Folk sports set down roots and innovative cultivation on campuses
To allow Taiwan’s inherent traditional sports to be sustainably developed and be passed on, the Sports Administration has implemented a policy of root laying for folk sports for many years. Since 2018, the “Program for Folk Sports Cultivation in Schools of All Levels” has been implemented, using diverse strategies to set down folk sports roots on campuses. Emphasis is given to nurturing teachers and developing teaching materials, to achieve the purpose of resolving the current shortage of folk sports teachers and systematic video teaching materials. Since 2020, folk sport youth teachers have been invited to make teaching videos that teach skills from easy to difficult; to date, 60 videos covering six sports, namely war drum, rope jumping, lion dance, competitive dragon dance, diabolo and flower sticks have been made. Therefore, the sports have been cultivated on campuses with innovative and convenient methods.
The Sports Administration stated that, with the value of folk sports expanded from physical activity to “necessary element of national education” and “right of lifelong learning”, National Taiwan Sport University was commissioned to handle the “Program for Folk Sports Cultivation in Schools of All Levels”; in coordination with the SH150 policy, through inclusion of folk sports in the school curriculum, after class activities, competition and performance, student lifelong learning and sports habit are nurtured and core literacies of spontaneity, interaction and common good are developed at “Folk Sports Root Laying Schools”. Also, to expand grassroots folk sports teachers, folk sports teaching experience sharing events and related practical courses are held, the aim being to give teachers professional knowledge and skills such as folk sports course design to make folk sports learning activities more interesting for students.
The program has guided six folk sports youth teachers to systematically establish clear and easy to understand guidance courses that suit the times. 60 videos have been completed and uploaded to the “Program for Folk Sports Cultivation” YouTube channel for study by students and teachers as required. Also, nurturing of teachers without folk sports skills on campus is also one of the focuses of the program; five or more training activities are handled every year, with course contents including skills teaching, competition rules study and exchange and sharing as well as sports training, performance arrangement, video editing and graphic design and other capabilities to raise the level of video skill and effectiveness of teachers who manage folk sports teams.
36 “Folk Sports Root Laying Schools” are selected every year by the Sports Administration. The scholar and expert guidance teams make guidance visits to schools and arrange youth teacher guidance onsite. Program principal investigator National Taiwan Sport University Chief Secretary Wang Hsiang-hsin said that the lion dance team of Shuang-Xi High School in New Taipei City was selected for three years in a row since 2018; guidance from youth teachers has made folk sport course contents more complete. Also, as a lion dance team needs nine people, with the actions and roles of each person different, it is difficult for coaches to provide individual tuition to each person in each section of the dragon; through the aid of teaching videos filmed under this program, students can study the skills of each position in the dragon in class and after class by watching the videos and mimic the posture and movements of the demonstrators in the videos to overcome the problem of lack of practice time. The skill level of the team members has been raised substantially and the team has become a regular winner in the high school category in national dragon dance competition, coming fourth in the 2022 Citizens Sports Games.
The Sports Administration hopes the “Program for Folk Sports Cultivation in Schools of All Levels” will give every child a chance to participate in folk sports to retain the value of traditional sports and to nurture mental and physical qualities, aesthetic sense, interpersonal relations, information media use and other literacies in the process of participation. In the future, nurturing of folk sport youth teaching teams, expansion of digital video platform contents, guidance for the holding folk sport performances and regional promotion activities will continue, with the aim of cultivating folk sports on campus and allowing them to develop sustainably.
Program for Folk Sports Cultivation teaching video website: https://www.youtube.com/@user-nx8nb7dl4f/playlists
