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—or, rather, friends with bad characteristics.
In the end, Alvaro gives some practical advice for how parents and educators can set the stage for the formation of what Cicero called “the greatest of all gifts from the gods,” friendship.
Chapters
4:42 Introduction
6:10 What is friendship?
8:47 Fostering friendship by common action
12:02 Intimacy
17:41 Why maturity is necessary
21:26 Characteristics of maturity in friendship
26:09 What to do about “bad friends”?
30:32 Should parents intervene in their children’s friendships?
32:17 How to separate your son from a bad influence
39:27 Specific challenges to boy friendship in the 21st century
50:50 Challenge of living in a hypersexualized environment
54:02 Practical ideas
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 lifestyle involves more than checking a box; it involves developing habits of movement—low intensity, high volume, enjoyable movement that everyone can do for his whole life.
Chapters
Recommended Resources
Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia
Also on the Forum
Character Formation in Elite Athletics with Brad Soderberg
Systems for Athletic Success with Dan Lively