Lesson Plan: After Ben Johnson: The Dubin Inquiry

Lesson Plan

Before Exploring

Explain to students that after Ben Johnson was stripped of his medal at the 1988 Olympic Summer games, the Canadian government set up an inquiry process to hear testimony from athletes, coaches, doctors, and others about the use of performance-enhancing drugs among athletes. The judge in the case was Ontario Appeal Court Chief Justice Charles Dubin, so the inquiry came to be known as the Dubin Inquiry.

Review with the students the format of an interview, and focus especially on how an interview might be designed to gather information that the subject may not want to share.

Outline the Opportunity

Direct the students to view the clip "Charlie Francis comes clean" and to review the process used by the Dubin Inquiry to solicit information from athletes, coaches, and athletic sponsors. Then have students work in pairs to design a set of at least 15 interview questions that could be posed to each group to gather the necessary information about the use of performance-enhancing drugs in competitive sport in Canada. The questions should range from those that provide simple answers to those that result in more developed answers.

When students have written their interview questions, they will, as a class, set up and role-play a mock inquiry, using two or three of the sets of questions. Assign three students to act in the role of an athlete, a coach, and a corporate sponsor of athletic events. Offer some advice to the three students about how to respond to the questions posed by their peers.

Revisit and Reflect

Follow the mock inquiry with a class discussion regarding the merits of such an inquiry, what information they gathered through their version of it, and what might be done as a result of that information.

Extension

Have interested students research the results from the Dubin Inquiry and read parts of Charles Dubin's report. The students could create a one-page fact sheet about the highlights gathered throughout the inquiry, and present it to the class.