Heightscast

“Are you a classical school?” It’s a question many parents and educators will have to answer at some point. St. Martin’s Academy in Fort Scott, Kansas, likes to say they’re not exactly classical—more like medieval. At St. Martin’s, a boys’ boarding school and working farm for grades 9-12, Adam Taylor and a team of educators seek to nurture authentic masculinity, awaken wonder, and heal the imagination. This week on HeightsCast, Mr. Taylor talks with us about the vision of St. Martin’s, and gives us ideas we can take into our own understanding of boys’ education. Chapters: 3:35 The medieval model 7:12 The path to “Dean of Magistri” 14:38 Nurturing authentic masculinity 19:14 Healing the imagination 25:00 Boys need reality and heroes 33:49 Soulcraft: the role of work at St. Martin’s 36:54 Forms of manly friendship 40:57  Time management for teachers 45:35 Recommended reading Links: St. Martin’s Academy in Fort Scott, Kansas “The Necessity of Chivalry” by C. S. Lewis The Tuft of Flowers by Robert Frost John Sen

Pope St. John Paul II outlined the four pillars of formation for seminarians back in 1992 with his apostolic exhortation Pastores dabo vobis. For years, Fr. Carter Griffin has used this framework to walk with seminarians through a program of human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral formation at St. John Paul II Seminary in Washington, DC. With his recent book, Forming Families, Forming Saints, Fr. Griffin brings that rich framework into the context of parenting. In this episode, he provides parents with an overview of the four pillars of formation, and offers encouragement and practical wisdom about what it means for the family to be a “domestic church.” Chapters: 5:43 Family: the domestic church 8:38 Similarities to seminary formation 10:45 Not just self-optimization 15:03 The four pillars of formation 18:30 Sincerity: the truth is never a problem 25:50 Parental expectations 30:29 A childlike relationship with God 33:48 What faith is 37:41 Introducing our children to prayer 43:42 Struggles with prayer 4

A great learning experience comes at the material using different practices—listening, reading, memorizing, interrogating, doing, speaking, and/or writing about the idea until it crystallizes in the student’s mind. And a great teacher facilitates those practices in his class plan. For his talk at the 2024 Forum Teaching Conference, upper school teacher Austin Hatch borrowed the “three modes of teaching” proposed by author and educator Mortimer Adler. These are: didactic instruction, supervised practice, and active participation. Mr. Hatch explains why they are each needed in good proportion, and what each can look like in the classroom. Chapters: 00:04:25 The beginning and end is friendship 00:09:57 Didactic instruction: be brief and clear 00:12:23 Supervised practice: make the time 00:20:54 Active participation: host a seminar or performance 00:31:27 Beholding a man in performance 00:33:21 Q1: preparing students for a seminar 00:35:07 Q2: escaping the grade game Links: Paideia Program: An Educational Syllabu

Mr. Tom Cox’s approach to telling great stories in the classroom starts with a self-limiting 3×5 notecard. The challenge when telling any story from history is that all such stories run together, are infinitely entangled, and lack the defined clarity of exposition, crisis, climax, and denouement. Mr. Cox provides a practical framework and examples for “putting flesh on dry bones” in an effective, compelling way that students will remember. This talk was delivered at the Forum Teaching Conference in the fall of 2024. Featured opportunities: Teaching Essentials Workshop at The Heights School (June 16-20, 2025) Also on the Forum: A Better Approach to History featuring Tom Cox and Bill Dardis Keeping the Story in History by Mark Grannis 9/22 Seeing History: On Using Images in the History Classroom by Kyle Blackmer 2/22History the Way It Was by Bill Dardis

If we’ve decided against smart phones for our kids, can dumb phones come to the rescue? New options for families have hit the tech market, offering few or select features, and giving parents new things to consider when it comes to kids and phones in 2025. Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente offers a framework for thinking about smart phones, dumb phones, and feature phones in a culture still weighed down by anxiety and distraction. Chapters: 4:04 Deciding when 5:17 Phones as tools 10:05 The dumb phone: what problem is it solving? 16:11 The feature phone: constant connection 17:30 Healthy friendship 22:03 An age of distraction, even offline 23:44 The need for silence 26:29 School policies 27:14 Family policies Links: School Phone Bans Alone Do Not Improve Grades or Wellbeing, The Guardian, February 5, 2025 Apple Just Reinvented Its Biggest App, The Atlantic, September 14, 2016 The Anxious Generation: The Great Rewiring of Childhood by Jonathan Haidt Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation by Josef Pieper Featu

