How valuable is a school for athletes that understands and deals straight up with the fact that boys need physical activity, on a daily basis, and that getting that physical activity improves their academics?
What if that same school offers its student-athletes an elite classical education?
What if that school actually encourages the boys to be competitive? Won't that yield benefits that go above and beyond just sports and academics?
Boys excel in such an environment. And the benefits last a lifetime.
So let’s get to it. Here are my 7 top reasons for boys to attend a school for athletes like Bridgedale Academy.
All these factors will be constantly at work in a properly run school for athletes. So let’s look at each factor separately.
But offering boys an appropriate athletic outlet is precisely what most schools do NOT do. Many either don’t even offer recess, or they strictly limit it, preventing boys from behaving like boys during what little recess they do offer.
A classical education is rigorous. It does not leave your child’s development to his own impulses and whims.
The fact is that classical education is at the very foundation of our western civilization. Yet virtually ALL schools today either downplay or ignore the principles that guide a classical education, things like moral virtue and learning how to become citizens capable of self-government. Many schools today actually reject these principles outright.
A school that offers a classical education is thus training the entire student-athlete, not just the athlete. (Bridgedale Academy’s academic curriculum is based on the classical curriculum of Hillsdale Academy in Hillsdale, MI.)
To learn more about why a classical education is better, check out Why a Classical Education? for a fuller discussion.
Rather than belabor the point again here, see our previous blog The Benefits of Small Class Size to learn why that’s so valuable. Also, check out Does Class Size Matter? by economics professor Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach.
Scientific studies firmly establish that boys perform better academically in all-boys schools than they do in coed schools. This is especially true at the middle school grade ages, i.e. when the earlier maturing girls leave the boys in their dust.
One of our prior blogs, Do Boys Learn Better in an All-Boys School?, goes into detail about these benefits.
And so to reap all of these benefits, a school for athletes, like Bridgedale, would also be an all-boys school.
At Bridgedale, our competitive boys are surrounded during the school day by other competitive boys. They compete with each other athletically, they compete with each other academically, and they compete with each other as they learn to be leaders.
Isn’t this a good thing?
But in today’s politically correct education system, a boy’s natural competitiveness is often frowned upon, even discouraged.
And, unfortunately, we are learning on a massive scale that this can be debilitating for boys. See Bias Against Boys in Education to learn more about the fallout from years of our education system discouraging boys from being boys.
(Here's a true story:
A Bridgedale parent wanted to know why his son was willing to leave his prior school and friends to enroll at Bridgedale Academy.
“Don’t you like the kids at your school?” he asked.
“I like those kids a lot,” replied his son, “but none of them are like me.”
What the boy meant of course was that his friends from that school were not as dedicated to achieving their goals as he was to achieving his. They were not as competitive.)
It is well-settled science today that youth athletes are better off if they participate in multiple sports/physical activities before they ultimately choose to specialize in a single sport.
At the same time, however, skill development, crucial to youth athletes, demands the use of proper techniques in their specific sport. This is arguably the MOST important thing about training youth athletes.
Because without proper techniques, young athletes will be severely limited in their ability to apply strength and power to their skills set as they get older.
(See our prior blog Get 36 Weeks of Hockey Camp for a more detailed analysis of skill development in youth hockey players.)
But there’s more.
As young players move up the competitive pyramid within their chosen sport, pretty much ALL the players have developed their physical skills to a certain level.
In every sport, it is the mental game that separates the great players from the merely good ones.
How an athlete "thinks" the game ultimately determines how far he will advance.
A school for athletes that combines these factors into a single unified curriculum will by definition create an environment that fosters both academic and athletic development. But more importantly, it will nurture the natural instincts and impulses of young boys aspiring to excel, not only as student-athletes but also as future men and, ideally, as leaders in their communities.
And so developmentally, a school for athletes like Bridgedale Academy is the best option available for the aspiring young male athlete.
At Bridgedale Academy, these 7 factors are constantly at play, combining to make it the perfect environment for young hockey players (4th through 8th grade levels) to develop both academically and athletically.
Attention 4th Graders
In addition to our 5th through 8th graders, Bridgedale Academy is accepting a limited number of 4th graders for the 2023-24 school year, on a case-by-case basis. Please call me at 708-712-5079 to inquire.
Mike McPartlin, Headmaster
Bridgedale students LOVE going to school,
and so they THRIVE in it.
They LOVE coming to school every day.
And as a result, they are thriving.
They engage academically ...
... and so they come to love learning.
They also love that they get to work on the sport they have such passion for, while also training to become better athletes, all as part of their school day.
They train athletically ...
... and so they more fully develop their skills.
They LOVE getting so much better ... so much sooner.
They are physically fit and mentally alert ... they are thriving.
“Every shot you don't take won't go in.”
Wayne Gretzky
Bridgedale is now enrolling students for the 2024-25 School Year.