The 2024 Paris Olympics were an inspiration.
Naturally, you might assume I’m going to write something about the inspiring
physical and mental achievements of international athletes – that follows in a
few minutes. Bear with me as I remark on what in our house was perceived as
equally remarkable achievements by way of presentations on the part of the host
city and country. They earned gold in professionalism.
I’ve not been to Paris and in all
likelihood never will be. That says as much about my age and willingness to
travel so far (physically and linguistically) as about my growing aversion to urban
spaces in general. The longer I live the less patience I have for metropolises such
as Paris, and likewise my linguistic self-patience and acuity.
The following aside says a lot
about my ambivalence toward Paris. More than twenty years ago I was working
toward my master’s degree in communication and culture. One of the courses I
subscribed to was in the use of digital media, under the tutelage of my friend
david green (lower case intentional). With david I practised how to better
manipulate images and to use such digital applications. I used the city of
Paris as a subject and created an animated street map of the city replacing much
of its iconic architecture with a suitably sized image of the Eiffel Tower. The
result was a touristic map of a dozen or more Eiffel Towers, perhaps the city’s
most iconic visual presence.
That was a cheeky thing to do – disrespectful even – but
serves to reinforce my less-than-respectful ambivalence toward that “city of
love.” The city that loves itself.
No matter what impressions one
might harbour for Paris and France, surely the way the Olympics were
orchestrated and presented must have impressed. For the 2024 Paris summer and paralympic games, the city
didn’t merely attempt to ride the coattails of its world-famous attractions –
it actually used them as venues. Whether or not it’s my inattention to such
things, I cannot say, but I do not recall any previous summer Olympics incorporating
existing architecture to the same degree. Without belabouring the point,
I mark that previous city-state hosts concentrated on using the Games to
supplement local cultural and sports infrastructure with new multi-billion-dollar
structures, whereas Paris used the Olympics to highlight its myriad cultural treasures.
Yes, the addition of temporary seating, staging,
sand and security were necessary (a beach on the doorstep of Arc de Triomphe?
Brilliant.) As international athletes flexed their muscles, Paris flexed its cultural
muscle.
Wow. Just wow. Well done, Paris! Bravo, France (go Canada
go).
~~
Delighted as we were with the Olympics and Paris, both
were eclipsed by the Paralympics; a cannot adequately express how delightful
they were. The superhuman athleticism of body, mind and spirit was surpassed
only by the boundless energy, determination and joy exhibited by the para-athletes
and their dedication to their respective endeavours. Their tears of pride,
relief and even defiance were intoxicating. Bravo! I say.
Those performances led me to contemplate our performance
as a wider society with respect to the various so-called infirmities of those
athletes. Oddly enough – to my old eyes – groups of competitors often appeared
to be physically mismatched. For lack of knowledge and imagination we couldn’t
really get a handle on the seemingly disparate categories that “qualified”
individual athletes for that particular physical discipline.
Clearly, each is “rated” in an inclusive way according to
their “fitness” and “suitability” for that event. (Apologies if I’m
misrepresenting or diminishing the exercise.) The categories are indecipherable
to me (I’d like to learn more), but the simple fact remains that for each event
people of different ability are encouraged and trained and coached to be the
best they can be. To witness the smiles and tears of emotion of those people as
they did their very best and pursued their respective goals was inspiring – and
thought-provoking.
Obviously, the human and athletic potentials of each
individual is identified and taken into account in an effort to make it
possible for them to strive for the podium – and much more. I hope it is
evident that it is not my intention to inadvertently diminish any individual
achievement in this or any sphere. On the contrary, I hope it is clear that I
celebrate each.
~~
With the Paralympics in mind, let us consider for the
moment a bigger picture. Why can we not unlock (unleash?) the human potentials
of each and every individual in wider society as have the parents, coaches and co-participants
to get them to Paris? For I-don’t-know-how-long, society has concentrated its
efforts on behalf of those who contribute to an apparently untenable version of
potentiality by focusing on the material at the expense of – as I see it – true
value.
Certainly, we invest scads of tax dollars on supposedly
inclusive education, grudgingly it sometimes seems. Yet our world remains
fraught with inequalities. I am the farthest thing from athletic. I don’t even
like to watch team sports – except for the Olympics – but I very much
appreciate and even applaud individuals in sports – or, rather, individual
sports such as skiing and track-and-field, for instance.
It seems to me that over the course of my lifetime team
sports have denigrated the notion of “sports.” While it is possible, even
likely, that my aversion to team sports parallels my woeful lack of
athleticism, the Paralympics brought me to reflect more sincerely on the
societal benefits of sport-as-health. At the risk of alienating readers, I must
emphasize that for me sports is not about the goal of competition (winning),
but about physical and mental heath. Good health.
I can’t tell you how beneficial to my overall health it
was to rediscover hiking, skiing and snowshoeing in my late fifties (a couple
of decades ago), and just in time. The coordination of eyes, ears and muscles
had the effect of improving my mental health too.
“Here’s to your health” – love, Plato.
Gosh, this rant is much longer than my usual. Stay with me,
I do have a point.