“It is an atmosphere we breathe in, rather than an argument we consider.” Thus wrote T. S. Eliot about the very idea of happiness Americans have adopted for their own. When raising sons in modern America, we should understand what cultural air they—and we—are breathing. Is that “pursuit of happiness” keeping our hearts and minds restless? In their book, Why We Are Restless, Dr. Benjamin Storey and his wife Dr. Jenna Silber Storey explore the inheritance of American-style happiness: where did it come from? Who has wrestled with it before? And how should we really engage with it? Ben Storey sits down with us to discuss this week on HeightsCast. Chapters: 00:08:44 Montaigne’s recipe for happiness 00:15:16 “Immanent contentment”: now is enough 00:17:19 Pascal’s reach for God 00:20:11 Rousseau’s earthly transcendence 00:29:09 The American Dream 00:33:45 Democracy and restlessness 00:39:38 The highs and lows of infinite possibility 00:45:02 Advice for high school seniors 00:49:30 Advice for parents Links: Why We Ar

At our 2024 Teaching Conference, Dr. John Cuddeback of Christendom College unpacked what boys need from their fathers and teachers in order to grow into the men they truly desire to be. And what boys desire, he argues, comes from their God-given nature: one that resonates with fatherhood, moral character, and the ability to speak truth. Chapters: 6:21 Today’s rejection of masculinity 10:11 Education: formation of right appetites 15:33 What they enjoy and what pains them 18:52 What boys should desire 21:26 To be fathers 29:15 To be men of character 31:33 To articulate the truth 33:32 How we educate: by example 36:16 By curating influences 37:57 By great art 42:49 By direct articulation, in friendship Links: LifeCraft, John Cuddeback’s website featuring free courses, videos, and articles True Friendship: Where Virtue Becomes Happiness by John Cuddeback The Intentional Household Podcast hosted by John and Sofia Cuddeback Also on the Forum: Made in the Image and Likeness: On Man and Masculinity featuring Bishop

It’s true: we talk too much. And we know that just one more brilliant lecture from us will not solve our boys’ every problem—but we can’t seem to help ourselves. This week on HeightsCast, lower school head Colin Gleason takes an intentional look at how we as parents and educators engage our boys, and how we might do better. The conversation reminds us that parenting is relational, not a delivery system, and that ultimately we want to keep the lines of communication open. Chapters: 2:30 Talk less, engage more 8:31 Over-supervision leads to acting, not being 15:11 Strategies for listening 17:23 Recon: trying to draw something out 21:12 Showing unanxious interest 25:38 Response: when they come to you 28:13 Keep them coming to you 31:01 Let the emotions breathe 37:32 Disrespect and complaints 43:38 The impact of listening Featured opportunities: Parents’ Conference: Freedom and Addiction at The Heights School (April 12, 2025) link coming soon Teaching Men’s Conference at The Heights School (October 2025) link co

In this episode, our guest (an AP U.S. History teacher) and our host (an AP Government teacher) delve into the worthy American most likely missing from your U.S. history or government class. Orestes Brownson was a nineteenth-century political thinker who wrote about the American project through his unique lens as a post-Civil War American-Catholic. He was well known in his time but is often only featured in the footnotes for the Election of 1840, the Transcendental Movement, and the Emancipation Proclamation. Brownson’s essays, though, belong in the classroom. They seek to answer with optimism and insightful reflection: what is this country all about? For what did our sons die in this great Civil War? Chapters: 4:20 Why read Brownson? 10:11 A religious and political wanderer 14:01 Arrives at the Catholic Church 17:00 Magnus opus: The American Republic 21:57 “Territorial democracy” 27:44 History as human experience 28:51 Territorial democracy and American Union 32:31 Missteps of democracy 36:54 Brownson’s visi

All the first universities were—St. Thomas Aquinas would tell us—Catholic ones. But in this modern day, it takes intentionality to maintain the rich tradition of Catholic education. In a talk recorded for HeightsCast, Dr. Peter Kilpatrick, president of The Catholic University of America, spoke to families at The Heights about what it means to be a Catholic university. He first consults the experts: Thomas Aquinas, John Henry Newman, John Paul the Great, and Pope Benedict XVI. He then offers examples from his own career in school leadership, and how to put the exhortations of popes and saints into action on campus. Chapters: 6:14 Universities: a Catholic inheritance 8:06 Newman and Aquinas on universities 11:58 Papal directives for Catholic universities 15:56 Theodrama vs. egodrama 19:16 Getting these ideas on campus 19:36 Mission-enthusiastic faculty 21:26 Mission-integrated curricula 24:12 Counseling with a Christian anthropology 25:01  Teaching a professional call to holiness 26:21 Campus ministry 28:15 The

