SPORT
AT SCHOOL

He is the author of ‘Psychology’, an introductory textbook used by generations of students, now at its eighth edition. This year we celebrate the 30^th anniversary of its first edition, which was the first general introductory psychology textbook that brought a Darwinian perspective to the entire field.

He is also author of ‘Free to learn’ and he writes a popular blog for the magazine Psychology Today entitled ‘Freedom to Learn’. 

The popular scientist and science author Steven Pinker said ‘Gray is one of the world's experts on the evolution of childhood play and he forces us all to rethink our convictions on how schools should be designed to accommodate the ways that children learn.’

Alberto Oliverio worked for many Italian and foreign research institutes, including the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, the Brain Research Institute in Los Angeles, the Jackson Laboratory in Maine, the University of Sassari and the Psychobiology and Psychopharmacology Institute of the National Research Council in Rome, which he currently directs.

He is Professor (Emeritus) of Psychobiology at La Sapienza University, Rome, and he is a member of the editorial board for several scientific magazines.

He wrote many essays, including ‘La mente. Istruzioni per l'uso’ (The Mind: A user's manual), ‘L'arte di pensare’ (The art of thinking), ‘L'arte di imparare’ (The art of learning), ‘L'arte di ricordare’ (The art of remembering), and ‘Le età della mente’ (The stages of mind).

Born in La Plata, Argentina, he is one of the most successful coaches in volleyball. He became an Italian citizen in 1992.

He began his career as a coach in Argentina and arrived in Italy in 1983. From 1985 to 1989 he led Panini Modena to four national championships and then he was appointed head coach of the men's national team. During his tenure as Italy's coach, the team - long considered as the Cinderella of world volley - became one of the strongest ever.

In 2008 Velasco became the head coach of Iran men's national team, and in 2011 he succeeded in winning the Asian Championship for the first time in Persian history (repeating the feat in 2013), thus becoming the only coach in the world who won a continental title in two different continents.

In 2003 he was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame. Today he holds leadership and motivational seminars, and he is Men’s youth technical director of the Italian Volleyball Federation. 

Born on 8^th November 1946, he is one of the most successful American football coaches in the history of college football. He served three stints as the head football coach at the University of Nevada (1976–1992, 1994–1995 and 2004–2012) leading the Nevada Wolf Pack to a record of 234–108–1 over 28 seasons. Ault was also the athletic director at Nevada from 1986 to 2004.

He was a consultant for the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League (NFL), the highest professional level of American football in the world.

Ault was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 2002.

In Italy he was the head coach of Rhinos Milano for the 2016 season. Here he won his first Italian Football League Italian Bowl after an undefeated season.

She is a psychologist, psychotherapist, and professor of Developmental Psychology at La Sapienza University in Rome.

She is the editor of ‘Psicologia contemporanea’, the magazine of Italian psychologists, and she writes essays, scientific articles, and textbooks.

She has been collaborating regularly with different reviews, such as ‘Vita Scolastica’, ‘La scuola dell’infanzia’, ‘Vita dell’infanzia’, and ‘Prometeo’ for many years. She was also a regular contributor to the newspaper ‘Corriere della sera’.

Among the books published by BUR: ‘Dai figli non si divorzia’, ‘Pronti per il mondo’, ‘La sindrome Lolita’, ‘Le domande dei bambini’, ‘Il cammino dell’adozione’, ‘Piccoli bulli crescono’, ‘Le età della mente’ (with Alberto Oliverio).

Born in Fayetteville on 18^th June 1990, he is one of the greatest champions of all time in the triple jump.

He won two gold medals at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro (in the history of triple jump, only three other athletes succeeded in winning at least two consecutive Olympics) and four world championship titles in Taegu (2011), Beijing (2015), London (2017) and Doha (2019) in the Triple jump. 

He formed the ‘Athletics Association’, an organization to protect the future of all Track and Field Athletes, following the decision of the World Athletics to cut some disciplines, such as triple jump, 200 metres, discus and 3000-meter steeplechase from the Diamond League’s programme.

