BEIJING -- "Who is the founder of the modern Olympic Games?" asked a teacher at an Olympic quiz held recently at the Beijing No.9 middle school.
"Pierre de Coubertin!" came the chorused reply from the students.
Organizers of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, concerned about ignorance of the Olympics in China, have been promoting the Olympic Movement by providing approximately 400 million young people in more than 400,000 schools across the country with Olympic education in run-up to the Beijing Games.
A series of textbooks were handed out, introducing students to the history of the Olympic Games, the various Olympic sports and the rules of play, Olympic symbols and the role of the Olympic Movement as a contributor to international peace and friendship. Photography, painting, poetry, calligraphy and foreign-language speech contests are further means used to promote Olympics in schools.
More than 550 elementary and secondary schools across China have been officially recognized as model schools for Olympic education, and for those who reject the transcendence of Olympic ideals, a visit to any of these schools provides a reality check.
At the Bai Jia Zhuang elementary school in Beijing's Chaoyang district, every corridor is filled with a palpable sense of pride as the children, aged seven to 12, move chirpily between their English, music and sports classes - a curriculum that attests to a fundamental freedom of choice.
At Beijing Yangfangdian Central Primary school, a teacher gave out a unique extra-curricular homework assignment: count the gold medals that China grabbed in the Athens Olympic Games and figure out that percentage in the total number of gold medals awarded during those Olympics. That's not such a difficult question, but the assigning teacher needed to rack her brains before drafting her lesson plan.
To make a cup of muddy water clean is easy for Beijing Dongzhimen Middle School students. They used simple tools to filter the water. The experience gave the pupils food for thought: why not filter the used water at home and reuse it to save running water?
With an Olympic focus added to their curriculums, teachers and students found their school life more interesting.
"There are two main goals for our students to learn in this program," said Xu Xiaoyan, who teaches at Yangfangdian elementary school.
"First is sportsmanship of the athletes, such as going-ahead and striving until the last second.
"The other one is how they can contribute to the 2008 Olympics. They can help protect the environment, save water and electricity and be friendly to foreign visitors."
"I had no idea about the Olympics at all when Beijing won the Olympics bid," said 12-year-old Wang Yiqian. "But the Olympic education activities made me feel extremely proud of my country as the host of the games, and now my classmates and I all hope to contribute to the Olympic Games."
Another element of Olympic education is the "Heart-to-Heart" initiative, which links 203 Chinese schools to schools within a specific country represented by an NOC. By "adopting" a sister school in a specific country, the Chinese students share ideas and experiences with their new friends across the globe.
"This initiative will leave a high-level educational legacy to China," BOCOG executive vice president Li Binghua said last August after watching a Chinese and Greek Folk Sports Show presented by the students from Beijing No. 4 High School and their Greek sister school.
In addition, the 200 model schools in Beijing are charged with welcoming foreign teams when they arrive this summer, even cheering for them against Chinese athletes and raising their NOC flags at ceremonies.
