An exercise in imagination

Sponge sticks, tin cans, plastic bottles and old tires are not objects that you would usually associate with the lively and boisterous activities of a primary school physical education class.

However, one man's trash, as the saying goes, is another man's treasure. In some cases, that applies to teachers too, especially those named as winners in the Active Schools Innovation Awards. To them, such scrap objects can all be converted into practical teaching aids or sports equipment that engage students and facilitate a wide variety of games that both provide enjoyment and help to hone their bodies.

The awards are part of a charity program that aims to inspire primary schools and teachers to actively deliver creative PE classes that can foster the interest of their students in physical activity. Every year, 100 prizes are awarded for outstanding examples of primary school PE practices and the program provides some of the award-winning teachers with the opportunity to tour other countries where they can conduct exchanges with their overseas counterparts.

Lin Meizhen, a teacher from Xianling Primary School in the mountainous area of Fujian province's Quanzhou city, was a prizewinner in 2018, thanks to innovative attempts at making sports equipment with things available at hand such as used cans, old tires and water buckets.

For instance, a tin would be fixed to a wooden stick and used by children to strike a small ball into an opponent's goal.

Without decent sports facilities, Lin showed her ingenuity in helping the students to experience the joy of games, tap their potential and direct their youthful energy into sports-specific endeavors, even under difficult circumstances.

Fortunately, winning the prize enabled Lin's school to draw upon the resources of multiple social programs, which later joined forces to help upgrade the school's sports facilities.

Such stories are not rare to see among the award winners of the charity program.

The online awards ceremony for this year's program, which was jointly hosted by sportswear giant Nike and China Education Development Foundation, was held on Wednesday. One hundred outstanding candidates have been selected from nearly 2,500 applications from across the country.

Regarding the selection criteria for the awards, Wang Xiaozan, a professor with the school of physical education and health at East China Normal University, who is also a judge for the program, explains that she pays attention to an activity's creativity, safety and efficiency, as well as its attraction for students and ability to be further popularized. Additionally, the amount of exercise it encourages should be suitable for juniors.

"In general, many of our award-winning teachers are good at things like converting unwanted materials into useful sports equipment, encouraging parents to participate in PE classes with their children or integrating games that are traditional to their locality into the school's PE curriculum," she says.

Guo Na, a primary school PE teacher from Ordos, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, is among this year's winners thanks to successfully integrating a traditional toy－a spinning top－into her lessons.

"I found that it's hard for young students in primary school to focus their attention on PE class. However, the spinning top can help to better engage them in class activities," she says.

More than 10,000 teachers from 31 provinces across China have taken part in the program since its launch in 2013, reaching 5.4 million students. Influential sports celebrities, including soccer megastar Cristiano Ronaldo, hurdler Liu Xiang, tennis player Li Na and sprinter Su Bingtian, have all been invited to promote the charity program.

The program's co-initiator, China Education Development Foundation, has long been promoting high-quality, well-balanced development and urban-rural integration of education. Wang Jianguang, secretary-general of the foundation, says that running the Active Schools Innovation Awards program will help bridge the gap between the quality of physical education in rural and urban areas.

He adds that while Nike can mobilize more people, including star athletes, to promote the program and has conducted scientific research on how to better ensure sport safety, the foundation, which is more familiar with China's educational system, is able to lobby authorities at county-level, and schools, to actively participate in the program.

"Each year, we will select 30 outstanding cases from all the applications to staple together into a brochure from which more teachers can draw practical lessons from. This helps to provide strong impetus for the development of physical education in rural areas," Wang Jianguang says.

He holds that the program will leave a long-lasting and positive impact on schools and teachers at the grassroots level.

"Award-winning teachers and their colleagues have become even more inspired to continue to deliver innovative PE classes. Sometimes, where possible, we also help to upgrade the sports facilities of their schools," he says.

For example, the program sponsored the construction of a soccer field for a primary school located deep in the mountains of Longxi county, Gansu province, after a PE teacher from the school won the award in 2017.

Notably, the playing field was made from reclaimed material from recycled athletic footwear, manufacturing leftovers and plastic bottles, as a part of Nike's eco-friendly and corporate social responsibility endeavors. Nike has built more than a dozen soccer fields, basketball courts and running tracks across China from repurposed old shoes.

Xu Lin, head of social and community impact at Nike Greater China, says that they plan to construct more eco-friendly playing fields as part of the program, in a bid to both provide a safe space for children to play and, at the same time, pursue a policy of sustainable development.

Last year, China's Ministry of Education issued a set of "double reduction" policies to ease the burden of excessive homework and off-campus tutoring on students.

Xu regards the move as a driving force for the development of physical education, which also requires a systematic, scientific PE curriculum that provides students with a joyful, high-quality learning experience.

"I hope that the program can serve as a platform for physical education practitioners to share their knowledge and experiences, while Nike can use its resources to support schools and teachers," she says, adding that the use of digital tools is also encouraged to add further color to PE classes.