Exploring the Pathway for Integrating Five Educational Domains Centred on the Body

In China's basic education stage, the integration of moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic and labour education bears the crucial mission of promoting students' all-round development. However, current educational practices still exhibit an overemphasis on moral, intellectual, and scientific knowledge, with a relative neglect of labour, physical education, and life skills education that embody bodily experience and value. Such imbalances readily narrow educational practice into a singular exam-oriented logic, thereby precipitating real crises such as the withering of students' vitality, the deterioration of physical literacy, the obstruction of human development, and the loss of agency. In light of this, drawing upon Merleau-Ponty's somatic phenomenology, primary and secondary education should prioritise students' physical needs, emphasize the foundational role of bodily experience in cognitive and value formation, and promote the deep integration of moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic, and labour education within the bodily dimension. This approach will genuinely achieve the collaborative cultivation of the "Five Educations", nurturing high-calibre talents who are physically and mentally harmonious and adaptable to societal development.