Prof. Maurice Piéron – In Memoriam
Prof. Em. Maurice Piéron passed away on July 31st, at the age of 88. He made his academic career at the University of Liege, Belgium, from 1962 to 2002. As his institution was one of the 11 AIESEP founder members, he became Secretary General in 1966, a position he occupied until 1998, then again between 2004 and 2006. He was also Vice-President from 1998 to 2006.
He discovered the field of the analysis of teaching in PE in 1975 and immediately perceived the interest of that new domain that would provide a scientific orientation to a traditionally “artistic” field. The first paper was published in 1976 in the AIESEP Yearbook. With the agreement and support of some colleagues from Europe and North-America, Maurice Piéron proposed that the 1977 Conference sponsored by the AIESEP and the FIEP should highlight a “Meeting of Experts” dealing with Sport Pedagogy. He was, thus, bringing about a new orientation within the AIESEP. The same year, all the efforts made by the AIESEP Board to give a scientific recognition to the AIESEP were rewarded when the President of the IOC, J.A. Samaranch, granted the AIESEP a subsidy aiming at providing the Association with the necessary funding to award an important Prize.
ln 1979, Maurice Piéron stayed at the Teachers College (Columbia University, New York) discovering the interest of video data banks. The focus was clearly set on the multidimensional observation of teaching behaviours. The next year, after a visit to the Ohio State University, he began to move from a descriptive approach to a correlational step laying on the process-product paradigm, developing a research study focused on the effectiveness of the teaching of physical and sporting activities, the teachers and pupils behaviours and their interactions. In 1982, as Professor of Sport Pedagogy at the University of Liège, he was invited by the Technical University of Lisbon (Portugal) to set up a PE Masters Course and a Doctorate Degree Programme. Moreover, he published a book which became a mark for the Belgian PE teachers and co-edited the Proceedings of the AIESEP Boston World. One year later, he was also involved in the launching of a Masters and a Doctorate Degree Programme in Spain and invited to coordinate the Proceedings of the Sport Pedagogy section of the Pre-Olympic Scientific Congress in Eugene (Oregon, USA). At the end of the 80s, Maurice Piéron developed excellent relations with the South American continent he visited quite often (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Panama, Guatemala and Mexico). In the 90s’, he published books that definitely influenced PE in several countries.
Under Maurice Piéron’s leadership, the Sport Pedagogy history of AIESEP became very fruitful and led to the organization of more and more important conferences all around the world and the publication of rich proceedings and various resources (see the AIESEP Directory in the Members’ corner of the website).
The outcome of such a life devoted to research is evident in the more than 350 papers published in national journals in many countries, in international journals as well as in the proceedings of numerous international congresses. ln 1995, he was conferred the dignity of Doctor Honoris Causa by the Technical University of Lisbon. He was also granted several other foreign and international distinctions (William Anderson Award, USA; Sporting Officer Brazil; International Federation of Physical Education).
After his retirement in 2002, he pursued numerous international collaborations until just under ten years ago, as his health gradually declined. One of the final highlights of his career was certainly the ceremony held in his honor at the AIESEP symposium in Liège, Belgium, in February 2020. His emotion ran high as a spontaneous standing ovation recognized his decisive contribution to the field of sports education, in the broadest sense, both nationally and internationally.
