Competitive pedagogy

Author: Song Jixin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-02-01
Features: This book is a specialized work written by the author after years of educational practice and theoretical exploration, with the aim of improving the overall quality of athletes, resisting the "alienation" of competitive sports, and promoting their sustainable development. The book has three key features: First, it reveals the essence of "educating people to win medals" from a deeper theoretical level, thereby critiquing medalism and the obsession with gold medals. Second, based on theoretical foundations, it constructs a new system combining biology, psychology, sociology, and education. This represents an innovation compared to the previous tendency of focusing primarily on biological aspects in sports training research. Third, it establishes a theoretical framework that organically integrates six major processes of sports—selection, teaching, training, competition, recovery, and evaluation—with educational theories and measures for nurturing people. This not only addresses the shortcomings of domestic competitive theory's single-minded focus on training processes but also fills the gap in research on the integration of competition and education in China. Competitive Education emphasizes the combination of competition and education, integrating nurturing people with winning medals. It holds significant value for cultivating new generations of sports talents with comprehensive qualities and well-rounded athletic development. It fully aligns with the spirit of the "Comprehensive Promotion of Quality Education" proposed at the Third National Education Conference. Traditional training theories and practices have primarily focused on improving athletes' competitive performance and physical qualities while neglecting their overall development. Therefore, the author proposes that, in the future knowledge economy era, the cultivation of athletes in China should shift from single sports training to competitive education. This requires coaches to engage not only in training but also in nurturing people. This aligns with Vice Premier Li Lanqing's advocacy at the National Sports Conference earlier this year that improving China's competitive level hinges on enhancing athletes' comprehensive qualities. It also aligns with the reforming new approach of the General Administration of Sport of China, which calls for sports universities to become "new models integrating education, training, and research." Thus, the publication of Competitive Education holds significant theoretical and practical value for reforming China's training and coaching methods, promoting the improvement of national competitive performance, and achieving the Olympic Light Plan.