Heightscast

Last weekend, The Wall Street Journal published a front-page story on American young men and the crisis of masculinity. It featured hard stories of the “aimless and isolated”—but could ultimately offer no solutions. This week on HeightsCast, we’re pleased to welcome Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim, Norway. Bishop Varden has authored several books exploring human personhood, including topics of masculinity and femininity. He helps us get the lay of the land both culturally and spiritually in this so-called moment of crisis. His Excellency then shares the vision of masculinity that he finds in scripture and tradition, so that we may bring these ideas into our homes and to our sons. Chapters: 2:59 Man fully alive: is my life fruitful? 5:09 A crisis of masculinity 11:06 Language for a constructive conversation 14:11 ‘Man,’ ‘woman,’ ‘human person’ called into question 17:39 Vision of the human person in Genesis 26:38 Complementarity of the sexes 30:19 Masculinity and femininity as dual poles 38:29 Manliness: to p

It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out. So writes the fictional devil Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood in C. S. Lewis’s epistolary novel The Screwtape Letters. But where devils may wish to keep the good out, Heights headmaster Alvaro de Vicente highlights the ways we as parents can keep the good in. By aligning our family culture with the good voices we hope our sons will hear—and leaving space to allow the Divine voice and the voice of one’s own conscience to be heard—we help our sons form a good vision of themselves and the world. Chapters: 4:55 Why The Screwtape Letters 8:18 A devil’s job is keeping the good out 11:09 Three voices: people, the Divine, and the conscience 14:58 Unpacking the term ‘voice’ Advice for keeping the good in: 18:05 Slow down the noise 23:45 Promote contemplative times 26:20 Reserve time to read 29:41 Cultivate the art of conversation 32:12 Conspire for the good with their teachers 36:

Part of the Teaching Sovereign Knowers Collection In recent years, a number of HeightsCast guests have touched on the same resounding theme: the modern creep of curiositas and acedia, both considered classical vices. But where there are two vices, Aristotle encourages us to look for a virtue at the Golden Mean. Mr. Michael Moynihan, head of The Heights upper school, finds it in studiousness. Adding to his collection of work on Teaching Sovereign Knowers, this episode unpacks Michael’s essay “Intellectual Virtue and Personal Sovereignty,” available on the Heights Forum. In it, he speaks to the why and how of pursuing studiousness as an intellectual virtue. For this, as with all virtues, allows us to stand before reality in an intentional way. Chapters: 3:43 Curiosity as an intellectual vice? 7:55 Acedia at the other end of the spectrum 10:15 Golden mean: studiousness 14:36 When is it curiositas, when is it engagement? 16:37 Studiousness as a virtue—of sorts 23:09 Standing before reality in an intentional way

The vision of “man fully alive” involves a man motivated by faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these, St. Paul tells us, is love. Our guest today, Mr. Tom Steenson, is a long-time teacher of the Heights fifth grade and also the upper school class History of Western Thought. He brings his experience and broad readings to bear on the question: How can we impart lessons of authentic love to rambunctious twenty-first century boys in a way they’ll actually internalize? Tom’s practical ideas span younger and older students, framing the endeavor as forming the boys for love by love. Chapters: 2:47 Teaching love to younger students 6:11 Teaching love to upper school students 11:26 Turning self-focus into self-knowledge 16:20 Images of love in the curriculum 19:36 Love and masculinity 23:47 Love in imitation of God 26:06 Passionately loving the world 31:00 Faith, hope, love: the greatest is love 34:46 Affirmation of their goodness Links: Augustine’s Confessions translated by F. J. Sheed Phaedo by Plato Fe

