Olympia and the Olympic Games

Sample Solution

The site of Olympia is located in the western Peloponnese region of Greece. It was an important religious and political centre in Ancient Greece, associated with many important myths and gods, including Zeus and Hera. The site has been controlled by various rulers throughout its history - from the Mycenaeans to the Romans - however since 8th century BC it has been a sanctuary for the worship of Zeus. Religious activities at Olympia are thought to have started as early as 1000BC when animal sacrifice was common practice at festivals celebrated here in honour of Zeus. These rituals evolved over time into grandiose public celebrations such as the Olympic Games which began in 776BC and were held every four years until 393AD (when they were banned by Christian Byzantine Emperor Theodosius).  

Joint pretend play is a very early context in which children learn how to put aside empirical thinking and accept the given premises through analytical thinking. Analytic thinking is a type of critical thinking, in which a person articulates, conceptualizes or solves problems by making decisions that are sensible given the available premises (Ref). In joint pretend play, children accept the initiator’s instruction and enter an imaginative world which do not necessarily contain any empirical reality. Nevertheless, they adopt such a given worldview to imagine themselves in that same situation and act vis-a-vis that imaginary situation. This serves a stepstone for children’s school learning because school imparts knowledge in a formal analytical structure, and teachers teach knowledge that is beyond children’s empirical understanding (Harris, 2000). Gradually, children perceive teachers as taking up the didactic role while they themselves as adopting the student role.

Perspective Taking

Perspective-taking is defined as the process by which an individual views a situation from another’s point-of-view. Burns and Brainerd (1979) examined if constructive and dramatic plays bring improvements on perspective taking for preschool children. 51 children with the average age of 4 years and 10 months who were attending day care center were divided into three groups: the constructive play experimental group, the dramatic play experimental group, and the control group respectively. The constructive group had 10 play sessions, which were to build certain objects with materials provided in small groups. The first session’s project was suggested by the experimenter, but the consecutive sessions’ projects were decided by the children. For the dramatic play group, the children were to choose a character after the experimenter explained the theme of the play of each session. The control group did not have any activities other than pretest and posttest which were administered at the same time as the experimental groups. Pretest consisted of three different types of perspective tasks: one perceptual task, two cognitive tasks, and two affective tasks. For perceptual task, the children were told to turn a tray with some characters on it to the way how the experimenter is seeing it. For cognitive task, some objects such as flower, tie, socks, doll, and purse were spreaded on a table and the children were asked to pick an appropriate birthday present for mom, dad, teacher, and friend. During the affective tas