Photo: Foto: Citizen59, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

She got her Bachelor’s degree in Physical Education (ISEF diploma) and her degree in Sports science and Psychology in the first and in the fourth university of Rome, as well as her PhD in Philosophy at Freie Universität in Berlin. She is founding member of the Società Italiana di Scienze Motorie e Sportive (Italian Society of Exercise and Sports Sciences) and Associate professor at the University of Rome ‘Foro Italico’, where she teaches physical exercise for children and teens and older adults.

Her research activity focuses on the relation between physical activity and cognitive functions in children, adults, older adults and athletes, the development and impairment of motor coordination over the life span, as well as the effects of high-quality physical activity during development. 

She is a promoter of ‘Joy of Moving’, an educational method that spreads the joy of movement through play. The method was tested from 2012 to 2015 in kindergartens and primary schools in Alba by the USR (Regional School Office) of Piedmont, CONI and Piedmont Region, thanks to a research project carried out by the University of Rome ‘Foro Italico’. During the school year 2017/2018, the Ministry of Education, University and Research launched a scientific assessment on the replicability of the ‘Joy of Moving’ project on the whole national territory. Such positive results led to ‘Joy of moving’ being inserted into the curriculum all the Italian schools interested since 2018.

She is author of several articles published on national and international magazines, as well as of the book ‘Joy of Moving’, which won the 2016 CONI prize and was translated into English and German. She is also co-author of three international books, as well as member of the editorial board and associate editor for international magazines.

He got his Bachelor’s degree in Physical Education (ISEF diploma) and his degree in Physiotherapy and then he became an osteopath in 2011. Keen on sport and human body, he did athletics for 25 years racing twice in Decathlon for the Under-20 national team. He coached different youth categories of athletics for many years: CAS (6-11 years), ragazzi (12-13 years) and cadetti (14-15 years).

He is currently working in two main fields: he is a performance coach for two volleyball teams and some individual sports, and he follows pregnant women and their newborns in his clinic from their birth until the end of their development.

She has committed her professional life to education through sport, as a teacher in various kinds and grades of schools and as a ministerial trainer and teacher at CONI School of Sport. PE coordinator at the Regional School Office in Biella from 2000 to 2012, she developed different skills and carried out interdisciplinary projects together with the teachers of this area. She was in charge of the Provincial Student Council and Provincial Coordinator for road safety education.

She is currently the CONI Delegate for the province of Biella.

They collaborated with the University of Milan as expert teachers in the advanced course ‘Psicomotricità educativa per la didattica nella scuola dell'infanzia’ (Educational psychomotricity in kindergartens) and they are currently part of the ‘Gruppo Movimento della Rete delle Scuole che Promuovono Salute’ (Network of Health Promoting Schools). They took part in several national conferences.

They are trainers for the project ‘SmuovilaScuola’, which was launched in the school year 2015/2016 by the School district Giovanni XXIII of Besana in Brianza (MB) and then taken to many schools in the province of Monza and Brianza, Como and Lecco through training courses for primary and secondary school teachers.

The aim of ‘SmuovilaScuola’ is meeting the innate need in children aged 6-11 for movement by adding physical exercise in common school activities so that it can become an integral part of them. It is a programme made of a 10-minute session of physical exercise at the beginning of morning activities, to be repeated every 50 minutes of lesson according to the pupils’ needs.

She is the supervisor of the nursery school for the Municipality of Gattinara and a CNIS (Associazione per il Coordinamento Nazionale degli Insegnanti Specializzati e la ricerca sulle situazioni di Handicap - Association for National Coordination of Specialized Teachers and Research on Handicap Situations) expert trainer in mathematical intelligence. She completed the CNIS course in ‘Psychology of mathematical learning’ (3^rd level) with a dissertation entitled ‘So small, but so big. Maths and sport’, as well as the CNIS course in ‘Attention deficit hyperactivity disorders and behavioural problems’. 

She has spoken in different conferences, including CNIS National meeting, where she presented an action-research on problem solving in kindergartens and nursery schools in the poster section. She collaborates with the non-profit organisation ‘I colori del sorriso s.c.s.-onlus’ in Gattinara.

Together with Biella Cresce, she organises different training courses for 0–6-year-olds.

