佐々木賢太郎の「生命を守る体育」について

Abstract

Kentaro Sasaki (1923-1994) was a teacher who established a new method of physical education using essay writing in the postwar period when new methods of physical education had been sought for. He is also known as a teacher who advocated “physical education for defending our lives”. The purpose of this research is to clarify the meaning of his slogan “defend our lives” and the process and his intention in advocating this approach. Sasaki began to advocate his ideas in the autumn of 1953. Based on materials written by him and the members of his kinan sakubun kyoiku kenkyukai (“Kinan Essay Writing Workshop”), I analyzed the following points: (1) the trend of study of the kinan sakubun kyoiku kenkyukai, (2) Sasaki's writing concerning “life”, and (3) his “physical education theory”. It was apparent that he used the term “defend our lives” in two ways: (1) in the sense of “building up our health”, and (2) in the sense of “making students more aware of factors that hinder health-building”. Moreover, I prove that his advocacy of “physical education for defending our lives” came not only from the fact that he was against “education for giving up our lives” (which had always been pointed out by many people), but also from his critisism of the fact that physical education and its teachers at that time did not defend the lives of children, in other words, from his criticism of the teaching method that he had been adopting.