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Sinergias educativas
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Pedagogical strategy based on
traditional games for the appropriation
of cultural heritage and values
Estrategia pedagógica basada en juegos tradicionales
para la apropiación del acervo cultural y valores
Eduin de Jesús Rivera Ricardo
*
José Luis Rivera Ricardo*
Fanny Salgado Reyes*
Abstract
This article presents a reflection on the importance of traditional
games, which contribute to the formation and personal and motor
development of students, and at the same time, allow the rescue of
good customs and cultural values in the village of San Rafael,
municipality of Ovejas-Sucre. The objective of this work is to
strengthen the appropriation of the cultural heritage and values
through a pedagogical strategy based on traditional games in 9th
grade students of the San Rafael Educational Institution (IESAR)
Ovejas Sucre. This project would benefit the students of the
Institution and their community environment, since it contributes to
the preservation of their cultural and ancestral roots, as well as to the
strengthening of their formation in values and basic rules of
coexistence such as: respect, tolerance and responsibility, among
others (Carmona Ruiz, 2009). This research is framed within the
* MSc. Corporación Universitaria Iberoamericana,
Bogota Colombia eriverar@ibero.edu.co,
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9348-8735
* MSc. Corporación Universitaria Iberoamericana,
Bogota Colombia jriver25@ibero.edu.co,
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8025-3803
*MSc. Corporación Universitaria Iberoamericana,
Bogota Colombia fsalgad1@ibero.edu.co,
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9912-6938
Article
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qualitative approach. The proposed pedagogical strategy was
developed using a qualitative methodology of action-research type
The sample consisted of 10 students of the 9th grade of basic
secondary school, aged between 14 and 17 years old. The survey,
participant observation and field diary were used as data collection
techniques. The results of the study provide empirical evidence that
supports the need to preserve traditional games as a mechanism to
preserve our cultural identity and as a strategy to spread our roots
and improve peaceful coexistence among our peoples.
Key words: Traditional games, Conservation, Good customs, social
values.
Resumen
En este artículo se presenta una reflexión sobre la importancia de los
juegos tradicionales, los cuales contribuyen a la formación y
desarrollo personal y motriz de los estudiantes, y permiten a la vez,
el rescate de las buenas costumbres y valores culturales en el
corregimiento de San Rafael, municipio de Ovejas- Sucre. El
objetivo de este trabajo es Fortalecer la apropiación del acervo
cultural y valores mediante una estrategia pedagógica basada en
juegos tradicionales en estudiantes del grado 9 de la Institución
Educativa San Rafael (IESAR) Ovejas Sucre. Este proyecto
beneficiaría a los estudiantes de la Institución y a su entorno
comunitario, ya que contribuye a la preservación de sus raíces
culturales y ancestrales, así como al fortalecimiento de su formación
en valores y las reglas básicas de convivencia como son: el respeto,
la tolerancia y la responsabilidad, entre otros (Carmona Ruiz, 2009).
Esta investigación se enmarca en el enfoque cualitativo, La
estrategia pedagógica planteada se desarrolló empleando una
metodología cualitativa de tipo investigación-acción La muestra
estuvo conformada por 10 estudiantes del grado 9° de básica
secundaria, con edades comprendidas entre los 14 y los 17 años. Se
hace uso de la encuesta, la observación participante y diario de
campo como técnicas de recolección de datos. Los resultados del
estudio aportan evidencias empíricas que avalan la necesidad de
conservar los juegos tradicionales, como mecanismo de preservación
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de nuestra identidad cultural y como estrategia para difundir nuestro
arraigo y mejorar la convivencia pacífica entre nuestros pueblos.
Palabras clave: Juegos tradicionales, Conservación, Buenas
costumbres, valores sociales
Introduction
The objective of this research project is basically to generate positive
situations for the children of the San Rafael Educational Institution
(IESAR), rural area of the municipality of Ovejas, department of
Sucre, that contribute to their formation and development, not only
personal but also motor, and at the same time allow the rescue of
good customs and values, through the application of traditional
games. In the same way, they transmit rules, let them follow
instructions and norms that have been established from generation to
generation and that help in the formation of the student, not to
mention the benefit it brings to the family, since it strengthens the
emotional bond between children and parents. It also has physical
advantages, improves health and motor experiences for boys and
girls, among other aspects.
