Olympism, physical education and attitudes and values: what do graduating teachers in Aotearoa, New Zealand know and understand?

ABSTRACT

Attitudes and values (A + V) are an important component of the New Zealand physical education (PE) curriculum. These A + V have a strong synergy with the philosophy of Olympism and New Zealand is recognised as one of the few countries to link these constructs in a national curriculum statement. While these two constructs are linked, little is known about graduating teachers’ knowledge of them. This study set out to understand the graduating teachers’ knowledge of A + V in the national PE curriculum and that of Olympism. The study identified that there was variability between primary and secondary students’ knowledge of the curriculum’s A + V and the philosophy of Olympism. Conclusions include the suggestion that there are some inadequacies that need addressing in present Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs. It recommends that a more systematic approach be adopted drawing on a critical tradition to address the explicit teaching of combining A + V and the philosophy of Olympism within present ITE PE programs.

KEYWORDS:

• Physical education
• attitudes and values
• Olympism
• criticality

Acknowledgement

This work is a result of a research grant provided by the Olympic Education Commission of the New Zealand Olympic Committee.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on Contributors

Ian Culpan is currently the director of the New Zealand Centre for Olympic Studies and Professor in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Canterbury NZ. He has strong research interests in physical education teacher education, curriculum development, pedagogy, and Olympism education. He has a high international profile, led and directed many national initiatives in physical education and has published nationally and internationally.

Susannah (Susie) Stevens is a PhD candidate and is contract tutor at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand. She is the lead national subject advisor for Physical Education New Zealand (PENZ) and is a member of the New Zealand Centre for Olympic Studies. Susie received an international scholar award from the IOA for her paper Education and the Olympic Movement and was awarded first class honours for her Master of Education thesis Olympism practised through sport: An insight from youth.

Notes

1 A teachable moment is a term used in education where you stop teaching to draw attention to something that happened that very moment and use it to teach around a specific topic, even if that was not the intention of the lesson. For an example, a student falls during a race and another student stops racing to help them up. You could directly question students about the ethics of that decision and why the student decided to do that.