At the beginning of the month, the topic "It is recommended that primary and secondary school students have a physical education class every day" topped the hot search on Weibo, attracting the attention of the whole network. Netizens have expressed their opinions, some feel that this can enhance students' physical fitness and improve learning efficiency, but some netizens see it as a "fantasy", at least the existing three physical education classes a week should be completed with quality and quantity, and then consider the improvement of class time.
Since the increase in the score of the physical education high school entrance examination, many regions have implemented the emphasis on physical education on campus, and the increase in class time is only the most intuitive manifestation of it. As teachers and students alike feel the changes brought about by this attention, new issues and new thoughts that should be noticed behind them are slowly emerging in the process.
Therefore, before discussing the proposal of "one physical education class a day", which has not yet been fully implemented, Krypton talked to middle school teachers and students in many regions across the country, hoping to understand the intuitive changes brought to secondary schools in various places in the past few years when the reform of the physical education high school entrance examination has been gradually implemented, as well as the current situation of physical education on campus after these changes occur.
The increase in the score of the high school entrance examination has driven the enthusiasm of all places, and physical education teachers are no longer "sick"
"The PE teacher is not feeling well this afternoon, so I will take you to this class. In every post-80s and 90s middle school memory, this is a sentence that does not need much explanation.
The sick leave requested from the teachers of various subjects also gave the physical education teachers the impression of being "frail and sickly". For a long time, there seems to be some kind of consensus between students and teachers, and the twice-weekly physical education class in the curriculum is always followed by a parenthesis marked with the words "Mathematics and English".
And all this has changed after the start of the high school entrance examination physical education.
In October 2020, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Comprehensively Strengthening and Improving School Physical Education in the New Era", which clearly stated that the physical education high school entrance examination should continue to sum up experience, increase the score year by year, and reach the level of the same score as the number of languages. According to the relevant personnel of physical education in Beijing, Hebei, Gansu and other places, it is also from this time that various localities have gradually introduced regulations and suggestions on the improvement of the score of the physical education high school examination, which has also directly led to the innovation of physical education teaching arrangements in primary and secondary schools.
A few days ago, the Beijing Municipal Education Commission pointed out in the just-released "Opinions on Doing a Good Job in the Enrollment of the 2024 Beijing Senior Secondary School Examination" that the total score of Beijing's high school entrance examination this year is 670 points, of which physical education and health subjects have increased from 40 points in the past to 50 points, and the examination items have also been adjusted from "8 out of 3" to "22 out of 4", adding 17 optional items such as rope skipping, standing long jump, table tennis, badminton, gymnastics, martial arts, and 100-meter swimming.
In response to this adjustment, three PE teachers from Beijing Chen Jinglun Middle School Branch told Krypton that the score improvement and the adjustment of the project have brought great changes to the overall physical education teaching environment. The addition of process test scores, combined with the richness of optional items, has made a good change in students' attitudes towards physical education exams, children are no longer practicing for exams, and a large part of them are really able to learn and like a sport that can be persisted in for a long time in more and more targeted physical education classes, and the final assessment is just to play what they are good at in 'actual combat'. 」
In fact, out of the importance of physical education, the branch of Chen Jinglun Middle School proposed the concept of one physical education class a day as early as 2012, and officially began to implement it in the junior high school in 2016. It is understood that there are 16 physical education teachers in the junior high school, with an average of about 15 classes per teacher per week, plus collective activities such as aerobics, and students can ensure that the time for sports in school every day is around 90 minutes.
In addition to Beijing, Hebei Province, which has also increased the score of the sports high school entrance examination this year, has also felt this top-down attention.
"Gone are the days when PE classes were occupied, and there is a consensus among all subject teachers that even if exams are approaching, they should ensure that students have time to 'change their minds' and return to the classroom to study more efficiently. Teacher Liu, who had just finished a physical education class, said.
