Cool trend: rising number of Chinese schools adopt winter sports courses ahead of Beijing 2022
Peopleplay ice hockey in Jilin City, Northeast China's Jilin Province during winterat Jilin Sports Training Center. Photo: IC
Witnessingchildren's immense zeal for winter sports, the ice hockey coach of a primaryschool in Beijing's Yanqing district is mulling over cooperating with privateice skating centers, so that his students can continue practicing during thesummer vacation.
"Mystudents forwent sleeping in during the winter vacation and got up at 6 am bythemselves to practice ice hockey during the cold winter morning withtemperatures reaching -25 C," Zhao Jisheng, the student's coach and aretired professor of the College of Physical Education and Sports at BeijingNormal University, told the Global Times after a challenging winter of trainingprimary school children to play ice hockey.
Zhaosaid that his students' enthusiasm for ice and snow sports has increased a lot.Some parents even told him that their children refuse to switch channels once awinter sports program is airing on TV. Before this winter, they showed almostno interest in such programs.
"Thecooperation with skating centers means that students can access winter sportsall year long, and it also demonstrates how winter sports have beenincreasingly entering primary schools," Zhao said, with his school beingan exemplar.
Infact, China's Ministry of Education(MOE) has urged primary and middle schools nationwide to establish wintersports courses. China will have 2,000 schools running winter sports courses by2020, with that number expected to reach 5,000 by 2025, the MOE said inFebruary.
Olympicinspiration
TheMOE has urged primary and middle schools nationwide to conduct practicalactivities, physical education courses and ideological and political theorycourses to introduce children to winter sports.
Schoolsin the northern parts of China are to open winter sports courses, and schoolsin the southern parts of the country should cooperate with local ice and snowstadiums and clubs, so that students can partake in more winter sports,according to the MOE.
Targetedstudents are also encouraged to join in on cultural activities, such as designingthe 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games mascot and slogan and participating inOlympics-themed musical activities, drama and art classes and evenquizzes.
Chinaplans to name 700 primary and middle schools as special Winter Olympic Gamesrepresentative schools, with 200 of those being in Beijing and 200 in NorthChina's Hebei Province, according to the plan.
Duringthe opening ceremony of the new semester at Beijing Qianmen Primary School onFebruary 26, a group of students wearing ski suits practiced on a new skimachine. The school is even due to open winter sports courses from thissemester.
Takingadvantage of the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympic Games in order to promote wintersports to the public should be encouraged in China, and introducing wintersports to students could raise their awareness of, and interest in, suchsports, which could also benefit their health, Chinese sports observers said.
"Theplan also serves as a government effort to reach the goal of engaging 300million people in winter sports, which was set when China bid to host the 2022Winter Olympic Games," Wang Zongping, a physical education professor atthe Nanjing University of Science and Technology, told the Global Times.
Schoolsand parents pay inadequate attention to students' physical activities, which isa result of China's exam-orientated education system, thus, winter sportsshould be added as a selective course in China's senior high school entranceexamination processes to ensure the government plan is well conducted, Wang said.
Loomingchallenges
TheMOE's plan to introduce winter sports to schools comes after it vowed to launchsoccer education programs in schools nationwide. However, the plannedwidespread adoption of winter sports poses harsher challenges compared withsoccer, Wang said.
Wintersports are climate-sensitive, and building indoor ice stadiums or usingartificial snow would mean huge costs for schools, Wang said.
"Schoolscould adjust their syllabuses according to different seasons, for example,schools in the north can increase the amount of PE classes during winter, whileschools in the south could focus on cultural activities related to wintersports such as quizzes [as the south is too warm]," Wang said.
Accordingto Zhao, winter sports should be conducted mainly in places which haveauthentic snow and ice, as artificial snow and ice is unsuitable to train sporttalents who wish to make the professional winter sports team.
文章轉自：環球日報
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