The data obtained through the application of various instruments,
allows us to pose as a problem, that many students of the IESAR,
have lost the practice of traditional games such as spinning top,
marbles or glass balls, tuso, shuffleboard, the rod 'e prize, sack races,
among others, as a ludic phenomenon due to various factors such as
little knowledge or accelerated acculturation promoted by
globalization and technology, which has led them to prefer to play
with cell phones, tablets, internet, or just sit and watch television,
without even imagining the serious repercussions that this could
bring in the future. This is directly manifested in the students and
their families so that they are unaware of the little value and meaning
of their beliefs and customs, where they end up appropriating other
cultures.
The San Rafael Educational Institution (IESAR) is located in the
rural area of the municipality of Ovejas, department of Sucre, with
314 students from grade 0 to grade 11, with children and adolescents
between 4 and 18 years of age.
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All the above, allows us to justify the relevance of designing
strategies that allow the new and current generations to preserve the
cultural heritages and that they can "survive" in spite of time or
difficulties, so it is a priority the promotion of ancestral and popular
games in the Educational Institutions, among others, for the
following aspects: It contributes to good coexistence, maintains the
cultural legacy of the ancestors and preserves the culture of each
region, creates a sense of belonging and identity, strengthens the
self-esteem of all those who participate.
According to Gualotuña et al. (2023), physical activity is an essential
element for the physical and mental development of individuals.
Despite the benefits it has for society, physical activity does not
occur equally in the same regions and specific geographic
environments, due to conditioning factors such as leisure time,
culture, teaching-educational programs, motives, and the needs and
possibilities of each subject, among others.
Using the words of Gualotuña et al. (2023) in traditional games there
are manifestations of different forms, which are transmitted from
generation to generation, through word and actions, mainly from
parents to children, where they are carried out in any environment,
space, place and time; spontaneously and organized (Fausto, 1980;
Monroy, 2003; Sailema et al., 2017; Salinas Villamarín, 2018). As
expressed by these authors, they are more solemn games that were
transmitted from generation to generation, but their origin dates back
to distant times.
The authors cited above claim that the material of the games is
specific to the games, and is closely linked to the area, the customs
and even the kinds of work that were developed in the place, and that
some of these traditional games, over time became sports, called
traditional, so that the popularity they have among the inhabitants of
a territory or country, competes with the popularity of other
conventional sports.
Hernandez (2007), emphasizes that, he makes clear how necessary it
is in our assaulted world, an active process of rescue of the best
traditions, currently considered as palpable samples of the
autochthonous cultural values of the different societies. These
traditions are the result of the experience, the courage, the virtue and
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the effort of other men, during these and other times, and can be
represented in different forms, all of them linked to the different
forms of human thought. He also affirms that, according to Pérez
Sánchez (1997), "the game constitutes an excellent recreational
inheritance that comes to us from the distance, at the beginning man
played with very simple instruments, later he began to experience
the need to expand them and take them to more complex activities,
with the passing of the years the games were perfected, until they
became an important part of the recreational forms of the different
epochs".
On the other hand, for Hernández and Vilugrón (2023) there are
several studies that relate obesity, sedentary lifestyles and the use of
information technologies (ICT). These authors refer that Montilla
and Jan (2022) conducted a study that supports this relationship,
finding an increase in the use of ICT, making the activities less
physical and in prolonged periods of inactivity such as sitting, i.e.,
without moving for hours, and inevitably leads to a body mass index
at the level of obesity.
In fact, Simancas et al. (2022) state that traditional games should be
incorporated in teaching as an alternative in learning, not only in
mathematics, but in all its uses globally and integrally. They
emphasize that in ancient times, games were taken in a negative way
for education, since they were considered as leisure and had no
function in the cognitive development of children. Also, according
to the argument of Flores (2018), they state that teachers should
apply games in learning and these should be in accordance with the
needs that are required to be obtained.
Likewise, Simancas et al. (2022) state that games are displaced by
the use of technologies, that some children go into these tools not for
learning, but to find games that are not in line with the topics
covered; in addition, virtual games are limited to developing
cognitive aspects through the gaze, hand handling, but the game does
it with the movement of the whole body, seeks to concentrate the
students, making it an integral part.
Likewise, these authors affirm that we have a range of traditional
games that are applied to the area of mathematics such as: the churo,
tic-tac-toe, pica, perinola, spinning tops, the sack, roulette, the bomb,
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hopscotch, among others, that can be applied and thus reach a
significant learning, which allows them to help in the solutions to
possible problems that they will encounter in their daily lives.
