This episode features Mr. Michael Moynihan's lecture at last year's Teaching Vocation Conference. Our Upper School Head shares why a liberal arts education is needed more today than in times past. And the reasons are not simply that classics majors can code too. To the contrary, an authentic liberal education gives us not only truth, but also a ground upon which to stand. Many of our current social crises are rooted precisely in such a poverty: we mistrust much of our ability to know, and consequently we don't know much of what gives life purpose and meaning.
Michael goes on to share four characteristics of a good liberal arts education. According to our Upper School Head, such an education:
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In last week’s episode, we considered how beauty is a special combination of order and surprise. To behold beauty, we learned, is to contemplate the dynamism of a being on the way to its perfection. It is to see the rose emerging from its seed.
This week we talk with assistant headmaster, Tom Royals, about learning to see the beauty—albeit often messy beauty—of our own growing children. To be sure, in this adventure, we may find more surprise than order. Nevertheless, in learning to see our children with loving eyes, we learn to better understand them. And in better understanding them, we are better able to accompany them along their paths, each of which has its own peculiar order.
In this episode, Tom encourages us to avoid thinking of our children as projects and instead to learn to contemplate them as free persons. For it is only in becoming contemplatives of our children that they will know themselves to be understood and loved, as they are. This knowledge, more than anything, will become the basis of their growth. Like Chesterton said of Rome, they are not loved because they were first great; they will become great because they have first been loved.
Chapters
Also on The Forum
20 Ways to Improve the Family Dinner by Rich Moss
Against Indifference by Tom Longano
Ways to Foster a Family Culture by Alvaro de Vicente
On Home as Social Hub: The Importance of Hosting Our Sons and Their Friends with Tom Royals
Learn to Turn: Tom Royals on Parental Prudence with Tom Royals
Cultivating Friendship in the Classroom by Austin Hatch
Our Little Protectors: How Do WE See Our Boys? with Alvaro de Vicente
It sounds nice to say, using Dostoevsky's words, that beauty will save the world. But is this claim true? If so, in what sense is it true? What even is beauty? And what would it mean for it to save the world?
This week, we welcome Dr. Lionel Yaceczko back to HeightsCast to discuss beauty: what it is and what the Western tradition can tell us about it. Today’s episode is rooted in a previous discussion we had with Dr. Yaceczko, in which he spoke with us about Western civilization. In that episode, we considered what Western civilization is and why it is still worth studying today. This week, we look at one reason why the study of the West is a fruitful endeavor: it can help us better appreciate beauty.
As we hear from Dr. Yaceczko, beauty consists in the marriage of order and surprise. It is the fruit of keeping the commandments and breaking the conventions. As such, seeing part of a beautiful work of art first invites our prediction—there is order and we can discern it—and then astounds our expectation—but that order is not mere slavish repetition.
Whenever we find beauty in this world, we glimpse eternity. Each glimpse spurs us on to find the fullness of that beauty, which is our perfection and which will surpass all predictions: eye has not seen, nor ear heard what has been prepared for those who truly love. And when, God-willing, we find that Beauty—or perhaps, better yet, when He finds us— we will finally be at home. And yet, if our intuition about beauty here is on track, then we will forever be astonished with Whom we find.
Chapters
Also on The Forum
A Study for All Seasons: Lionel Yaceczko on the Western Tradition with Dr. Lionel Yaceczko
What Is the Difference between Free Time and Leisure? by Joe Bissex
Five Fruits of a Poetic Education by Nate Gadiano
The Way of Encounter by Joe Breslin
Matter and Form, Substance and Accidents by Michael Moynihan
Additional Resources
The Making of Europe: An Introduction to the History of European Unity by Christopher Dawson
Beauty: What It Is and Why It Matters by John-Mark L. Miravalle
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Manalive by G. K. Chesterton