© Sankei Shimbun
Professor Hiromi Kurosawa
After graduating from university, I worked as a teacher at Kyoto Municipal High School for 24 years. During that time, the most memorable thing was the guidance of athletic club activities. As an adviser to the judo club, he has participated in the Kinki and national competitions, as well as being an officer of the Inter-High and National Sports Festivals. I believe that these valuable experiences have helped me grow as a teacher. Above all, I was happy to see the students working hard.
The activities of sports clubs in Japan not only improve the competitiveness of sports, but also play various roles as part of school education. Among them, I think that “student guidance” plays a major role. “Student guidance” has the purpose of not only dealing with problematic behavior but also developing self-actualization and self-teaching ability. You can use the experience gained from athletic club activities to realize your own career path and plan your life. It also functions as a “place” where students who are not good at studying and communicating can enjoy and feel secure in their activities. On the other hand, in recent years, excessive guidance such as corporal punishment in club activities and overwork of teachers have become social problems.
Therefore, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is trying to expand the reform of club activities nationwide from 2023 (Reiwa 5) based on the reform of school work style. Specifically, we are trying to gradually shift club activities on holidays in junior high school to the community.
However, club activities have a long history of becoming established as a school culture. Until now, we have made several efforts to outsource, but we have not been able to create a sufficient environment. In order to proceed with this reform, I think it is important to create an environment as a “receiver” such as human resources and financial resources to substitute for club activities. Simply outsourcing without arranging them will not solve the problem.
Currently, I am working on two things for that. The first is working on practical research with the Board of Education as an advisor to the Shiga Prefecture community club activity promotion project. The second is a course called “Club Activity Guidance Theory” at Biwako Seikei Sport College from April this year. For students who will be involved in club activities as advisors and club activity instructors in the future, my experience and actual teaching methods regarding the legal basis of club activities, points to keep in mind in teaching, and effective teaching methods in consideration of safety. We plan to give a lecture based on the teaching examples.
We hope that these efforts will contribute to the reform of sports club activities and the development of sports.
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Hiroki Kurosawa Born in Kyoto in 1968. He completed the doctoral course at the Graduate School of Policy Science, Doshisha University. His doctoral (policy science) and master of education (professional) specialties are “sports pedagogy” and “sports policy studies”. He works as a teacher at Saikyo Commercial High School, Fushimi Technical High School, Tonan High School, and as a student instructor. He has been a professor at Biwako Seikei Sport College since 2017.
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Biwako Seikei Sport College faculty members will write a column in relay format on the theme of how sports will change the future. Scheduled for the first Friday of every month.
