There is no such thing as a "dumb jock"
In doing research for The Academic Coach Academic Success Summer Workshop, I came upon this article, "Football Physics And The Myth Of The Dumb Jock" by Chad Orzel. Orzel argues—and I believe correctly—that athletics show us wonderful examples of scientific thinking. I would go even farther than Orzel and state that athletics requires the full manifestation of the Whole Person Model: the convergence of intellect, physicality, and emotion. This runs counter to a Divided Person Model which sees these as separate components of the person operating in isolation. This allows us to sort and rank people by which component dominates. The athlete is physical, the artist emotional, the scholar intellectual.
Yet, we see that excellence in the arts requires emotion, intellect and physicality, just as athletics requires the same convergence. What we miss in schools is that scholarship also requires that same convergence. The scholar must use intellect to understand an academic field, but the scholar must also engage the physical work of scholarship and bring passion to the work. Academic excellence, just like artistic and athletic excellence requires a Whole Person Model. We educators need to look to the fields of athletics and the arts and model this convergence in our classrooms. How do I as a teacher engage not only the mind, but also the body and the heart? What we do at The Academic Coach is to help students see how they can bring this convergence which they are developing on the stage or the field into the classroom.
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