Advent invites us to reflect on our Christian disposition, oriented towards peace, hope, joy, and love. St. Josemaría Escrivá was known to summarize that disposition by calling it, simply… “simple.” In The Way, he praises the apostles and St. Joseph for imitating Jesus himself in being simple. And then he exhorts us: “May you not lack simplicity.” Heights faculty Joe Cardenas and Nate Gadiano join us this week to explore the Christian meaning of “simplicity,” beginning with the ways that God is simple: unified, sincere, essential, and wholly true. As we strive to reflect his example, how do we find that interior disposition of simplicity? And how can we help our boys find it too? Chapters: 3:07 A Catholic sense of simplicity 10:13 Moving beyond “minimalism” 18:38 Simplicity in Scripture 20:43 Social simplicity 24:12 As opposed to duplicity 26:08 How spiritual direction simplifies you 30:36 A unity of purpose 32:39 Distinct from feelings-based “honesty” 39:02 Helping our boys as parents, mentors 41:41 A boy’s

“The air of Narnia had been working upon him … and all his old battles came back to him, and his arms and fingers remembered their old skill. He was King Edmund once more.” In this week’s wide-ranging discussion, Dr. Jason Baxter talks about fellow Medievalist C. S. Lewis’s ideas of story and history—and how those ideas matter for the education and formation of a thoroughly modern people. What can today’s “classical revival movements” learn from Lewis? Chapters: 3:56 C. S. Lewis’s library 6:31 His theory of stories: mining ancient jewels 14:49 His theory of history: a post-Christian world 17:14 Modern man’s trouble with pre-modern texts 20:09 Embracing modernity and tradition 25:45 Making virtue attractive 33:49 How to “teach” a passion 42:45 Why a new translation of Dante 49:51 Wounded by beauty Links: jasonmbaxter.com featuring articles and lectures Beauty Matters, Substack for Jason Baxter The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis: How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind by Jason Baxter The Divine Comedy: Inferno tra

In this episode we feature a lecture from Heights Lower School Head, Colin Gleason, at the last Art of Teaching conference. In the talk, Colin explores the concept of “unanxious leadership” in the classroom, emphasizing the importance of teachers maintaining a calm, grounded presence. He explains that anxiety often arises when teachers feel they are in constant conflict with students or struggling to control the classroom. Colin encourages teachers to adopt a mindset of humility and vulnerability, rather than relying on rigid authority or defensiveness, which fosters trust and respect. By focusing on building genuine relationships and being a “storyteller” rather than an “actor,” teachers can create a classroom where students feel seen, valued, and understood. Colin also stresses the importance of fairness in discipline. He warns against using authority as a tool for domination and suggests a “double correction” strategy—addressing conflicts with two students by fairly acknowledging the role each one played i

How do we justify reading? Do we justify reading? Heights fifth grade teacher and published fiction author Joe Breslin chases away such questions. Though fiction can have utility, even moral impact—fiction at its best is an art created and received with wonder. In this fascinating conversation, Mr. Breslin reflects on writing, reading, and gets us to the heart of what it actually means to do something “for its own sake.” Chapters: 3:50 Do we read for utility? 7:49 Fiction: pursued for its own sake 11:43 Whether fiction has a moral purpose 18:57 Fiction writing is not essay writing 23:03 Good art ends up reflecting God 26:09 Defining “good for its own sake” 28:23 The tension between education and encounter 34:04 A parent’s role in sharing fiction 38:07 The human impulse for literature Links: Hearts Uncanny: Tales of the Unquiet Spirit by Joe Breslin Other Minds: 13 Tales of Wonder and Sorrow by Joe Breslin joeybreslinwrites.com Joe Breslin’s author website “Ethics of Elfland” by G. K. Chesterton Leisure: The

A surprising number of Catholic conversions in the last hundred years begin with one man: G. K. Chesterton. A modern Catholic favorite, Chesterton looms large in subjects as diverse as theology, satire, marginalia, philosophy, politics, and mystery fiction. Our guest today is Dale Ahlquist, founder and president of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton. His own journey of conversion started with Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man. In our conversation, we visit many of Chesterton’s ideas, concluding with the much misunderstood “distributism”—a Chestertonian practical philosophy and the subject of Ahlquist’s co-edited book of essays titled Localism: Coming Home to Catholic Social Teaching. Chapters: 1:53 Conversion by way of Chesterton 6:17 Chesterton: a “complete thinker” 8:16 Reading recommendations 12:05 The opening of Everlasting Man 13:56 The ending of Man Who Was Thursday 17:16 Fairy tales and fundamental truths 19:18 “The twitch upon the thread” 22:27 Defining distributism, or localism 30:13 Localism for

