Embodied Cognition at school: enhancing fundamental motor skills through motor-expressive activities

Abstract

The pervasiveness of artificially intelligent machines has immersed the human being in a socio-cultural environment with liquefied and dematerialized boundaries where time seems to be marked by the productive and efficient logics of the anthropocene and by the algorithmic procedures fourth industrial revolution. In the school environment, the educational policy coordinates that emerge from national and international normative references are oriented to a profound transformation of the reference criteria of teaching action, centered on the assumption of an educational project capable of stimulating a virtuous attention to one’s existence, based on the centrality of the inner work process and on the dimension of somatic memory, from which comes the ability to place one’s own experiences meaningfully in the becoming of ever-changing identities. This study investigates the effectiveness of motor-expressive activities, designed to stimulate spatio-temporal and coordinative abilities, in enhancing basic motor skills in children of developing age. The research was carried out on 254 children (M=109; F=145) aged 8-9. The results confirm the value of motor-expressive practices in promoting a motor literacy based on the principles of Embodied Cognition, highlighting how movement, when integrated with expressive and creative components, can enhance motor adaptation, coordination and psycho-physical well-being.