Jun Yamaguchi
Faculty of Education, Shizuoka University, Japan
Abstract: The school goal is “To be proactive.” Introducing Olympics and Paralympics Education will involve Oyama residents in education and help students to think and act proactively. Oyama, a city of 18,000, is located at the foot of Mt Fuji, 100 km west of Tokyo. It boasts beautiful nature and is famous for cultivating rice, wasabi and vegetables with snowmelt from Mt. Fuji. The people and the government are highly supportive of education activities. The school has a long history of 146 years and a school population of 150 students. It has been designated as an Olympics and Paralympics promotion school. Both the Oyama city hall and the Fuji International Speedway are located near the school. As the city is the finishing point of the bike road races for the Olympics and the Paralympics, the city government set up the Olympics Promotion Bureau of Oyama in preparation for the races. This represents a great opportunity to help students adopt a positive and proactive attitude toward the Olympics. Firstly, to boost students’ interest, we invited staff from the Olympics and Paralympics Bureau of Oyama to the school. They gave Olympics and Paralympics badges to the students and appointed them as Oyama city Olympics Ambassadors. Students were then divided into groups to do research on the Olympics and Paralympics. Some students conducted interviews with the Olympics Bureau of Oyama. Others read books in the school library and asked the authors questions through email. With the help of the Bureau, the students then decided to make a presentation about the Olympics and Paralympics during their school festival. The students and the Bureau also set up a booth together. They conducted quizzes and brought in a road bike simulator, which was a big hit. Lastly, the students collected small electronic devices for the Tokyo 2020 Medal Project. The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic games were collecting these to produce the Olympics and Paralympics medals. The students collected e-waste from the Oyama people and sent them to the Tokyo 2020 Committee. The Oyama government was impressed with the students’ actions and invited the students to the big ‘500-days-before Olympics’ event. The students promoted the Olympics and Paralympics to nearly 200 people, and this experience gave them a great sense of accomplishment. The school was very much appreciated by the city government and the Oyama people. They liked the students’ presentations and thanked them for their large role in promoting the Olympics and Paralympics.The students became more interested in the Olympics and Paralympics. The students experienced a sense of satisfaction after achieving a big goal together with the Oyama people.Only 4th grade students participated. To include all students, a greater variety of age-appropriate approaches will be needed.
Keywords: community support, Olympics & Paralympics, think and act proactively