Many problems have arisen due to the misuse of new technologies
such as video games. This focused misuse has generated a change in
people's lifestyle, especially in younger people, causing the world's
children to perform less and less outdoor activities that require
physical movement, spending most of their time in sedentary
activities such as: watching television, connected to the Internet or
with electronic games (Guillamón et al., 2018).
Meanwhile, Parlebas (1997) states that games are granted a greater
ludic-motor possibility than sports and it has been experimentally
demonstrated that due to the sudden changes in behavior, which
imply a greater richness of relationships between players, traditional
game sessions lead to much richer socio-affective relationships.
It is important to note that traditional games that generate physical
activities have been replaced by others without any type of motor
skills, where people (students) remain sedentary for hours in front of
a television or any other technological device that provides them
with fun and entertainment, forgetting the positive effect of family
ties between parents and offspring and the psychological and motor
skills benefits that can be achieved by playing.
In this sense, play in society has been and transmits culture and
traditions from generation to generation, it is a vital activity in the
integral development of human beings, it provides transcendental
experiences for their learning and maturation process, physical,
emotional and social. The game evolves along with humanity and
according to the time it is understood and practiced in society in one
way or another (Yépez et al., 2017).
Traditional games implicitly carry the idiosyncrasy of the
communities, their values and customs, since they are the most
autochthonous representation of the society that creates them. They
constitute a necessary link with the past, since they are the respect to
the best of the generations that preceded us.
In Colombia, there is a great variety of traditional games and among
the best known are: golosa, coca, trompo, yayo, yermis, canicas,
turra or pirinola, lazo, aro and encostalados. These games are a
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healthy form of fun and entertainment, and help to strengthen the
physical and mental condition of young people and children,
allowing them to express their way of being, to identify themselves,
to experiment and discover their capabilities and limitations".
For the development of this research, some studies carried out by
various authors at the international level are taken as a basis, in
which very important contributions can be observed for the planning,
execution and evaluation of this proposal.
We can mention the research conducted by Velásquez (2007), who
designed a program for the promotion of traditional Venezuelan
games for students in the second stage of basic education at the
Mercedes Limardo de Antímano Educational Unit, in the Liberator
municipality. This research is in the Unit of Feasible Projects, it
attends to the needs required according to the diagnosis applied with
descriptive field design. There the author shows the process of
transculturation, the rise of ICT, international trade and treaties
between nations have been displacing concepts such as regionalism
and local national identity, due to the loss of the cultural heritage of
the people, which leads to an educational and cultural crisis.
Also noteworthy in Peru is the thesis prepared by Ccahuana and
Cuarez (2021), entitled: El juego tradicional como recurso
pedagógico en una I.E.B en el distrito de Rocchacc-Chincheros-
Apurímac, whose purpose is to describe the use of the traditional
game as a pedagogical resource in an intercultural bilingual
educational institution. His studies were approached according to the
qualitative and ethnographic approach, which consisted of analyzing
and interpreting the information on the research.
This work was developed in six chapters and there the authors state
that "traditional games are part of the traditional culture of the native
peoples, they share all the pedagogical values attributed to them,
they keep the culture alive favoring the rapprochement between
generations, they facilitate the recognition of data or cultural
elements of that community and they experience unforgettable
experiences outside the family environment.
Another contribution to this research can be found in the thesis
developed by Torres (2014), entitled: Traditional games and their
impact on the skills and abilities of students in third and fourth grade
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of basic education of the Centro Educativo Reforma Integral Cerit,
in the city of Latacunga, province of Cotopaxi, in Ecuador, where he
identified the problem of the loss of the practice of traditional games
in students, as a result of having bad habits, especially with the
influence of foreign languages and the misuse of technologies.
At the national level, the work carried out by Yela and Revelo (2019)
entitled: Rescue and strengthening of the traditional games of the
Carlosama reservation with fourth and fifth grade students of the
Chavisman Educational Center is reviewed. To meet the objectives
of this work, the research is framed in the paradigm of qualitative
methodology; the qualitative part was developed in the social and
human sciences, since it tries to analyze the set of discourse between
subjects and the relationship of meaning for them, according to
cultural, ideological and social contexts.
The authors consider that the rescue and promotion of popular games
within educational institutions is a process that should be carried out
with the purpose of favoring communication, developing oral
language, favoring the acceptance of rules, facilitating social
integration, developing motor skills, allowing the discovery and
knowledge of the environment, improving self-esteem and favoring
teamwork.
