how you play the game."

"If you play your best, you're a winner every time."

"In order for someone to win, someone else must lose."

"Winning needs no excuse. Losing has all the excuses in the world."

"Success is not in never failing but in rising every time you fail."

"No-one remembers who came second."

4. Exploring the stance underlying the positions taken
Encourage students to consider, in pairs or groups, why and how they have arrived at their particular position on the continuum, sharing their reasons and justifying their attitudes. They need to consider whether their position is consistent with or different from the Olympic ideals, the Olympic motto, and other social and cultural influences. Your role is to engage the class in discussion, challenge student positions, and introduce issues of power, equity, justice, and ethics through carefully planned questioning.

5. Refining and qualifying the position
Repeat the continuum exercise, encouraging students to change their position if their attitude has altered. Give them the opportunity to comment on the thinking that has led them to reach their new position.

6. Testing assumptions about facts, definitions, and consequences
Focus discussion on the Olympic motto and the students' own value statements. Encourage the students to identify possible inconsistencies between the value statements and to examine some consequences of behaviour based on those values.

Further Activities

• After this activity, each student could reflect on how their own position relates to the Olympic Creed (below) in the light of their discussions about attitudes and values that relate to success, achievement, and disappointment.

• They could go on to consider how their own attitudes towards success, achievement, and disappointment can influence their own well-being and that of others and to think of ways in which actions based on particular attitudes could positively influence their school, community, and society.
  
  
• Students could consider how their attitudes link to the Olympic ideals and think of ways in which including these ideals in their everyday life could contribute positively to their personal well-being and the hauora of their community.

The Truce "Ekecheiria" is the Olympic truce, which originated in Greece in the ninth century BC. The ancient Olympic Games had a truce period that lasted for seven days before and after the Games, and during this truce period, all fighting ceased. The Olympic truce represents the ideals of tolerance, friendship, and respect for others. Nowadays, before each Olympic Games celebration begins, the General Assembly of the United Nations urges all its member states to observe the Olympic truce, during the celebration and beyond, as a contribution to global peace and understanding.

• In the context of a class competition, students could discuss how their attitudes towards success, achievement, and disappointment were mirrored by their practices (behaviours). They could investigate and describe the influences that affect people's behaviours and attitudes during competitions. Siedentop's Sport Education Model (refer to Physical Education Teaching and the Curriculum Strategies for Grades 5–12 by D. Siedentop et al.) could be useful for this. Students could consider how the Olympic ideals (particularly the ideal of "the joy found in effort") and the Olympic motto were demonstrated during their competition and how these ideals contributed to positive outcomes.
  
  
• The students could read stories like Jillian Sullivan's "Speech Final" and Norman Bilbrough's "Doing a Lovelock" and gather ideas about how young people may feel, think, and behave before and during competitions. (These stories are in Choices series books, so multiple copies have been sent to schools with year 9–10 students.) The students could focus on how people can gain feelings of self-worth by striving for personal success. They could identify and discuss instances of this happening in the context of the stories.

• Following a team or group activity, students could identify the consequences when there are differences in team members' attitudes towards success, achievement, and disappointment.
  
  
• While observing a sporting event (for example, an interschool or interclass competition), students could identify and record the ways in which competitors' and supporters' behaviours demonstrate particular attitudes about success, achievement, and disappointment. They could then consider and discuss what influences help form these attitudes and values and how the attitudes and values affect a person's (or a group's) sense of self-worth.