Youth health activity implementation plan

The core implementation logic of the "Youth Health Activities Implementation Plan" is by no means a top-down implementation of a unified activity template. Instead, it must be based on the core principles of "stratified adaptation to the needs of different groups, clear rights and responsibilities of the three parties of home, school and community, and two-way improvement of physical health and mental toughness". Flexible adjustment according to the area where the school is located and the characteristics of the student source can truly avoid the common problem of "going through the motions, making up for the time, and children's disgust".

Don't believe it, I stepped into a big pit in 2022 when I was working on the first round of plans for a middle school in a certain district. At that time, I followed the rigid requirements of my superiors: run 1,000 meters every morning, hold a 40-minute standardized physical fitness class after class, and have a fixed lecture by a psychologist every week, and I did two rituals. The director of moral education came to me to complain, saying that 17 parents had taken leave for asthma and joint injuries, and that some children secretly used the time in physical fitness classes to make up for homework. The sign-in rate was less than 40%, and the psychology lectures were even worse. In the questionnaire, 80% of the children wrote "It's too boring, it's better to go to self-study."

In fact, academic circles have always been divided on the logic of promoting healthy activities for teenagers. One group is the "goal-oriented group", which insists that rigid assessment must be given top priority. For example, physical test scores account for high school entrance examination scores, and health activity duration is directly linked to school evaluation and class teacher performance. Without pressure, there will be no motivation. If it is completely liberalized, there will definitely be schools that divert time to cultural classes. Many schools in Jiangsu and Zhejiang have indeed relied on this logic to increase the physical test compliance rate by 15% for three consecutive years.； The other group is the "interest-oriented group". They believe that teenagers are rebellious and the more they are pushed, the more disgusted they will be, which will sow the seeds of resistance to sports and resistance to psychological counseling. The choice should be completely given to children. Schools only provide resources and do not set up assessments. There are private schools in Shenzhen that follow this route. The long-term exercise habit development rate of students can reach 76%. Both models are tenable. There is no absolute right or wrong.

When we later adjusted the plan, we didn’t completely stand on either side. We simply took a middle value: split the activities into a “required basic package” that accounts for 30% and an “optional expansion package” that accounts for 70%. The basic package only set a bottom line - a total of 1.5 hours of moderate-intensity exercise per week, There are two psychological group tutoring sessions for all members in the semester, and the rest of the time is completely free. The activity list lists nearly 40 items, ranging from basketball, rock climbing, and cycling to potted plant planting, psychological sand table, street graffiti, and even mindfulness meditation and home dance teaching, as long as it can improve the physical and mental state. We also deliberately changed the rules for home tasks. Instead of requiring parents to take videos to check in and run, we created a "Family Health Day" method. Climbing a mountain together on the weekend, cooking a healthy meal, and even playing badminton together for half an hour were all considered completed tasks. It was all based on conscious effort, and the participation rate was nearly 60% higher than when we were required to take a check-in video.

Last month I went to that school for a return visit, and it happened to coincide with the health activity period on Wednesday. Under the shade of a tree next to the playground, several children who were allergic to pollen and could not exercise strenuously practiced Baduanjin with the school doctor. They made awkward movements and laughed. There was a little girl in the gymnasium who had previously written off a note saying that her knees were bad. The teacher of the club practiced figure skating and said that his knees hurt when running before, but the skating force was small and he was fine. Several boys in the second grade of junior high school who usually don't talk much squatted together in the biology garden to take photos of snails. They said that this was the "natural healing" project they signed up for, and it was much more comfortable than sitting in the classroom and listening to the teacher tell them to "relax." The statistics at the end of the semester are also good: the physical test compliance rate rose from 62% to 81%, and the positive rate of students' psychological screening dropped by 12 percentage points.

Of course, not all schools will copy this model. Rural schools in the suburbs do not have that many indoor venues, so they cooperate with surrounding agricultural cooperatives to count the farming work of plowing the ground, transplanting rice seedlings, and picking vegetables as healthy activities. They can not only bask in the sun, stretch their muscles and bones, but also learn agricultural knowledge, and parents have no objections.； Schools with a high proportion of children from migrant workers have organized "parent-child sports fairs" and invited parents over weekends to play throwing sandbags and jump ropes, and also have parent-child communication, which solved the problem of many children and parents having no common topics.

After working in adolescent health-related work for five or six years, what bothers me the most is when people ask for a "perfect national template". There really is no such thing. Some children love to run and jump, but if you ask them to sit there and meditate, they will feel uncomfortable. Some children are sensitive to social anxiety, and if you force them to play in team competitions, it will leave a psychological shadow. Healthy activities are never for completing the assessment indicators of superiors. In the final analysis, they are to allow children to find one or two things that can make them relax and happy when they are teenagers. When they grow up and are stressed, they can think of playing a ball or planting flowers instead of just sitting there anxious. By the way, there is another interesting thing. In the school we piloted, more than a dozen children who signed up for mindfulness meditation this year said that after sitting there and breathing deeply for ten minutes before the exam, their hands stopped shaking. Isn’t this much more useful than saying “Don’t be nervous about exams” ten times?