Ms. Liu is currently working in Changli County No. 3 Middle School, Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province, with more than 20 years of teaching experience. According to him, more than 3,700 students in three grades of Changli No. 3 Middle School have at least three physical education classes a week, as well as a 30-minute recess every day for organized or spontaneous sports.
With the reform of the Hebei Provincial Physical Education High School Entrance Examination this year, the sports participation of the whole school has also been improved again. According to public information, starting from 2024, the score of the physical education and health subject examination in Hebei Province will be increased from the original 30 points to 50 points, which is composed of two parts: 20 points for the process assessment and 30 points for the on-site test.
Teacher Liu told Krypton, "Since the beginning of the past few years, we have clearly felt the importance of physical education teaching from all sides, and the improvement of test scores has intuitively made the teaching content of each semester and even each class more targeted, and students will also take the initiative to pay attention to their usual sports performance, instead of only making up for it before the high school entrance examination. 」
This new change brought about by this "healthy" test-taking is reflected in many areas in Hebei Province. A middle school teacher in Fengrun District, Tangshan City, said that this year, the school issued a notice in all grade groups, requiring a complete elimination of physical education classes, so as to better help students cope with the changes in the mode and proportion of physical education examinations.
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, the rise in sports high school entrance examination scores is already a national trend. According to Krypton statistics, since 2020, 19 provincial-level administrative regions and municipalities directly under the central government have successively issued documents, clearly stipulating that the increase in the score of the physical education high school examination ranges from 5 points to 50 points;
Located in the northeast of Longnan City, Gansu Province, although the resident population is only 240,000, it is centered on the Chengxian Sports School and sends outstanding athletes to Gansu Province and even the national team all year round. Starting from 2023, the Chengxian County Bureau of Culture, Sports, Radio, Television and Tourism has promulgated the "Implementation Plan for the Integration of Sports and Education in Chengdu County to Promote the Healthy Development of Adolescents", one of the main plans is to evenly distribute the athletes of the 9 permanent sports schools in Chengxian County to 10 ordinary schools in the pilot of sports and education integration in Chengxian County, and add hardware facilities required for daily teaching and training in the pilot schools.
Although Gansu Province and its subordinate city of Longnan still maintain the original score of 50 points in the sports high school entrance examination, the program also provides more training time and hardware facilities for athletes in sports schools, and at the same time brings a strong sports atmosphere to the campuses of these ordinary schools.
"In line with the training of the children in the sports school, we have set up corresponding interest classes in the school to encourage students to participate, discover sports talents, and to a certain extent, let all interested students have the opportunity to get in touch with more systematic and formal sports training. Teacher Liu from Chengxian No. 2 Ordinary Complete Middle School, one of the pilot schools, said.
In addition to the above-mentioned areas, middle school physical education teachers and students from Zhejiang, Yunnan and other places have affirmed the school's emphasis on physical education in recent years in the exchanges with Krypton.
But just like Hegel's law of "negation of negation" proposed in Logic, any new development is the unity of progress and zigzag. In the long-term process of the development of physical education, there are also many problems that are slightly obscure, but must be noted.
Strict standards have led to grade fraud, and reading in physical education class is a "good child"?
As the first province in the country to achieve a score of 100 points in the physical education high school entrance examination, Yunnan Province has attracted great attention to physical education, especially physical education examinations, since the release of the "Yunnan Provincial Physical Education Examination Plan for Junior High School Students" in November 2020.
The sharp increase in scores has made the whole province up to the provincial capital Kunming, down to various counties and dams to start to pay attention to sports, and it has indeed achieved the original intention of attaching importance to physical education to a certain extent - to improve the overall physical fitness of students. According to the official website of the Yunnan Provincial Sports Bureau, as of 2022, the excellent physical health rate of junior high school students in Yunnan Province has increased from 42.04% to 58.21% in two years, and it is still rising.
