Plato: The Student/Athlete
The best discussion supporting the student/athlete approach to education that I have ever read is ironically from the Greek Philosopher, Plato. An old college professor encouraged me to get my own copy of Plato's Republic and this was the first section I happened to turned to. Another irony was that the professor wasn't familiar with the passage and told me I might have purchased the wrong book. What a crazy incident. Anyway, great quote, long but very well thought out. "Now, the ordinary athlete undergoes the rigours of training for the sake of muscular strength; but ours will do so rather with a view to stimulating the spirited element in their nature. So perhaps the purpose of the two established branches of education is not, as some suppose, the improvement of the soul in one case and of the body in the other. Both, it may be, aim chiefly at improving the soul. Have you noticed how a life-long devotion to either branch, to the exclus...