L32: Does Playing Soccer Impair One's Academic Performance? Sports and the Youth Training System在线视频

Xiaoti, did you watch the basketball game

in the gym yesterday afternoon?

The player who wore the number 5 jersey

for our school's team was so cool!

He scored more than 20 points by himself.

No. I don't have the time to watch basketball games.

I have to review my homework, study,

and prepare for exams.

That's not good.

Sports and studying don't conflict with each other.

On the contrary, participating in physical exercise

or campus sports events on a proper schedule

is helpful to adjusting your learning rhythm.

Really?

Can sports improve my learning efficiency?

It goes without saying!

You know, doing sports is

an essential part of school life.

You need to do sports to study better!

In the summer of 2019,

there was a piece of news that caught

the attention of many people working in sports.

In Beijing's Sangao Soccer Club

of the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China,

seven senior high school students in their third year

received tryout training invitations

from a club in the Chinese Super League.

But these students' parents

all hoped their child could take

the National College Entrance Examination first.

After the Examination,

these seven players all went to great universities

like Peking University

or the Beijing Institute of Technology.

None of them chose to accept the tryout invitation

and go down the path of

becoming a professional soccer player.

On the surface

the problem we see from this piece of news

seems to be the dilemma of individual choices

between competitive sports and campus sports.

But some people also raised the question:

Why were we so sure that

such talented teenage players

could not become professional players

after being admitted to prestigious universities?

Does this mean something is wrong with

Chinese competitive sports

and the youth training system?

Today we will discuss

sports and the youth training system.

When it comes to the youth training system,

as the name implies, it refers to

an integrated whole consisting of multiple subjects

with youth sports training as the core

according to a certain order and internal relations.

And in the youth training system

of competitive sports in China,

amateur sports schools used to be recognized

as one of the most effective

and successful youth training systems.

Back in 1955,

the former State Sports Commission

opened three pilot youth amateur

sports training schools

in Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai.

In the next year they began to promote

this model throughout the whole country.

Mr. Zhang Lu, the famous soccer commentator

and former goalkeeper of the Beijing Team,

once recalled his childhood experiences

in an amateur sports school.

He said that after he graduated from elementary school

when he was 12 years old,

he began to receive training

in Beijing Xiannongtan Amateur Sports School,

and that later he became

a professional soccer player.

He was a direct beneficiary of this system.

At that time, students of amateur sports schools

were generally junior high school students

aged 12 to 16.

They would take classes

in ordinary schools during the day,

and in two to three days a week after school,

they would go to a sports school

for semi-professional soccer training.

They would play a soccer match every weekend.

When they graduated from junior high school,

that is, when they were about 16 years old,

professional teams would start to

select top players to form a youth team

from amateur sports schools

to give them professional training.

There were very clear levels and divisions of labor

between elementary schools,

amateur sports schools, and professional teams.

A well-developed system was also formed

among sports schools

and professional teams at all levels.

Talented teenagers selected by ordinary schools

could enter the amateur sports schools

and those talents

who stood out

during the semi-professional training sessions

could join the professional teams.

But later, as the amateur sports school model changed,

China's youth training model

also changed accordingly,

which was mainly reflected in the three systems

of school P.E. education, sports clubs,

and sports schools.

One of the functions

of the school P.E. education system

was the education, discovery

and training of competitive sports talents

through general school education.

It was mainly in the form of sports teams,

for example, a school team, a class team and

vocational school sports majors.

Sports clubs mainly refer to

privately run competitive sports venues

and institutions.

We can divide them into

for-profit and non-profit

sports clubs.

And sports schools

refer to state-run schools

used especially to train

young athletes.

We generally divide them into

general sports schools and "three enclosed" schools,

which means students

are supposed to take classes, receive training,

and live together in an enclosed environment.

So it might seem that

our youth training system

has been perfectly developed

since it has covered

both inside and outside the campus.

But in fact,

at the current stage,

our national youth training system

still faces various problems.

One of the problems is

the decrease in the number of people

participating in competitive sports.

In recent years, with the change of lifestyle habits,

teenagers have gradually tended

toward leading a sedentary lifestyle

and have developed many civil diseases.

The decline in physical fitness of teenagers

has made the reserve talent pool

of Chinese competitive sports

suffer an unprecedented impact.

Also, modern teenagers

have more diversified choices

when it comes to recreational sports activities,

which is also a reason for this gradual decrease

in the number of people

participating in competitive sports.

Continued shortage of reserve talents

has become a long-standing and persistent malady

in the development process

of competitive sports in China.

In order to solve the problem of the decline

in the number of people participating in sports,

in June 2016, the State Council issued

"The National Fitness Program (2016-2020)"

in which children and adolescents

were listed as key targets for development.

In September 2016,

"The 13th Five-Year Plan for Youth Sports"

was also promulgated,

which required further

improvement of

the foundational status of youth sports

in implementing well-rounded education,

promoting the comprehensive development

of the youth,

and the building of a leading sports nation.

