Sport far from boring at this school
Print Edition
WANG Yuanwen, 13, a seventh grader at Shanghai Gezhi Junior High School, won — as expected — the championship in a recent 10-meter air rifle shooting competition after taking up the sport only two years ago.
Gezhi is one of the 23 middle schools authorized by Shanghai Education Commission to run a trial program of diversified sports education.
“Thanks to the school’s efforts in promoting multiple sports and opening the shooting class to students in her grade, Wang’s talent has been discovered, cultivated and displayed,” said her mother Sun Yulei.
Wang began shooting in the autumn of 2015, when the school initiated a pilot project adding shooting, fancy rope jumping and dance sport to its curriculum and requiring all Grade 6 students to participate.
Xu Yulin, a physical education teacher in charge of air rifle shooting lessons, said the school had been training about 10 students a year for competition for almost 20 years.
However, Wang would normally not have qualified for the training because of her slight physique and somewhat flighty personality.
“Shooting athletes need to be strong because the gun weighs about six kilograms and they have to hold it for hours in training and competitions,” Xu said. “At the same time, they have to be calm and concentrated.”
After just four lessons in basic techniques, Wang surprised everybody when she shot the 9-point and 10-point rings in her first live ammunition session. All her shots were within a one-centimeter-diameter ring.
“It means she shoots stably,” said Xu. “She is not only gifted, but also clever in understanding and applying techniques.”
When the school tried to enroll her in professional training and officially register her as an athlete, her parents balked. They worried that sport might get in the way of her academic studies.
“She was an excellent student and we wanted her to spend more time on her studies,” said Sun.
The parents finally agreed with reluctance to allow Wang to participate in training for one month, as a start, after Xu assured them that shooting practice would enhance their daughter’s concentration, time management and perseverance in academic studies.
Wang began a routine of two-hour training on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The results satisfied her parents.
“Her concentration improved,” said Sun. “She used to be easily distracted, but now focuses intently on her homework. She has stopped procrastinating and seems to manage her time much better. I see now where sports and academic studies can complement one another.”
Wang told Shanghai Daily that she loves shooting.
“It makes me happy when I shoot well or show improvement after a bad performance,” she said. “I was never very good at sports in PE classes, but with shooting I found something I can do well.”
Her physical stamina has also improved. Where she initially grew tired after holding the gun for only 15 minutes, she can now handle it without problems for up to two hours. She also gets sick less frequently.
Gezhi Junior High School now has about 30 students on its shooting team, and 19 of them are officially registered athletes. It has nearly 100 registered athletes in shooting, swimming and other sports, compared with fewer than 30 in the past.
Ling Qing, director of the sports at the school, said the diversification project had been expanded to include a martial art form called wing chun, table tennis and aerobics.
Another three — changquan (a form of martial art), basketball and volleyball — will be added in the second half of the year.
The innovative sports curriculum followed a June 2015 survey of students, which found that 89 percent of them loved sports but didn’t like traditional, rote PE classes.
“Previously, we mainly taught things that were listed on the middle school graduation exam, such as running, jumping and (basketball) lay-ups,” Ling said. “In basketball, for example, we taught students only lay-ups in two steps because that item was on the exam.”
Huang Yueping, deputy principal of the school, admits such repetitive lessons were “frankly boring,” for students.
In addition, physical exams found that only 30-40 percent of students were in top shape. Since the school adopted the new program, students have shown a new interest in sports and their physical exams have improved notably.
Shanghai Education Commission announced recently that the success of the diversified sports program at Gezhi and other pilot project schools meant it would be expanded to other schools in the future.
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