Heightscast

This week's episode features Chris McKenna, founder and CEO of Protect Young Eyes (ProtectYoungEyes.com), who discusses the challenges and opportunities of raising sons in a digital age. Our guest has been on the frontlines of the current battle to protect children from digital exploitation, both criminal and corporate. As we form sons into men of freedom, it is grossly negligent to lack awareness and plan in this domain. Chris provides both. Listen in to hear more about how parents can flip a challenge into an adventure by accompanying their sons through a digital world where pornography and distraction saturate the landscape. As always, the obstacle becomes the way, and by keeping our sights set on the good while fearlessly walking with our sons, we can rely on grace to help our boys grow into men with hearts capable of profound and lasting love.

For many people today, avoiding existential despair is like shoveling water from a damaged ship: the effort, no matter how valiant, is ultimately futile. Stuck in an immanent frame, a frame which lacks any real transcendence, one is left without a substantial source for hope. The above remains true, though in different ways, even for believing and practicing Christians. As children of our current culture, that culture shapes even our faith.  This week on HeightsCast, we welcome back Dr. R. J. Snell, the Director of Academic Programs at the Witherspoon Institute and the editor-in-chief of Public Discourse. In the episode, Dr. Snell discusses his recently published book, Lost in the Chaos, in which he offers an examination of the theological virtue of hope and an application of that virtue to our current times. More than an optimistic personality trait, more than a virtue that looks forward to a time in which all shall be made right, and more than a nostalgia that pines for a past in which all is thought to ha

This week we feature a lecture offered by Head of Upper School, Michael Moynihan, at the most recent Teaching Vocation Conference. In his presentation, Michael encourages us as teachers to engage our students as free and rational agents, even when they don't want to be engaged as such. Michael offers us some helpful insights into the principles that should guide our teaching, as we lead our students to becoming seekers of truth, rather than consumers of information produced by others.

Many of us assume that college will inevitably follow on high school's heels, but why? Why go to college, and, once there, how do we make the most of the "college experience?" University of Dallas' President, Dr. Jonathan Sanford, shares his thoughts on these questions and offers guidance as to how this experience should be different at a Catholic liberal arts university. Our approach to friendship, study, and reality is shaped by our university years. But so too are our university years shaped by our expectations heading into it. Higher ed is a place where most of us can find whatever it is we are looking for. Dr. Sanford's conversation calibrates our students to make sure they are looking for the right things.

Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente discusses the importance of "imperfect parenting.'  Ours is an age of external perfection, but when our son's fail to achieve the standards we set for them, our own anxiety can be the chief obstacle to our boys' thriving.  Emotional presence in an imperfect parent facilitates a child's thriving by subsuming him into that of his mother and father.  Hear our headmaster explain the importance of "quantity time," and the internal emotional disposition that can make this time a win, even if imperfectly.

While most professions work on an object which is ultimately transient—a doctor, for example, works to heal the body which will ultimately die, an engineer to design a bridge which will deteriorate over time, an entrepreneur to start a business that will likely persist at most a handful of generations—the object of a teacher’s work is a human person, whose ultimate destiny is eternity. His work reverberates not only in this life, but echoes into the life to come.  In this way, the work of a teacher is a natural extension of the work of parents, who cooperate with the Creator in not only welcoming souls into their own homes, but in stewarding them back to their heavenly Father’s eternal homeland. Indeed, the work of a teacher is essentially an extension of the work of parents, who are the first and primary educators of their children.  To explore the ways the vocation of fatherhood harmonizes with the vocation of teaching, this week on HeightsCast we share a lecture given by Tom Steenson at our recent Teaching

Dr. Scott Crider of the University of Dallas introduces us to Rhetoric, an art of persuasion that allows our future leaders to lead souls (and themselves) to the good. Dr. Crider discusses the nature of rhetoric, its place in the tradition of liberal learning, its role in a technologically advanced society (and classroom), and how it can be practiced by our students,  not only later in life but now, in the context of the academic essay.

In a HeightsCast episode released a few months ago, headmaster Alvaro de Vicente offered guidance for parents on how to understand, interpret, and respond to their sons’ grades, while also nurturing strong and lasting bonds. This week, we welcome Tom Steenson to HeightsCast to discuss grading from the teacher’s perspective. In this week’s episode, Tom offers practical advice to teachers, framing grades as a means to helping students learn. He considers how to approach grading students whether they are relatively strong in a particular subject or struggling through a class. Approaching grading more as an art than a strict science, Mr. Steenson encourages teachers to remain realistic without crushing a student and to challenge students to think beyond the grade, helping them find a real joy in learning.  Chapters  2:10 Introduction: Grading from a teacher’s perspective 3:00 How should teacher’s think about grades? 5:05 Practical advice for how to deal with a strong student with respect to his grades?  7:45 Sh

John Paul Lechner and Joseph Haggarty discuss Sparhawk Academy's craftsmanship class.  Sparkhawk students engage the real, and craft meaningful works for their families and community while gaining skills that will serve them for life. It's a good for the present and the future, and a good in itself as well: hear two teachers share how they share their own love of making–a virtue for fathers-in-the-making.

“I’m a big believer in boredom…. All the [technology] stuff is wonderful, but having nothing to do can be wonderful, too.” Thought-provoking words from the man whose company produces one of the most powerful tools for distracting ourselves from any feelings of boredom. Not only Steve Jobs, but seventeenth-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal, too, understood the dangers of perpetual entertainment, the inability to sit alone in a room by oneself.    Given the current cultural moment, a particular arena in which children—and, indeed, parents too—need to grow in self-mastery is that of screens and technology. This week on HeightsCast, we feature a talk given by Colin Gleason, head of lower school. First given at last Saturday’s Parenting Conference, this talk addresses how parents can foster the interior dispositions their sons will need to use technology well, and not to be used by it. He encourages parents to train their young sons in other arenas in order to prepare for healthy use of technology. Moreover

Why does The Heights teach traditional logic?  Mr. Mark Grannis, Upper School Logic and History teacher at The Heights, explains, and shares more about his new book, The Reasonable Person: Traditional Logic for Modern Life.

