Education and olympism: coubertin’s unfinished symphony
Parte de Olympism and Olympic Education . páginas 43 - 55
Resumo
Though Baron Pierre de Coubertin is most widely known as the founder of the modern Olympic Games and Olympic Movement, it is important to point out that he was also a thinker, lecturer, and author who had written widely on history and social policy, especially with a focus on sport3 and education in general, as well as on physical education and education within Olympism. Part of his written heritage is fve volumes of memoirs,4 in which he describes his memories and views on contemporary events and on various aspects of Olympism, including his thoughts on its present and future. This study draws on the last volume of Coubertin’s memoirs, which is called The Unfnished Symphony. This text, which Coubertin wrote towards the end of his life, was only in its early stages when he died, and therefore it is quite short. The whole text was supposed to focus on (Olympic) education, but what is left for us is just an introductory chapter. Nevertheless, even the fragment that we have can help us to pause and think again about Olympism with respect to education, its development, and its future – especially now, more than 85 years after the death of its founder, when sport is being repeatedly compromised by various kinds of threats to its integrity. The idea of succession and of the further development of Olympism was clearly of concern to Coubertin as early as in 1936: “[…] what worries me most is the difculty of fnding those who will take over and continue the work I started. To my mind, this is the most important point” (Coubertin, 2000g, p. 752).
