Six categories of special sports skills

The "Compulsory Education Sports and Health Curriculum Standards" issued by the Ministry of Education in 2022 clearly define six types of special sports skills, namely ball sports, track and field sports, gymnastics sports, water or ice and snow sports, traditional Chinese sports, and emerging sports. They are the core framework of special sports teaching in the current compulsory education stage.

In the past two years, I followed the sports teaching and research team to more than 20 primary and secondary schools to conduct curriculum implementation research. I found that these six types of skills seem to be an official framework with clear classifications. In actual implementation, each has its own way of playing and has its own controversies. It is far from being summarized by a few lines in the document.

Last week, I attended a ball game class at a nine-year regular school in Shunyi. They split the ball game class for younger students into half three-person basketball and half fun dodge ball. At the teaching seminar, the old teacher slammed the table on the spot: "I just played around without even practicing the dribbling posture. In the end, I didn't learn anything solid." The young physical education teacher who just graduated was also dissatisfied: "The first priority is to make the children willing to run to the playground. Can't you correct the postures later?" Now they have piloted a control class. After half a year, the proportion of the class that played dodgeball and then took the initiative to sign up for the basketball interest class was 30% higher than the class that purely practiced basic skills. However, the standard of basic movements is indeed a bit lower. No one can convince anyone with the two arguments, so we can only observe.

When it comes to the basics of sports, no one can avoid track and field sports. When many people hear about track and field, they think of the fear of being dominated by the 800 meters and 1,000 meters when they were in school. They think it is just like running and jumping and shooting. In fact, the track and field category in the curriculum has already included orienteering, obstacle running, and fancy rope skipping. A physical education researcher in one district has always insisted that "track and field is the mother of all sports. Core strength, explosive power, and endurance all come from here, and must account for at least 20% of special courses." However, many parents have expressed their opinions, saying that their children have bad knees and are easily injured if they run every day. I met a little boy in fourth grade who used to count down the 800m test every time and cried and refused to go to physical education class. Later, the school opened an orienteering class. Now he takes the initiative to drag his parents to find a spot in the country park on weekends. In half a year, his 800m score has improved by more than a minute, and he has accumulated a drawer of punch-in medals.

Compared with the "down-to-earth" nature of track and field, gymnastics is now in a bit of a "dilemma." Two years ago, there was a school where a child lost his grip and fell on his arm while practicing the horizontal bar. The parents filed a lawsuit with the Education Bureau. Later, several schools in the surrounding area simply removed the horizontal and parallel bars. The only gymnastics classes left were radio exercises and cheerleading. I asked an old teacher who has taught gymnastics for 30 years, and he sighed and said, "Gymnastics trains core control and spatial perception, which cannot be supplemented by other sports. As long as the pads are thick enough and the teacher keeps an eye on them, it is not so easy to get injured." Nowadays, some schools have made a compromise. The younger students practice tumbling and balance beams on mats, and the older students only learn the basic movements of horizontal and parallel bars. They also bought a 30-centimeter-thick anti-fall mat, but there have been no safety issues.

The biggest regional differences are definitely water or ice and snow sports. Last winter I went to a suburban primary school in Harbin. They turned the playground into an ice rink. Each child had one skate class per week, and they had fun even if they fell bruised and swollen. As for schools in Shenzhen in the south, they directly transformed the on-campus swimming pool into a paddle board and kayaking venue, which is especially popular for classes in the summer. There are also inland places where there is neither sufficient water nor ice and snow conditions, so they engage in dry land curling and simulated ski machines. Some people complain that "these are not serious ice and snow/water sports, what is the use of these flower stands", but the local teaching and research teacher said, "It is better than skipping this category directly. Let the children know that there is such a project first. If you are interested, you can go to professional venues to learn." This is actually true.

The most popular in the past two years has to be Chinese traditional sports. Many schools offer martial arts classes, some teach simplified martial arts exercises, some invite inheritors of intangible cultural heritage to teach authentic Xingyiquan and Tai Chi, and some offer classes on dragon and lion dancing, archery, and Chinese wrestling. There are also a lot of controversies. Some people say that simplified martial arts exercises are just a show and have lost the soul of traditional martial arts. Others say, "You teach Zhan Zhuang to stand for half an hour as soon as you start. It's weird if the child can sit still. Let's get started first." I saw a chubby little guy weighing 120 pounds. He had never failed in physical education before. He took a Chinese wrestling class and lost 20 pounds after practicing for half a year. He also won third place in the district children's wrestling competition. Now he walks with his head raised every day and is very energetic.

There is another category that is particularly popular with children, which is emerging sports. Frisbee, skateboarding, parkour, rock climbing, etc., many schools have opened Frisbee classes in the past two years. Some people say that Frisbee has no unified rules and is easy to get injured. Others say that Frisbee has a low threshold, and boys and girls can play together and practice coordination. My friend’s junior high school opened a skateboarding class. At first, parents opposed it, feeling that it was “unprofessional” and “easy to fall.” Later, the children won several awards in city skateboarding competitions, and two children received national level three athlete certificates, and parents gradually accepted it. By the way, the curriculum standards specifically exclude sedentary e-sports from this category, and only include projects that can really make children move. This is quite sobering.

To be honest, these six types of skills have never been set as assessment thresholds for children. The essence is to give children with different personalities and hobbies more choices. You don’t have to be good at everything. Finding a sport that you are willing to stick to for a lifetime is more meaningful than getting a perfect score in the physical education exam. The last time I met a little girl in fifth grade, she had been practicing traditional archery for a year, and her eyes were much steadyer than those of her peers. Her mother said that she could not sit still in class before, but after practicing archery, her concentration was much better, and she even improved her math scores. You see, this is the original intention of developing these specialized skills.