This episode of HeightsCast features our Headmaster's Open House presentation, in which he shares our vision of education, along with the specific mission and concrete approach this vision animates.  As you will hear, the Heights is informed by the timeless, yet vigorously engaged with the present, sinking its roots as a school and community into the soil of the 21st century.  The Heights education, rather than seeking escape, strives to strengthen men who will, in turn, preserve, protect, and promote the good that is abundantly present in our modern world.

The real problem for many today is not ADD; it is, rather, what Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente refers to as IDD: intimacy deficit disorder. This problem is even worse for men, who on average have fewer close friends. Studies indicate that the percentage of males who report having at least six close friends has been cut in half since the 1990s. There is, it would seem, a recession in male friendships. While there is no easy panacea for this problem, as with most things, one’s education can have a lasting impact on how a child learns—or doesn’t learn—to relate to others.  This week we feature a recording of the annual Headmaster’s Lecture titled “Friendship and the 21st-Century Boy.” In the lecture, Alvaro discusses what friendship is and how to help children—and young boys, in particular—foster healthy friendships. He discusses contemporary obstacles to friendship and why growth in maturity is necessary for true, deep, and lasting friendships. He also offers a few words on what parents can do about bad friends—

Man is by nature made for movement. As a social-rational animal, he is not meant to live an angelic existence; his flourishing is embodied and, even more, it is familial.  Though we all know this intuitively, living a healthy life can be difficult in practice. Not only does personal experience tell us this, data suggests it: life expectancy in America is dropping. How is such a downward trend possible given the advances in medicine and technology? What humans have done since the dawn of time, and what they have stopped doing in the past fifty, Is to move on a daily, hourly basis. To speak about the importance of movement for human flourishing and family life, we welcome to HeightsCast our athletic director, Mr. Dan Lively. Keeping an eye on the development of the whole young person, Dan discusses the problem of sedentarism, a lack of movement, which plagues many people’s lives. Rather than focusing on one-off exercise, Mr. Lively suggests we think about our overall relationship to movement. Living a healthy l

According to Aristotle (and Aquinas and others), the human person is essentially rational and social; man thinks, and he thinks best in the context of friendship. As such, at the very heart of man’s education ought to be learning to write effectively, for good writing is thought clarified and beautified which can be shared with others. Recent developments in Artificial Intelligence, however, seem to pose a formidable challenge to teachers who wish to help their students grow in this most human of crafts.  To help us think through how we as teachers should approach this challenge, this week on HeightsCast we welcome Dr. Matthew Mehan, Associate Dean and Assistant Professor of Government for Hillsdale’s Steve and Amy Van Andel Graduate School of Government on Capitol Hill. Despite the risks and challenges associated with it, Dr. Mehan argues that teachers should not abandon the at-home long essay. Indeed, as he points out, the creativity and thoughtfulness required by teachers who still wish to utilize the at-h

This week on HeightsCast we explore intergenerationality in its sociological, philosophical, theological, and neurological aspects. All of these "ogicals" point to the same conclusion: our sons need to know themselves to be part of a bigger story, and the relationship of our boys to parents, grandparents, and great grandparents gives them a sense that life is a total gift. Our job as educators, then, is to free young people from an individualistic solipsism, in part, by helping them discover the role they are created to play in an intergenerational ecosystem.

Grades serve students, parents, and teachers. In today's episode Heights Headmaster, Alvaro de Vicente, discusses the purpose of grades from parents' perspective. Grades are a manifestation or measurement of the quality of a young man's work. How then are we, as parents, to receive, interpret, and act upon these grades? And how can we do all of these things in such a way that we strengthen the bonds between us and our sons, regardless of their placement on the bell curve? Listen in to explore all of this and more.

Heights Headmaster, Alvaro de Vicente, addresses the 2022 Teaching Vocation Conference Attendees, introducing them to teaching: a vocation, and a profession. Mr. de Vicente offers his thoughts on what it means for work to be a vocation; what it means for work to be a profession; and why it is that teachers are called to work that is both professional and a vocation.  Finally, our headmaster shares his thoughts on how we can tell whether the classroom is for us, or rather, whether we have been made for the classroom.

As we approach the beginning of a new academic year, Mr. Tom Royals helps us revisit the "why" behind our dress code. As parents and teachers, we work together to help our boys look sharp–buttons buttoned, ties up, shoes--yes, leather shoes–laced and tied. Our Assistant Headmaster reminds us that this work is worth the effort despite the repetitive and thankless nature of our stylistic exhortations. Listen in to learn more about what motivates us to keep the lads looking sharp.

What, you might ask, does cheese have to do with education? The answer is not that you may find holes in both, but rather that both require attention to the local culture to be made whole.  This week on HeightsCast, Mr. Tom Steenson shares his thoughts on the tone and culture of the classroom. Leaning on nearly twenty-five years of teaching experience, Tom encourages us as teachers to see our classrooms as second homes and our role as assisting their primary families. There are, of course, important differences between being a parent and being a teacher, yet the overlap between the two vocations is striking and worth pondering.  Listen to Mr. Steenson's ideas on how to shape the tone and culture of the classroom to be a place where students know they’re loved, love to learn, and therefore learn to know and love all the more.  Chapters: 2:15 Chesterton and cheese 5:07 Like father, like teacher  9:35 How teaching is an art 11:50 What is “tone”? 15:05 Externals that affect the tone 18:10 Classrooms as expressin