The good results and results are certainly encouraging, but they also make some of the problems that occur in the process minor and inconspicuous, or even deliberately covered up or ignored, and finally forgotten on the stadium and never to be mentioned again.
"The importance of schools is undeniable, but the vicious competition caused by the excessive emphasis in various regions has also given rise to the situation of fraudulent grades. Zhang Fu (pseudonym), a middle school physical education teacher from Baoshan City, Yunnan Province, revealed to Krypton.
According to the description of Teacher Zhang and some local students in Baoshan, the physical education examination has always been invigilated by each other in the same county, and the top-down emphasis and the improvement of scores have also made sports scores an excellent way for each county to perform upwards - the tacit understanding between schools has also occurred frequently.
"This doesn't mean that the students don't exercise well, but the fraud is real, and I and other teachers around me have the same sentiment about this drastic reform, which is 'unrealistic'. Teacher Zhang added.
Teacher Zhang also said that in addition to the increase in the proportion of grades, for many counties and middle schools in the dam district where the hardware facilities are not abundant, the swimming, gymnastics, and even volleyball, football and other optional items added since the reform of the physical education high school entrance examination in Yunnan Province do not have much significance, and the main activity area of many middle schools in the dam district is a field composed of several outdoor basketball courts, not even standard track and field and football fields, not to mention the swimming pool and gymnastics room.
However, perhaps noting the load problem since the reform, Yunnan Province issued a relevant notice in March last year to adjust the more difficult long-distance running test form in the physical education part of the high school entrance examination: the junior high school schools use physical education classes or extracurricular physical exercise time to organize students to use the form of "brisk walking" or "jogging" to carry out the evaluation of 1000 meters (men) and 800 meters (women) projects. The total number of times in the eighth grade is not less than 20 times, and the total number of times in the ninth grade is not less than 12 times.
Source: Visual China
In addition to the problems caused by the changes related to exams, many situations that are worth discussing are also happening in the daily learning life of children.
A parent of a middle school student in Shanghai revealed to Krypton that his child had reported that the school's physical education class time had increased from the previous 3 to 4 periods, and although the cultural class teacher did not occupy the class, he would convey to the children the view that "physical education class can also be used for learning", and had named and praised some students who used the free time of physical education class to write homework in class, and rewarded them under the point system of their class, which caused a lot of confusion to their children.
A similar situation occurred in Hebei Province, where 14-year-old Chen Chen, a second-year junior high school student, told us that during the 30-minute recess, after about half of the time was spent running drills and group activities, some class teachers would appoint disciplinary committee members to "name" the students who "stayed" on the playground and give feedback to the teachers.
We don't even know how to comment on this kind of situation – because behind the scenes, we also hear the helpless voices of the culture teachers.
There are many questions, should a physical education class a day be popular?
"You really can't have both. 」
Pang Yu (pseudonym) is a young mathematics teacher from Beijing, who has been teaching junior high school since graduating from the normal school in 15 years, and is now the youngest homeroom teacher in the school. But recently, she feels more and more that her passion is gradually being consumed.
"It's a good thing to let the children exercise, but on the basis of a 30-minute break every day, and the addition of physical education classes, our class time has been compressed a lot. Pang Yu said.
At the same time, in the face of the increasing performance requirements of the school and the teaching team, Pang Yu said that he could only obey the arrangement and do his best. However, she still insists that the current situation needs to be further discussed and optimized.
Source: Visual China
The views of some PE and subject teachers have made a clear impact, so is "one PE lesson a day" really feasible?
At the end of last year, the Shenzhen Municipal Education Bureau issued the "Implementation Opinions on Strengthening and Improving School Physical Education in Shenzhen", requiring that from January 1, 2024, compulsory education schools, that is, primary and secondary schools, need to open one physical education class per day.