Now and again, I find it helps to
recall old ideas. Such reviews don’t stifle progress, whatever that is, or
anything progressive, but they can remind us how important it is to consider
other perspectives, even if thought to be out-of-date or out-of-touch. So, I’m
going to once again recall Plato, and reflect on his thoughts about athletics
and education (as I recall them).
In his Republic, Plato
envisions that children’s education for the first dozen or so years of
development should be in the form of play. What’s that? Play!? A pun on the
name Plato perhaps? But education is serious business! It’s what
prepares us for the real world out there, right? Education prepares us for
earning a living and paying taxes, making babies and playing golf – for
becoming “productive” members of society. That’s hardly playing.
In Plato’s estimation, play builds
up a “store” of energy and, as a result, such good health will be strengthened
in them that it will be the foundation of their lifelong health and
citizenship.
By “play,” we learn, Plato meant
primarily sports – running, jumping, energetic and joyful physicality. He did not
– or so it’s been interpreted – I repeat, he did not mean mopping up the
field of competition with your opponents’ innards and/or their dignity. He
simply meant physical activity to get and keep the body strong. In this manner,
a great “store” of health and energy will be developed in them that defines a
healthy citizenry and nation for the longer term.
A ”store” of health. What does that
mean? It doesn’t mean a retail store. Though sometimes you could be forgiven
for interpreting it that way.
Over the span of my post-teenage
years, I have asserted to anyone who listens – any captive audience – that it
is a misnomer to refer to our health industry as anything but that: an
industry. Maybe it should be framed as the illness industry, or illness care,
but currently it does not seem to be about our health at all. It’s about repair.
Maybe that’s what we should call it: health repair. Hmm, that doesn’t work
either, for while we can repair broken bones, we cannot necessarily repair
broken health, especially if there was a lack of health in the first place. If
we can be physically healthy and resilient lifelong, we wouldn’t clog up the
waiting rooms in search of new prescriptions.
People might counter that we ought
not to and cannot fault people for shortcomings in their own health. That’s
partly true, of course, provided they have been encouraged and coached and
helped to be healthy in the first place. And we’re not going to reverse things
overnight. School programs are not going to churn out legions of ballerinas,
hockey stars or modern-day Picassos in every generation – though recollecting
some artworks in grade-school
exhibits that I’ve previously written about, maybe every child is a
budding Picasso.
I suppose that Plato might have had
more support for his vision if he had mentioned that healthy (sporting)
youngsters also grow to be healthy soldiers. If he’d made his essay about
healthy armies to be mobilized by potentates, he may have been heeded. But
that’s another think.
If we can believe our history
lessons, Plato’s preferred tutorials were small groups of healthy young minds
sitting around him in olive groves. I often wonder about those classes and
about that learning environment, conveniently located as they were in a warm
climate that enabled people to gather out-of-doors. Enclosed buildings of the
day were better used as family domiciles, whereas larger venues like coliseums
were for larger sporting events, such as chariot races and executions. Of
course, philosophical ministering can get you in a lot of hot water and things do not always end well for them. At least such sentences were commuted
quickly, and not by a lingering death in an overcrowded hospital ward.
Erecting school buildings to house
classes and to finance those buildings here in frosty northern climes, you need
to find efficiencies. Such efficiencies include, of course, overheads like
heat, lights and teachers, so we cram 30+ youngsters into a climate-controlled
room under the tutelage of a teacher who makes the best of that situation and who
rises to the challenge of perpetuating the modern continuum of learning (and
thus of earning).
In future rant, maybe I’ll pen something
about class sizes, and cursive writing and second languages. But I digress. Stay
tuned.
Will we never learn (pun intended)?
Coliseums and classrooms do have similarities, but I wish to address the latter
from a slightly different perspective. What coliseums and classrooms have in
common is competition, but not necessarily healthy competition which
comes in the form of physical play.
“Play” can of course include
competition. Through competition people strive to extend their bodily
boundaries in pursuit of new levels of endeavour. The Olympics and Paralympics
demonstrated for me that we can compete, strive for excellence, even win a race,
all in celebration of the personal achievements of competitors.
It’s true that many podium
achievers wrap themselves in their national flag in an apparent display of
national pride, but I perceive this parade as a nod to their sponsors.
On the field of play, competition can
also be framed in the spirit of healthy physical activity, which in itself is a
form of learning, learning by the body. We seem to engage competitively with
each other off the field as well – in the classroom, for example. In some
circles, the field of play is a joyful place where physical exertion and friendly
competition are their own rewards. In a classroom of thirty pupils of varied
abilities, competition can be as debilitating as it is exhilarating.
In a classroom of 30-plus
competitors there is no way that every learning style, no way that interests
and abilities can be effectively coached to fulfillment. Add in homeroom
hormones and … need I say more?
So, what should the Paralympics
teach us (aside from humility)? For one thing, they teach us that alternative
styles of playing and learning and just plain interacting can be applied to
everyone. They teach us that everyone has value, has gifts that can be nurtured
and unleashed to personal success – to be healthy and happy human beings who
celebrate the personal successes of all.
=30=