In classrooms where the students can read for themselves, reading aloud often falls off the daily schedule. But it’s a ritual well worth keeping—for the sake of literacy, the moral imagination, classroom bonds, and so much more. Long-time Heights teacher Tom Steenson encourages the teachers tending that flame, or wanting to rekindle it, in their own classrooms. Chapters: 2:08 Goals of reading aloud in the classroom 4:44 The artist sees, then helps others to see 11:47 Books that aren’t landing 15:10 The read-aloud routine, scene-setting 18:35 Reading in a high school classroom 22:27 Separating instruction from narrative 24:59 The effect on teachers Links: Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation by Josef Pieper The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien Augustine’s Confessions translated by F. J. Sheed Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nihm by Robert C. O’Brien The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster Featured Opportunities: The Art of Teaching Conference at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2024) Also on the Forum:

As we embark on a new school year, we are full of resolutions for the family routine. How will we order our week to support the highest goods? How will we fit it all in? Not to be overlooked while charting the course: our keeping of the Sabbath. Last April, author and teacher Daniel Fitzpatrick released his book Restoring the Lord’s Day: How Reclaiming Sunday Can Revive Our Human Nature. Daniel sits down with us at HeightsCast to discuss the book, which examines the cultural drift away from a sense of Sabbath, why we should restore this God-given rhythm to our lives, and the scriptural support for how to do it. Chapters: 4:09 Inattention to the Sabbath: modern or ageless? 7:54 Acedia, primary vice against the Sabbath 12:32 Challenges of the five-day work week 17:24 Festivity and sacrifice 21:56 The draw of sports as they relate to beauty 24:30 The good, UNrestful activities of Sunday 31:09 Practical advice for young families 35:38 Preparing on Saturday 40:44 Concluding the Sabbath 43:22 Reckoning with the ne

“Picture yourself here.” “Become all you can be.” “This will be the best four years of your life.” The college pitch to high school seniors is alluring—though it doesn’t sketch a very clear life plan for a young person entering higher education. As Heights Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente points out, a successful time in college can be measured in growth: Are you physically, spiritually, and intellectually stronger by the end of these four years? In order to answer yes, students will need to embark upon college with a plan and a healthy way of measuring those dimensions of growth. This week on HeightsCast, Mr. de Vicente shares incredibly practical advice for spending the college years well, drawing on a letter he sent this summer to the newly graduated Heights class of 2024. Chapters: 1:45 The best four years of your life? 6:44 Old truths remain fresh 9:17 College success measured by growth 12:05 Five battlefronts, five tools for success 12:36 One: Shower and eat breakfast 15:30 Two: Look at your day as a 9-to

Charlotte Mason’s simple framework for a teacher calls him a “guide, philosopher, and friend.” It’s a lovely image—but what does that practical application look like? At the Forum Teaching Vocation Conference last winter, Heights teacher Tom Cox unpacked each of these terms citing ancient wisdom and loads of modern classroom experience. Chapters: 6:09 Charlotte Mason and the teacher as guide, philosopher, and friend 7:44 Guide: one who has been there before 10:53 Communicating the “why” 14:18 Philosopher: starting in wonder, ending in wisdom 15:59 A storyteller stirring up wonder 20:01 Friend: beginning with a mutual love of something 22:28 Modeling friendship with fellow faculty 23:57 St. Aelred of Rievaulx’s qualities of friendship 24:19 Dilectio, outward benevolent acts 24:54 Affectio, interior feeling 26:29 Securitas, freedom from anxiety 27:42 Iucunditas, pleasantness 30:00 Orient towards hope: begin and begin again Links: Grammaticus.co, Tom Cox’s website featuring Latin and history courses, his blog

In his address to the Forum’s Mentoring Workshop held in June, our Head of Lower School Colin Gleason helpfully reframed just what mentoring is—and what it can’t be. Though images of the sculptor, the director, and the master often accompany this rough term of “formation,” Mr. Gleason reminds us that we are really more akin to gardeners, who attend to a living creation with its own freedom and will. So, how can we appreciate this situation and best work with it for the good of our mentees? Chapters: 1:29 Neither the model nor the molder 3:39 We cannot ‘do’ the formation 5:56 Freedom to choose the good 10:19 “Thou mayest” (not thou shalt) “triumph over sin” 15:54 Exercising freedom requires formation 16:49 Manners: what the act looks like 18:57 Reasons: the intention behind the act 21:38 Images: how a person chooses the act 23:36 A mentor as such an image 25:49 Loving the good 29:51 Loving the person References: He Knows Not How: Growing in Freedom by Julio Diéguez East of Eden by John Steinbeck Man’s Sear