The relevant policies all stated that

schools are the basic focus

of youth sports development.

In this respect,

we can learn from U.K.'s experience.

For the past 20 years or more,

the U.K. government

has taken a series of effective measures

to ensure the stability

of the population base participating in sports.

In 1992, the U.K. government announced

a physical education syllabus.

In 1995,

an organization called

the Youth Sports Trust was established

to promote participation in sports.

In 2002,

the U.K. government proposed the Game Plan

to emphasize the obligation

of P.E. education and doing exercise.

In 2008,

it promoted the Youth Sport Strategy

and the Playing to Win program.

Later, with the opportunity of

holding the 2012 London Olympic Games,

the U.K. government carried out

various PE education campaigns

to increase domestic youth sports opportunities,

which lifted the whole of society's

cognition and emphasis on youth sports.

By reorganizing and strengthening

youth-related sports organizations,

the U.K. government

effectively improved teenagers' opportunities

and willingness to participate in sports activities.

The second problem:

China's youth training system faces is

the conflict between athletic training

and the students' daily education.

For a long time,

China's young athletes

entered sports schools or training teams

at all levels prematurely.

Their way of receiving education and the environment

greatly differed from

general compulsory education,

which naturally caused them to have different

knowledge structures or even views or life values

as they were growing up

compared to their peers

who received general education.

In fact, in the process of sports training,

what teenage athletes need

is not just theories on sports biology

or guidance of athletic skills.

What is needed more is building a study system

that matches teenagers' athletic characteristics,

which is guided by

the principles of sociology, education,

psychology and so on.

Enhancing their general and academic knowledge

is also a very important matter for them.

Most of the other competitive

sports powers in the world

agree with

the important position

academic education occupies

in the youth training system.

The U.S. ensures that student athletes

have sufficient time

to participate in academic lessons

by controlling their training hours per week

and measures such as

restricting training during holidays.

South Korea uses flexible schedules,

curriculums and education methods

to make sure their student athletes

can finish their studies with enough flexibility,

whereby actively building

a guarantee mechanism for student athletes

to finish their academic studies.

Recently, some provinces and cities in China

also have begun exploring the adoption of methods

such as the "flexible school system,"

"long-term education system," "distance education,"

and "teacher's home-delivery"

to help teenage athletes finish

their academic education.

Many outstanding athletes have

managed to achieve their academic goals

with the help of these policies

and received higher education

in colleges or universities.

The third problem

China's youth training system faces is

the lack of quality tournament platforms.

A complete and effective

youth training tournament system

has not yet been fully established.

Let's take soccer as an example.

In 2017,

the youth team of Hebei Huaxia Xingfu,

which was a China Super League team,

went to Japan for a training and exchange camp.

During a questionnaire survey

a problem popped up.

Most of the U13 members of Hebei Huaxia Xingfu

could play a total of 20 to 30 matches a year.

That is to say,

they could only play

a formal match once every two weeks.

And out of the 35 questionnaires submitted by

their peers in the Japanese Kawasaki youth team,

21 people said

they could play 100 formal matches in a year.

So they could play an average

of two formal matches per week.

Even the answers of the remaining 14 people

were concentrated in

the scope of 50 to 70 games per year.

So if you work it out, you find

that the number of

formal matches Chinese players play in a year

may be less than a third of their Japanese peers.

And if we look at the quality of the games,

Japan's youth soccer leagues of all levels

all have a reasonable time schedule

and regular agenda.

Moreover, the sense of ritual

and communication reach of the youth matches

can match the Japanese professional league.

But China's current youth soccer league

only has very few and unclear levels

with a very tight schedule and agenda,

not to mention the little attention

they get from the audience.

These are all reasons

many youth league players and coaches

don't pay enough attention to the matches,

which in turn impairs

the extent of impressiveness of the matches.

Of course those in the field of sports in China

have begun to pay more and more attention to

youth training events.

Take school soccer for example.

On the basis of the school leagues,

the Ministry of Education

and the Chinese Football Association have also selected

the best lineup for each province

to run a national championship,

which will be a bigger stage and platform

for the best school soccer teams and athletes

to participate in formal matches.

This has also opened up a wider path

for the establishment of the youth training

and tournament system.

A positive and benign sports youth training system

should be a pyramid.

Based on campus sports,

competitive young sports talents

are discovered and trained.

Privately run clubs act as mid-level support

to help qualified sports talents improve rapidly.

And professional clubs or teams

are the fuel that can boost

talents who stand out in

youth training sessions to their peak,

which is becoming a professional sports player.

They should be at the top of the pyramid.

Other than that,

establishing a perfect teaching,

training and competition system,

strengthening the construction of teachers

and venue facilities

are equally important jobs in the system.

I believe that in the near future,

our teenagers will no longer

have to deal with the dilemma

of either playing soccer or studying.

Letting kids exercise happily

is the common goal we pursue.

Okay, that's all for today's lecture.

See you next time!