2020 Workshop Talk | 1:25:37 | All Grade Levels, Athletics & Extracurricular, Leadership & Strategic
Summary
Mention writing, math, grammar, or Latin in a CCE crowd and you will get multiple well-developed schools of thought backed up by research and published curriculum. Additionally, the programs shaped by that thinking are markedly different from what you see in contemporary schools. Mention athletics in that same crowd and you get a mumbled and baptized Vince Lombardi speech and programs that are doing all they can to mirror the public school down the street. Is that all we should expect? Despite its failings in every other realm, has American contemporary education hit upon the ultimate expression of scholastic athletics and so earned our emulation? Or do we have some work before us to establish a scholastic athletic paradigm that is consistent with a classical pedagogy and a biblical worldview? The mission of this seminar is to open up the discussion of what a classically consistent athletic program might look like. Specific topics to addressed include: the mission of athletics, considering which sports are a good fit for a CCE school, small school vs large school athletics, athletic scheduling, and the mission of the school.
Speaker
Matt Hopkins is one of the founders and the accidental head of school at Augustine Classical Academy. ACA is now in its 11th year, having started with nine 8th–10th graders in year one. He is a self-confessed scholastic athletics junkie, and ran a three sport athletic program at ACA for those first nine students in year one. There has not been a year of his adult life when he was not coaching in a scholastic context and most of that time has been spent coaching rowing. ACA rowers broke out onto
the national scene with medals at the scholastic nationals four years ago and have not slowed down since. Last year, drawing from a pool of 32 upper-school students, ACA qualified 14 athletes in five events to the Scholastic National Rowing Championships where they brought home gold in two events, a bronze, a fourth, and a 12th. He has either coached or competed in baseball, running, soccer, basketball, squash, and rowing. He is the father of nine and the husband of one.
Additional Materials
The Association of Classical & Christian Schools presents Repairing the Ruins, the ACCS annual conference, copyright ACCS. You may make additional copies of this recording for use by your school but please do not sell any copies of the recording, or post it on the internet.
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