In June, the Forum hosted a Mentoring Workshop for men across the country (and beyond) to consider the whys and hows of mentoring young boys into young men into men fully alive. It’s always best to start by defining terms. And so, the opening lecture for the workshop weekend featured Dr. Joseph Lanzilotti, theology scholar and upper school teacher at The Heights School, explicating the kind of Christian anthropology that precedes a mentoring relationship. In other words, how are we to understand what man is before we try to help him grow? For our benefit, Dr. Lanzilotti maps out this profound philosophical concept using St. Augustine’s simple and most famous line: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Chapters: 2:07 St. Augustine’s “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you” 4:56 What is man? Who is man? What is his telos? 7:54 Pope St. John Paul II’s “adequate anthropology” 8:38 Finding an adequate anthropology in St. Augustine’s restless heart 10:05 Fecisti nos: you made us 13:33 Ad te: f

Note from producer: This conversation was originally published on March 23, 2021, but has been updated and republished on June 13, 2024. As we look forward to the wide expanse of summer, one thing certainly on our minds is how we can support our sons’ friendships in the absence of school. Turns out, we needn’t look further than our own living rooms. In fact, welcoming our children’s friends into our homes may be the healthiest place for authentic, lifelong friendship to grow. In a timely rebroadcast from 2021, Assistant Headmaster Tom Royals helps parents to see their homes as a venue for hospitality—one that integrates our children’s social lives with the culture of the home. He especially highlights a vision for hosting teens, who often stray away from home-based gatherings just when it’s most beneficial. Chapters 01:45 Begin Interview 02:28 Parents building a culture of home gatherings 06:50 Hosting high schoolers, knowing your home 11:24 Co-ed hosting 12:56 Spontaneous hosting 15:05 Parents working with

Where to begin with the lofty, almost nebulous virtue of magnanimity—what St. Thomas Aquinas called “stretching forth of the soul to great things”? Of course we want to raise great-souled children, who even outstrip us in their vision of the good and their commitment to serving it. But words alone will fail to impart such a personal and complex mission. At last April’s Fatherhood Conference at The Heights, Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente tackled the challenge of how to teach magnanimity to our children. Following Fr. Carter Griffin’s keynote address, Mr. de Vicente laid out the map: the obstacles we must navigate, the targets of opportunity we must seize, and the tools to pack for the mission. Chapters 4:30 Defining magnanimity: a vision of and commitment to the good External challenges to teaching magnanimity: 6:37 Identity culture 7:43 Sexualized culture 9:09 The “second-hand smoke” of culture 10:20 Materialism and affluence 13:18 Entertainment culture 16:01 Moral relativism Internal challenges to teaching

The modern instinct with free time is to fill it. Whether in our own lives or in the lives of our children, we imagine that something productive or mindless is the antidote to an uncommitted hour. Middle school teachers Kyle Blackmer and Shane O’Neill encourage us to think differently. This week on HeightsCast, the duo shares practical reasons and methods for protecting our family’s free time, which helps to cultivate interests, relationships, and the wellbeing of the whole person. They speak especially to our role as parents, teachers, and coaches: to clear the way of obstacles and model our own good use of free time. Chapters: 3:27 Good free time 5:33 Role of parents in a child’s freetime: not entertaining but spreading a feast 7:34 Sunday as the day of rest 10:03 Leisure not as a thing “to do” 12:17 The Sabbath and sports 17:10 Overscheduling as an obstacle 22:42 Wasting time vs. free time 25:57 Cultivating interests, fostering friendships 30:53 Consumerism as an obstacle 35:20 Why free time is ultimatel