The work done by Ardila (2021a) is also reviewed. The main
objective of this study was to establish the contribution of the
traditional games of the local environment to the sociocultural
development of the students of the Technical Educational Institution
Ignacio Gil Sanabria de Siachoque - Eighth grade pilot study. The
methodological approach allows the development of each one of the
objectives through processes of a qualitative approach, framed
within a hermeneutic paradigm, which validates the application of
an action research model, and some instruments of social mapping.
As a result of the exchange of knowledge, product of social
interaction, the knowledge and perceptions of the students towards
traditional games are broadened, turning them into a resource that
dynamizes the socio-cultural development of the school population.
Likewise, at the national level we refer to Chona and Garzón, (2018),
with their work entitled: Rescue and recovery of traditions through
art education. They make a valuable contribution to our research,
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since they agree with us in giving great importance to cultural values
in the formation of the person as an individual and collective being.
In addition, they coincide in their concern for the loss of traditions
and cultural values that has been occurring at an accelerated rate, for
various reasons.
In their research project, the authors proposed as a primary objective
to rescue the lost cultural heritage in Chinácota Norte de Santander,
with new technological tools, seeking to recover the historical
memory of our ancestors through stories and images. They relied on
the methodology with a qualitative approach, taking into account the
participatory action, to collect data that would allow them to know
and act on the population by collecting their reality, beliefs and
culture in order to lead them to reflect and recover their cultural
values.
At the local level we can mention the studies conducted by Figueroa
(2019) with the title: Cultural education as a strategy to strengthen
identity in basic education: case of the Gabriel García Márquez
Educational Institution of the municipality of Corozal, Sucre. The
research methodology used was mixed and involved a set of
systematic processes, which led to the collection and analysis of
qualitative and quantitative data. Quantitative data collection
techniques such as the survey were used, as well as qualitative data
such as the interview and rubrics.
De Oro and Pérez (2022) are also reviewed, with their work: Ludic
strategies that strengthen reading comprehension in fifth grade
students of elementary school of the educational institution San José
de Ovejas-Sucre. This work focused on the qualitative approach,
with a population of 35 students. For the collection of information,
as well as for the description and analysis, the type of research they
developed in the project is action research and as an instrument for
the collection of information they implemented participant
observation, diagnostic test and survey. They concluded that, due to
the children's difficulties in reading comprehension, it was important
to look for ludic strategies considering the students' strengths and
weaknesses.
This project would benefit the students of the San Rafael Educational
Institution (IESAR) and their community environment, because their
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cultural and ancestral roots are not lost. It also strengthens the
formation of values at the community level, since nowadays the
students do not put them into practice, such as respect, tolerance,
responsibility, among others, experiencing acts of intolerance, non-
compliance with the rules, provocations with arguments, fights,
aggressiveness, disrespect, intolerance, behaviors that are evident in
the games played by the students themselves, who often break the
rules of the game and other times are obeyed by all.
Unesco, cited in Ruiz (2012), has repeatedly recognized that
"traditional games constitute an important part of cultural heritage,
and are at the same time an effective instrument for the promotion of
tolerance, respect and peace in a culturally diverse society. But today
it is evident that traditional games used freely by children in their
leisure time are gradually disappearing, making educational
intervention necessary to ensure that these cultural manifestations
with deep social roots do not disappear from children's socialization
and recreational resources" (p.7).
The game as an integrating element of cultures, has already been
pointed out by several scholars of the game as Jaouen et al. (2009)
point out when recognizing that "games are creations of a culture and
the fruit of a history. Literature and music, construction, vestiges and
food are generally presented as part of the community heritage; but
we must not forget the ways of having fun, of sharing the pleasure
of acting together; games must not be forgotten!"
Eventually, Calderón et al. (2019) express that traditional games are
strategies for students to create closer ties with their peers and
experience empathy as a basis for building social networks.
Therefore, with the game, students are engaged in socializing and
teamwork, fostering values such as respect, tolerance and the use of
a good vocabulary, with a positive impact on the group and an
improvement in school coexistence.
Ardila (2021a, p. 10), states that traditional games are recreational
expressions that are part of the cultural heritage of the regions and
allow the identification of customs and traditions. These recreational
practices, in addition to strengthening cultural identity, favor social
skills and stimulate learning processes in educational contexts,
thanks to their high pedagogical value.