[Jeong Gyu-yeong's Gongseonunhak①] 'The Essence of Physical Education is Education'... This Comes First

Editor's NoteAsia Economy is starting expert contributions to suggest directions necessary for improving the structural problems of sports in the Republic of Korea and achieving harmony among professional sports, recreational sports, and school sports. Jung Kyu-young, president of the corporation 'Gongbuhaneun Seonsu Undonghaneun Haksaeng (Gongseonunhak),' offers his proposals. President Jung, who studied at Stanford Graduate School in the United States and served as the captain of the university's fencing team, established the corporation in 2015 to settle the American school sports system he observed there in Korea, promoting publicity and scholarship projects. He plans to point out the limitations of the domestic student-athlete admission system, school sports management, sports club development, and sports organization operations, comparing overseas cases and suggesting directions for progress.

Jung Kyu-young, President of the Studying Athletes Exercising Students Association. / Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

Proposals for the Proper Establishment of 'Studying Athletes, Exercising Students'

What is the most important role and essence of physical education? We need to reconsider this from the beginning. Is the purpose of physical education to promote and prosper culture? That is a secondary effect and merely the commercial role of professional sports. The essence of physical education is education. Physical education is the most important subject in education. We have forgotten this. Why physical education is education and why this aspect is the most crucial in making the Korean sports world much healthier will be presented as a desirable answer for sports reform in Korea in the following writings.

The most important virtues we can gain through elementary, middle, and high school education are character and health. The core subject that can cultivate these is physical education. However, among current school subjects, physical education is the most neglected and its importance has fallen to the ground. The current image of physical education is 'a subject only for athletes who do not study but only play sports.' In recent years, there have been government-led efforts to integrate elite sports and recreational sports, but the image of physical education remains as such. Why? Because the premise that the essence of physical education is education was not established.

The First Step to Raising Healthy Citizens: 'Sportsmanship'

Students can learn fairness and rules through physical education during the process of character formation. When committing fouls, they learn fairness through penalties and develop a personality that complies with rules. They also listen to the instructions of coaches and directors and learn obedience based on trust. Through repeated training and efforts to win, they learn patience and experience the results of their sweat. They learn to embrace losers and applaud winners. They realize that envying winners and ignoring losers goes against sportsmanship. They learn that rather than being selfish, they must have a spirit of sacrifice for victory and the team, understanding that doing well alone is not enough.

Various admission corruption scandals that have become social issues are also the joint work of parents and children who have not properly learned sportsmanship. Parents envy other children who have better grades than their own and force their children to find ways to beat those children. To win, even fouls do not matter. They willingly commit fouls that would result in ejection and penalties in sports. Why? Because they did not receive proper education through physical education from a young age.

Physical and Mental Training through Physical Education: The Shortcut to Reducing National Budget

The critical period for human brain development is around the age of 12. Many studies show that one of the most helpful factors for brain growth during this period is social interaction. Social interaction can be most effectively achieved through school physical education. It involves communicating with friends and developing social skills through team sports. Students who do not sufficiently experience this process face problems in communication and social affinity and miss the golden time for brain development. The author has seen many cases where autism was healed through team sports and improved to a level where social life is not hindered at all. Thus, physical education is also the most important means of special education.

On the other hand, due to a lack of social awareness, a wrong appearance-centered culture has emerged, causing enormous side effects and harming public health. Instead of enjoying exercise and sweating, people post photos corrected by procedures, surgeries, and mobile phone applications on social networking services (SNS), craving attention such as 'likes.' In real social life, they reduce communication with those around them and become obsessed with the 'another self' existing on SNS. Physical education can prevent the direct and indirect social costs caused by lack of sociality and distorted standards of beauty. Schools must create habits of sweating and cultivating health from an early age and form the perception that such cultivated appearances are beautiful.

Schools are also the place to build basic physical strength that determines lifelong health, and this too depends on physical education. If national health improves through strong physical strength cultivated from school, enormous national budgets such as health insurance finances can be saved. To correct such an important matter for national management, I believe that 'the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism' should first be divided into 'the Ministry of Culture and Tourism' and 'the Ministry of Education and Sports.' This is because physical education is premised on education. The world's top prestigious schools regard physical education and 'studying student-athletes' as their most valuable assets under this premise.

Jung Kyu-young, President of Gongbuhaneun Seonsu Undonghaneun Haksaeng (Gongseonunhak) and CEO of Lorus Enterprise