Today we talk to Dr. Peter Kilpatrick, President of the Catholic University of America, who offers our graduates advice about how to make the most of college. He shares his thoughts on civic discourse, selecting a major, affording college and more. In addition he roots the entire college experience in the bigger quest to know one's self; but is that possible in a dorm? Our guest today answers "yes" and makes suggestions about how to advance in this life-long quest. Finally, Dr. Kilpatrick also highlights the value of leadership and engagement in campus life, encouraging students to take on leadership roles while balancing their commitments. He emphasizes the significance of mentorship and self-reflection in personal growth, urging students to seek out meaningful connections and opportunities for development.

In this episode, our headmaster explores the relationship between freedom and obedience.  The former is a hallmark of our school and the ideal destiny of each graduate. But is it a contradiction to suggest a link between obedience and authentic freedom? To view obedience as a guarantor, even an amplifier of freedom?  Our headmaster resolves the paradox and offers a synthesis of these two concepts that ultimately resolve in a man fully alive who finds freedom in embracing all that he is given. 

In this episode Dr. Kevin Majeres offers his thoughts on two recent books: Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, and Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier.  Both books seek to tackle major questions such as screens and socials, overprotective parenting, anxiety and depression, and the appropriate response to those conditions.  Dr. Majeres optimistically offers helpful and poignant suggestions to parents fully aware seeking to mindfully raise mindful children. Links:  Optimal Work Optimal Work: How to Help an Anxious Generation Thrive Optimal Work: Is All Therapy Bad Therapy? Optimal Work: How to Discipline Your Children While Deepening Your Bond with Them Anxious Generation MIT Study on Facebook and Anxiety One, Two, Three Magic “Thomas Phalen” No Drama Discipline The Gardner and the Carpenter On McGilchrist and the Left Brain Bad Therapy Leonard Sax on Bad Therapy

This episode explores the theory and the practice of the Polis Method of language instruction which relies on a variety of methods to offer students an immersive experience of second language acquisition. We are joined by Dr. Christophe Rico, Dean of the Polis Institute, and Mr. Guillermo Dillon, Latin teacher at the Northridge Preparatory School in Chicago, Illinois.

This week we feature a lecture by Fr. Carter Griffin, rector of the Saint John Paul II Seminary in Washington, D.C., to Heights Fathers on magnanimity.  This virtue calls us to stretch forth towards greatness, but with humility; to have an unshakable confidence in the victory of good over evil, but to walk slowly; to know ourselves to be loved by an all powerful father, but to be unmoved by either praise or slander.  As we help our sons to grow in virtue, Father Griffin encourages us, as fathers, to foster in ourselves this, the jewel of all the virtues which gives us confidence and certainty that God has a plan, and that we have a role in it.   Father Carter Griffin St. John Henry Newmann:  Warfare the Condition of Life St. Thomas Aquinas on Magnanimity https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3129.htm Teaching Through Immersion Workshop at Northridge Preparatory School June 17-21, 2024   Alexandre Havard on Magnanimity and Great Hearts

In this week's episode, Mr. Michael Moynihan discusses freedom in education. Michael traces the development of our philosophical understanding of freedom through the centuries, starting with the Greeks and moving into the modern age. Next he presents the Christian ideal of freedom as a resolution and expansion of these conflicting understandings, along with some implications of this new freedom for our work in the classroom.

This week's episode features Mr. Alexander Havard, an internationally recognized authority on leadership and virtue. Mr. Havard gives us, as parents and teachers, a beautiful introduction to the virtue of magnanimity. In addition, Mr. Havard helps us understand the critical role of the human heart in the process of first embracing and then living a life of virtue. A good education shapes not only intellect and will, but heart as well. Listen in to hear why that is the case, and how we can go about offering a great education to the great souls entrusted to us.   Links:  AlexHavard.com Books:  Free Hearts: Understanding Your Deepest Motivations Created for Greatness: The Power of Magnanimity And more...