Here are some suggestions for teachers and students:

Before Viewing

1. On paper or on screen ask students to make a map that indicates where each of the modern Olympic (summer) games have been held.

2. On paper or on screen ask students to indicate the locations of: Moscow, Petrograd (St.Petersburg, Leningrad), Vilnius, Lithuania, Georgia, Armenia, and Helsinki, Finland

3. Ask students to write a short 250 word description of what they think it would be like to be top Soviet athlete.

4. Review with students the basic facts about the Cold War.

5. Have students discuss the images they carry in their heads of Soviet athletes. The more artistically inclined should be asked to draw or to create their image of a Soviet sports man or sports woman.

1. Instruct students to consult in deep background the listing of Soviet medals won. Have students make a map on which the sites of all the Olympics in which the Soviets participated are indicated (1956-1988). Ask them to add a graphic representation of the medals won next to the geographic location of each venue.

2. Ask students to make a map of the travelling 1972 Canadian Soviet Hockey series.

3. Discuss with students the reasons why the Soviet's first win in Canada stunned that nation. Discuss with students reasons why the Soviet team lost matches when it returned to its home ice. (Some said it was not having fan support, because just 'big shots' received tickets, others argued that a mistake by the coach, allowing players who always played from their training camp base to live at home during the series distracted them with too much partying, carrying on etc.; some believe that the Canadians simply rose to the occasion).

4. Ask students to discuss what role they think sports play in society?

5. Discuss with students the Soviet's approach to supporting women's sports. Have students poll their mothers, grandmothers, and friends about how many sports existed for women before Title IX was enacted.

6. Have students conduct a survey of six adults over 50 years old. What were their impressions of Soviet competitors in the Olympics? How did they explain the Soviet successes?

7. Ask students to read the Olga Korbut interviews. Ask them to write a short essay on the price of success she paid to stay the person she wanted to be.

8. How should international sports teams be funded. Ask the students to compose a list of the best ideas that combine the American and the Soviet Union's approaches to sports.

9. Ask students to discuss what theme, what story line's they think are most appropriate for Olympic competition now that the Cold War is over.

10. Have students compile a list of the most important features of how the old Soviet sports system worked. Next to it on a blackboard solicit suggestions for how Russia might create a new sports system.

11. With sports competition as a subject ask the students to discuss the comparative advantages and disadvantages open and closed societies have in mustering international sports teams.

12. Ask students to compose a letter to those in charge of broadcasting the next Olympic games about how to improve their coverage of contestants coming from the former Soviet Union.

13. Have students construct a monopoly-like board game called Soviet Sports.

14. Ask students interested in drama and writing to write a one act play about Olga Korbut. Have the authors read their scripts to the class.

15. Ask students to study the propaganda train in the episode of RED FILES on Propaganda and the photographs of other similar trains that accompany the investigative assets. Students should then draw or paint a poster in the revolutionary-propagandist style for a show "US-USSR Sports Battles." For extra-credit ask students to draw a warning poster about the dangers of the Soviet way of sports to hang in their school gymnasium or students can draw a poster in revolutionary-propaganda style about the US Women's Soccer Team that won the World Cup this past summer.

Standards

These suggested questions help educators move towards meeting national standards. Consult:

http://www.mcrel.org/standards-benchmarks/

Physical Education Standards

5. Understands the social and personal responsibility associated with participation in physical activity

Civics Standards

What are the Roles of the Citizen in American Democracy?

25. Understands issues regarding personal, political, and economic rights
26. Understands issues regarding the proper scope and limits of rights and the relationships among personal, political, and economic rights
27. Understands how certain character traits enhance citizens' ability to fulfill personal and civic responsibilities
28. Understands how participation in civic and political life can help citizens attain individual and public goals

What is Government and What Should it Do?

1. Understands ideas about civic life, politics, and government
2. Understands the essential characteristics of limited and unlimited governments
3. Understands the sources, purposes, and functions of law, and the importance of the rule of law for the protection of individual rights and the common good

What is the Relationship of the United States to Other Nations and to World Affairs?

22. Understands how the world is organized politically into nation-states, how nation-states interact with one another, and issues surrounding U.S. foreign policy
23. Understands the impact of significant political and nonpolitical developments on the United States and other nations