Educating Through Competition: Integrating Ideological Education Into Courses Based on Core Competencies – A Study on the Optimization of Sports Competitions in Middle Schools

Abstract

Against the background of the deepening reform of school physical education in the new era, cultivating core competencies and building ideological and political education in courses are the two main lines of reform in school physical education, and sports competition is an important practical field for their integration. The study found that the three dimensions of core competencies—motor ability, healthy behavior, and sports morality—are highly similar in structure to the three-in-one educational logic of ideological and political education in courses: value shaping, knowledge teaching, and ability training. Sports competitions, with their real situations, hands-on experience, and education throughout the whole process, have become an ideal carrier for the integration of the two. At present, the integration of ideological and political education in courses into middle school sports competitions faces three barriers: in terms of goal setting, the educational goal of ideological and political education is vague, and competitions deviate from their educational purpose; in terms of process implementation, the education chain of "before competition, during competition, and after competition" is broken; in terms of support mechanisms, there is a lack of an evaluation system and the teaching staff is not capable enough. For this, this study built a "goal system - content and process system - support system" three-in-one framework, and put forward practical paths from three areas: system improvement, teaching improvement, and evaluation improvement. It hopes to provide theoretical reference and practical help for middle school sports competitions to change from "competition-oriented" to "education-oriented".