The task of fatherhood is critical, dynamic—and daunting. How could one address hope to address it all? During the Fatherhood Conference at The Heights School this month, Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente boiled it down to this: God chose this for you. You are called. Accepting this simple starting point should give fathers the confidence to take on the role, and the humility to seek God’s grace while doing so. Chapters: 3:02 Fatherhood as vocation 9:20 Vocation as your position on the team 12:09 The mission: bring your family to heaven 13:29 Fatherhood is a partnership with God 16:07 A father’s example of piety and virtue 27:06 Offering our children direct guidance 30:37 Offering them our time 34:05 Witnessing to the world 36:54 Being open to God’s grace 40:41 Messy is fine 45:20 You’re the man for the job Links: Men in the Making, Alvaro de Vicente’s substack featuring original articles Pastoral Letter on New Evangelization, 2 October 2011 by Javier Echevarría, former prelate of Opus Dei Christ Is Passing By by

What is beauty? Is it definable? What is it for, how are we drawn to it—and why do we sometimes resist it? This week we welcome Dr. George Harne, president of Christendom College and an accomplished medieval and music history scholar. Drawing on his perspective as head of a vibrant Catholic liberal arts college, he speaks to us about the liberal arts as a path of study driven by beauty and contemplation, in pursuit of a true vision of reality. Chapters: 2:02 Liberal arts: what free people study 5:51 Versus “humanities” or “classical education” 7:46 Why study them 9:43 Music as a liberal art, fine art, liturgical art 13:16 Teaching art and contemplation 18:24 Defining contemplation 21:21 Contemplating music 24:45 Music with our family 28:19 Receiving beauty objectively, subjectively 29:42 Beauty under suspicion today 34:24 A Catholic liberal arts education Links: Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation by Josef Pieper The Arts of the Beautiful by Etienne Gilson Featured Opportunities: Fathers Conference at

Dr. Jeremy Beer’s study of American society over the last 200 years, overlaid with psychology research and statistics about American charitable giving, has brought about his recent book: The Quest for Belonging. The book directly advises nonprofit and fundraising leaders, though it just as much informs the everyday giver. This week on HeightsCast, Beer helps us see that charitable giving at its best is not a distant act of beneficence but an intimate act of community. It allows those who participate to become more rooted in the reality of social belonging, making for a healthier society in more ways than one. Chapters: 3:56 American cultural tradition of “association” 7:39 Four pillars of civil society 9:04 American society, in particular 16:53 Gradual decline of American association, of belonging 21:33 Giving and religious affiliation 25:04 Giving and localism 28:02 Giving as a democratic exercise 31:31 Nonprofits have a role in belonging 33:50 The goods of associating ourselves 34:36 To whom do you owe? 41

It turns out that modern psychology, neuroscience research, “habit hacks,” and popular self-help literature can all be summed up in one very classical idea: the virtues. So asserts Dr. Andrew Abela, founding dean of the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America. This week on HeightsCast, he helps us unpack his new book, Superhabits, in which he rebrands the virtues as “superhabits” to suit the contemporary discourse. Then, with the help of Thomas Aquinas and about a dozen gripping stories, Dr. Abela shows us how these superhabits of virtue are described, developed, and supported by modern research as the way to live a good life. Chapters: 2:20 Virtues: the essential human operating system 5:19 Humans pre-wired for virtue 9:14 Psychology research, self-help books all point back to virtues 17:57 “Anatomy of Virtue” diagram 25:57 The role emotions play 29:12 Virtue gets easier! 33:21 Translating virtue into “superhabits” 37:19 Redirecting anger with gentlefirmness 43:22 Finding restful leis

The sentimentalism of our greater culture is a formidable—yet surmountable—challenge to young men. Our sons are relentlessly encouraged to follow their affections and feelings wherever they might lead, whatever their commitments. How can we, as parents and teachers, help our boys to become men who love the world without being pulled off course by the sentiments and affections that are a natural aspect of our God-given humanity? As part of our parent lecture series at The Heights School, Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente offers his insights to navigating the cultural challenge of sentimentalism by using the virtue of loyalty as a ballast. For when the feelings fail, loyalty helps us to stay the virtuous course—where our yes is yes and our no is no. Chapters: [00:02:11] The erosion of loyalty, rise of sentimentalism [00:05:14] Loyalty: a virtue that trains other virtues [00:12:36] Sentimentalism: when feelings dominate [00:17:47] How sentimentalism undermines the good [00:30:01] Modern boys and sentimental morals [