And only about a month after the opinion was issued, such an anonymous letter appeared on the "leadership message board" of People's Daily Online:
"I am a secondary school physics teacher who has been working in Shenzhen for more than 20 years. From January 2024, Shenzhen will begin to require junior high schools to have one physical education class a day to improve students' physical fitness, which is a good intention, but it has led to some practical problems. According to the provincial curriculum standards, the ninth grade arranges 34 classes per week, one for information, one for labor and art, and five classes for Chinese, mathematics, English, and physical education, which removes 23 classes, leaving 11 classes, which should be divided into physics, chemistry, history, and Taoism, and eventually may be physics, chemistry, and history, and 3 each of history, and 2 Taoism. This allocation of class time resulted in four sub-subjects not being able to complete the normal teaching tasks.
While we attach importance to the physical fitness of students, we should also pay attention to the improvement of students' cultural literacy. These subjects that do not have enough time will try to grab class time, and students and teachers will become very tired during recess, lunch break, and delay. Students' homework load increases, and everything that cannot be solved in the classroom can only be completed by assigning a lot of schoolwork. Here, I implore the leaders of the Education Bureau to organize front-line teachers to discuss and find out practical implementation plans, and I implore the leaders to listen to the voices of front-line educators, so that our plans are more reasonable and our children can grow up more healthily. 」
After the headlines forwarded the letter, netizens also expressed their opinions: "I only sleep 5 or 6 hours a day, and I have to exercise. "Only on the front line do you know how outrageous the course standards are. "Before the regulations are implemented, it is still necessary to seek the opinions of front-line teachers to understand the learning situation. 」
In the process of communicating with several front-line teachers about the proposal, most of the teachers also said that it would be very difficult to implement, in addition to the unbalanced teaching tasks mentioned in the letter, there are also insufficient teachers, the venue cannot be arranged, and some students are disgusted, etc., each of which is a pain point that is difficult to solve.
After the "Opinions" were issued, Li Pei, a professor at the School of Sports Science at South China Normal University, estimated that there would be a shortage of about 4,000 physical education teachers in Shenzhen without increasing the number of weekly class hours for physical education teachers. According to Xinhua News Agency, the Luohu District Education Bureau of Shenzhen went to Wuhan at the beginning of the year to hold a special job fair, and locked in 30 physical education teachers before the start of the new semester, and they have now walked into the playgrounds of primary and secondary schools in Luohu District.
At the same time, Professor Li said, "This is a good policy, especially for improving the physical health of junior high school and senior high school students. However, it must be made clear that physical education is not an increase in the total number of hours of the course, but a replacement for the original cultural subject course on the basis of the total number of existing class hours. 」
For Chairman Mao's "Study of Physical Education" published in his youth, most people are only familiar with the ultimate goal of "civilizing the spirit and barbarizing the body". But in fact, the description of the detailed problem can still be applied to today's situation through time and space: "The school system of our country is as dense as a cow's hair, although the adult person has a tenacious body, he still can't lift it, but what about the underage and the weak?"
The emphasis on physical education is a process, not an outcome.
As the physics teacher said in the letter, if this emphasis is attached to the already heavy pressure of schoolwork, it will greatly increase the burden on students in their study and life, so we must recognize the bias and find a balance between the word "physical education" in light of the situation, so that children can achieve real all-round development.
Of course, the so-called "bias" and the cases that appear in this article are not representative of the overall situation of secondary schools in the country. But at the same time, they are real and distinct on campuses everywhere, and deserve our attention and consideration.
Source: Visual China
Around the world, the definition of "the right way to educate and grow" is constantly evolving and changing. For example, some schools on the other side of the ocean are discussing how to correctly use Chatgpt, a tool that humans have been able to use for a long time, to assist in their homework.
In our case, the form and proportion of physical education in the overall education of the school is a crucial part of our current educational development. And the attention from all sides just shows that we are constantly thinking about and deeply exploring this permanent proposition for the development of human society.
As for how to dig out the right direction that is closest to the perfect solution, it still needs time and cost to verify, and all parties in society still need to remain patient.