Universidad de Chile

Playing and joy in Physical Education: the will to keep moving

Elisa Adriana Araya Cortez

Professor of Physical Education, Psychomotricist, Doctor in Educational Sciences, by the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, with training in Pikler Pedagogy at the Pikler-Lòczy Institute in Budapest, Hungary.
She has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at different universities in Chile:
Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad de Santiago de Chile,
Universidad del Desarrollo, Universidad Central, and Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez.

Author of several papers and book chapters, as well as educational materials on play and the importance of movement in child development for the Ministry of Education and the National Board of Kindergartens (JUNJI). She has also published materials for the prevention of drug and alcohol abuse in schoolchildren for the National Service for the Prevention and Rehabilitation of Drug and Alcohol Consumption (SENDA).
She developed and taught at the Training Program for Educational Directors and Supervisors in the Republic of Angola, as a consultant associated with the BUREAU INTERNATIONAL EN EDUCATION ET FORMATION (BIEFOR-Belgium). She also participated in the Capitalization Program for the competency-based reform of the post-fundamental education system in Burundi (2022), in the on line training of physical education teacher trainers.

She was the coordinator of the Department of Extracurricular Education of the Ministry of Education, dealing with school physical education policies in the country. She was Director of the Department of Physical Education, Sports and Recreation of the Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educación, and is currently its Rector.

Research topics: Play and psychomotricity; educational innovation; school coexistence and classroom climate.

About her lecture:
Playing and joy in Physical Education: the will to keep moving

The conference “Playing and joy in Physical Education: the will to keep moving”, addresses the role of adherence to physical activity produced by playing and freely chosen activities. From a gender perspective, it reviews the participation of girls in sports classes and states that the feeling of competition helps to enjoy the practice of physical activity, which in turn produces enjoyment and intrinsic motivation to continue practicing. The fundamental tool of this practice that produces adherence would be the game.