The RCEF Blog 博客

Ever since I undertook to assist with physical education class teaching duties, apart from attempting various kinds of new activities, I feel more and more that I ought to use the skills I have learned over the years and pass them onto the children. At the same time, I want to mold a positive physical training atmosphere on campus.

In terms of skills, apart from the football class that has already started, the most suitable activity for children to do is skip rope. Back in the day, my own skip roping ability could not be said to be low. In competitions, no matter if the event was long rope or individual rope, I always got a good ranking. For this I have to thank my old primary school which had a strong skip roping culture. You could say that talent came forth in large numbers and I, as one who loved to play, immersed myself in the tradition. Now, from the way I understand the situation, if we used just half the energy that my old school had to launch a skipping rope event here, we would really be something in our small city. Of course these things are not that easy and we must move forward step by step.

For beginners, skipping long rope has two main obstacles. One is the fear of the rope; the other is mastering the rhythm of the rope. The first point is especially hard to overcome and the younger the child, the clearer this is. Thus, the teacher needs to give directions. The method I always use is to mark a cross at the place in the middle of the rope and make the children sprint straight to that spot. I repeatedly warn them that “the more they aren’t willing to enter, and the more they stay at the side, the more likely they will get hit by the rope”. Afterward, when I see children with difficulty I just give them a push in the back at the moment when they can comfortably enter, thus helping them to overcome their psychological block.

Honestly speaking, at the beginning it really was very difficult. The main problem of many rural children is that, comparatively, they lacked body coordination. Thus it required a lot of effort to guide them in every step and everyday classes would require me to use up my voice. Up till now, every class from third grade to sixth grade has attended 2 to 3 lessons and the progress isn’t bad. A large part of students are already getting the basics. I also hope to raise this sporting activity to the point where it is a big event for the whole school. In fact, I want to make it become a school tradition.

In addition, several of the fifth graders have surprised me very much. A few days ago, they suddenly ran up and grabbed me. They said that they wanted to learn long distance running and asked me to coach them. Luckily, when I was young, I also trained at long distance running and seeing the positive attitude of this group of youngsters helped me recall the times when i myself trained madly everyday. Ten years have passed in a flash and many scenes flashed before my eyes. I couldn’t help but sigh. These children have already kept up their training for one week. They asked me, “If we persist everyday do you think we can be athletes?” and I replied, “Of course”. I’ll probably have to set up a long distance running team.

Mao Zedong said, “Exercise and protect the Motherland.”

I say, “Exercise and in the future build up your own hometown.”

Be Sociable, Share!

•