Teach Secondary 13.5

TEACH THEM ABOUT... HOWTHE OLYMPICS CAN RELATE TO GEOGRAPHY Needto know For some time now, arts subject specialists have been expressing concern over the apparent sidelining of their disciplines at KS3 andKS4.A‘Report Card’ issuedbythe Cultural Learning Alliance has nowsought to put some numbers on those suspicions, and found that there’s been a 42%decline in the number of arts-relatedGCSE entries since 2010. The report points to the introduction of EBacc and the rapid academisation programme as key factors in an apparent deprioritisation of arts education, noting that there are now 15,030 fewer full- or part-time teachers of arts subjects in English schools compared to 14years ago, and that over 40%of schools no longer enter any students for music anddramaGCSEs. Proposals put forwardbytheCLA to remedythis include setting aminimum4-hourweeklyarts entitlement up to the end of KS3; establishing new‘purposes’ for education built around several ‘core and equal curriculumareas’ (including one for‘Expressive Arts’) and abandoning the EBacc. Commenting on the findingswas formerASCLgeneral secretary Geoff Barton: “ At atimewhen far toomany childrenandyoung peopleappear tobe turning their backs onautilitarianmodel of education,now is the opportunity – aheadofageneral election – to move thearts in fromthemargins, tomake themmatteragain, before it’s too late. ” 82% of teachers do not believe that teaching is competitive with other professions in terms of pay and rewards Source: NASUWT’s‘Big QuestionSurvey’conducted in May-June2024 The Paris Summer Olympic Games will commence on 26th July, bringing together some 10,500 athletes fromover 200 nations, who will take part in 32 separate sports. The Olympics can, of course, provide numerous opportunities for geography lessons – from activities based around categorising and comparing countries, to studying the impact of geopolitics on the wider globalisation of sport. COMPARING COUNTRIES The wider public will be closely following Great Britain’s successes on the medals table, but geographers can add some illuminating context to this, by comparing relative medal success against other global indicators, such as wealth or population size, as shown in Table 1 below. GLOBALTOP 5S The USA and China appear in all three ‘Global Top 5s’, yet despite India’s GDP and population size, it hasn’t achieved comparable medal success. Geographers can, and should ask why. Further statistical tests can be used to explore whether medal tables are ‘fair’, such as a resource based on the 2012 Games. In this alternative medals table (see opposite column) –where the USA falls to 15th place – the number of medals is compared per capita wealth –which promotes Kenya, Ukraine and Uganda to create a new top 5. Top 5s by GDP/capita Medals GDP/capita (US$) China 88 10,500 Russia 71 10,295 Kenya 10 1,838 Ukraine 19 3,525 Uganda 4 817 The Olympics presents sport as a unifying force, with a professed aim to “ Promote a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity .” You could therefore look tomembers of the IOC’s Refugee Olympic Team for some possible KS3migration case studies, such as the Syrian swimmer AlaaMaso, or the Cameroonian Boxer Cindy Ngamba. ALevel geographers couldmeanwhile draw on the Olympics for their Global Systems units, exploring how host nations present a distinct image of themselves to the world, and how geopolitical alliances can impact upon the Games. Following the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, for example, the US and some other nations boycotted theMoscow 1980 games. In turn, the USSR and its allies then boycotted the 1984 Olympics held in Los Angeles. Geopolitical factors continue to be felt to this day. The 2024 Paris Summer Games will see some Russian and Belarusian athletes compete as ‘individual neutral athletes’, but only if they haven’t expressed support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. So, as we watch all those elite athletes, let’s mine that rich seamof comparative geographic data that will be presented to us. STEVE BRACE IS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION; FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT GEOGRAPHY.ORG.UK Medals Ranking (2020 Olympics) USA 113 USA $25.43 India 1.43 China 88 China $14.72 China 1.42 Russia 71 Japan $4.25 USA 0.34 GB&NI 65 Germany $3.85 Indonesia 0.28 Japan 58 India $3.41 Pakistan 0.24 Gross Domestic Product (2024, $trillions) Population (2023, billions) Table 1 94 teachwire.net/secondary