In 2001 Francesco Bottaccioli, together with a group of researchers and physicians, founded the Italian Society of Psycho-Neuro-Endocrine-Immunology, an interprofessional and multi-disciplinary scientific association involving experts in various professional fields, such as psychologists, physicists, medical doctors, and researchers. He was its first President, and he is currently its Honorary President. SIPNEI adopts a scientific approach to holistic subjects and its aim is promoting the study of human body as a whole and in relationship with the environment, in the widest sense of the word.

In 1998 he founded the Scuola Internazionale di Medicina Integrata e Avanzata e Scienze della Salute (School of Integrated Medicine and Health Sciences), which he is still heading. SIMAISS has held hundreds of training and dissemination courses for healthcare professionals, involving thousands of physicians, psychologists, biologists, chemists, nurses, and physiotherapists, in collaboration with ASLs (local health units), hospitals and universities.

He is author of many books, which have been translated into different languages, such as ‘Psychoneuroimmunology’, ‘Mente inquieta’ and ‘Il sistema immunitario: la bilancia della vita’.

He is an active populiser who works with several magazines and newspapers, such as the insert ‘Salute’ of the newspaper ‘La Repubblica’.

After having played volleyball at the highest levels until 2016, together with her husband Rodolfo Cavaliere she founds Biella Cresce, a non-profit organisation whose aim is disseminating the latest scientific knowledge on learning. She gets to know some of the best researchers in the world as regards educational psychology, she gets a 2^nd-level master at the University of Padua in ‘Models and methods of intervention for SEN, LD e Gifted Children’ and she completes the CNIS course in ‘Psychology of mathematical learning’ (3^rd level). 

In a few years Biella Cresce has become a reference point in the territory. It trains hundreds of teachers and works in schools with more than 400 children, monitoring the results through scientific tools. Its improvements are extraordinary. In 2020, with the first edition of the Coschooling Forum, the association reached a national dimension, training 7,500 teachers and educators in Italy and disseminating the culture of outdoor education.

The experience as a volleyball player (shared with her husband) has been crucial for the success of her association, which draws inspiration from the model of sports clubs: it collects the majority of the funds from sponsors as well as from the membership campaign which starts at the beginning of the school year.

She played volleyball for 16 seasons in A1 and A2 leagues, and she was the captain of the Novara team. She won two A2 Coppa Italia, a CEV cup, a bronze medal at the U18 world championship and a gold medal in the U19 European championship. In 2010 she committed to play beach volley, winning the silver medal in the Phuket stop of the World tour and being selected for the Olympic project London 2012.

He was born in Turin in 1950, and he got his degree in Medicine and Surgery, specialising in Sports medicine.

He is author of books and several scientific articles on national and international magazines, and supervisor for many theses at the University of Turin and ISEF (Turin).

He is Scientific research director and Chief medical officer of the Institute of Sports Medicine in Turin. In 2020 he carried out a study, together with Guido Regis, vice-president of the Medical association of Turin, on the consequences of long-term effects of prolonged limitation of sports activity linked to the Covid-19 emergency entitled ‘Attività ginnico-sportiva: i benefici sulla salute in periodo di emergenza CoViD-19. Come organizzare una rapida ripresa’ (Gymnastics-sports activities: health benefits in emergency period CoViD-19. How to organize a quick shot).

He currently held many high-profile positions in the field of Sports Medicine, and he curates the UTET series ‘Medicina e Riabilitazione dello Sport’ (Medicine and rehabilitation in sports).

She has been working as a primary school teacher since 2009, she became the mayor of Gifflenga (in the province of Vercelli) in 2014 and president of the Union of municipalities ‘Tra Baraggia e Bramaterra’ in 2015.

She approached walking by attending a Walking leader training course supported by the ASL (Local Health Unit) of Biella and in March 2019, during the presentation of the project at the conference ‘Fa la cosa giusta’ in Milan, she met Ambra Garancini, the president of the network ‘Rete dei cammini’ and promoter of the project ‘Scuole in cammino’. As a consequence, she decided to test walking through pilot projects, first in the school where she was teaching and then in the other grades of her School district. Every day after lunch, from 2 to 2.30 pm, children can choose to have a walk with a group of volunteers along the paths of their territory.

After this experience, she promoted the project ‘Salute in cammino’ in the six municipalities in the province of Biella and Vercelli belonging to the Union of municipalities. It involves the creation of the ‘Scuole di cammino’, i.e. easy paths with a length of ½ km to stroll or train.