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HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive

Welcome to HeightsCast, the official podcast of The Heights School. Every week, we feature interviews with teachers, educators, and experts in a variety of fields, both here at The Heights School and beyond our school's walls. Our conversations concern the education and formation of men fully alive in the liberal arts tradition. In other words, we talk about the education of the kind of man you’d want your daughter to marry. We hope that these conversations may be both delightful and insightful; and that through them, your vocation as educators may be ever renewed. Join us!
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HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
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Sep 16, 2022

In this week's episode we discuss fights. Most boys, especially at a young age, have a beautiful need for rough and tumble physical play. But what happens when it's not play? What happens when egos are insulted and the fists go up? Or when there's an unjust aggression? At what point is a young lad–or an older one–justified in puttin' up his dukes? Teacher and Coach, Kyle Blackmer, gives us some points for consideration as we coach our sons on the use of physical force. In the end, this is another one of those areas where parents–most often, but not always, dad–are the primary educators of boys learning the proper employment of one of God's great gifts: their strength.

Sep 9, 2022

In many quarters of contemporary society, busy-ness has become a sort of cliche greeting. To the question “How are you?”, the response, “So busy,” is often automatic. To borrow the words of Dr. R.J. Snell, many of us are conspicuously busy; and we wear our busy-ness as a sort of badge of honor, rooting our worth in our work.

In last week’s episode, we talked with Dr. Snell about work and acedia. This week, we round out that episode with a discussion of what is ultimately the point of work, namely leisure. While we may often think of leisure as ordered toward work—we rest so that we may work more—Dr. Snell explains how the reverse is nearer the truth, not only etymologically but also metaphysically. Work is for the sake of leisure, as instrumental goods are for the sake of intrinsic goods.

As you’ll hear, if we take the Eucharistic feast seriously on Sunday, then the rest of our days will be caught up into that Eucharastic feast. Monday will be different, for though we may be just as busy as before, our activity will no longer be so frenetic. It may even take on the mysterious rhythm of a divine dance.

  • 0:20 Relationship between leisure and acedia 
    • 0:35 Acedia as frenetic busy-ness 
    • 1:05 Total work and workaholism
    • 1:44 School as leisure
    • 2:30 Leisure is not an absence of activity  
    • 3:02 Sabbath work and goods for their own sake
  • 5:04 Modern education and its discontents 
    • 5:52 Education as the feast
    • 6:35 Mistake 1: Not respecting students as sovereign knowers
    • 7:56 Mistake 2: Olympian vision of education
  • 10:55 Overscheduling as a form of acedia
    • 12:05 Conspicuous busy-ness
    • 12:45 A culture of having and doing, rather than being
    • 13:35 Sin as loving a lower good at the expense of a higher good
    • 14:40 Sloth as a flattening of the Sabbath
  • 14:56 Where do we begin?
    • 15:40 Suggestions for the Sabbath
  • 17:00 Sabbath overflowing into the work week
    • 17:30 A Eucharistic life
    • 18:25 Another sort of leisure
  • 18:50 Leisure and contemplation in the work-a-day world
    • 19:20 Living in and approving of the good
    • 20:11 Dance as contemplation
    • 21:53 Backyard sports as contemplation
  • 23:50 A good question for conversation
    • 24:10 What can we do to enjoy our time with each other more?
    • 24:25 Catching the little foxes 

Also on The Forum 

Additional Resources 

Sep 1, 2022

A certain distinguished school leader, when asked when he would retire from his work, replied, “the day that I wake up and do not want to go to work.” A reply such as this perhaps strikes the modern ear as senseless. For many of us, work fills the greater portion of our daily lives, but do we feel ourselves thereby fulfilled? Especially today, we may often feel trapped in what seem like unspectacular sisyphean cycles.

This week, R. J. Snell, editor-in-chief of Public Discourse and director of the Center on the University and Intellectual Life at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, talks to HeightsCast about the virtues of work and its opposing vice, acedia. Drawing on insights from his book, Acedia and Its Discontents, R. J. helps us think through how these concepts are realized in the context of family life and life on campus. 

As we will hear, our everyday work is the ordinary means by which we participate not only in the perfection of God’s creation but also in the perfection of our very selves. Our work is where the rubber meets the road; it is where mere aspiration is turned into actual reality. Ultimately, work is where heaven and earth merge. In realizing this often hidden truth, we may thereby discover that divine drama which is not a sisyphean cycle, but a spiral staircase. 

Chapters 

  • 1:17 Work as a gift 
    • 2:22 Error of thinking that work is a result of the Fall
  • 3:23 Garden of Eden as in a state of potency: Adam and Eve are called to fill it
  • 5:30 Work as part of being made in the image of God
  • 7:15 How work fulfills us
  • 7:35 Husbandry of the self
  • 8:25 God’s rule through our own self rule: participated theonomy
  • 10:08 Work as the primary way of exercising self-governance
  • 12:50 Cultivating the soil: on the way to beauty
  • 14:25 The friendly universe
    • 15:50 Grace perfects nature
  • 16:41 The three tests of good work
    • 18:45 The integrity of work and the worker’s integrity
    • 19:30 Bright-eyed children
    • 21:25 Work as furnishing God’s house
  • 24:03 Education as cooperating with Grace
  • 26:07 Acedia: a hatred of reality
  • 27:05 Judge Holden and the desire for radical self-autonomy
  • 30:00 Desert Fathers on acedia and the refusal of God’s friendship
  • 31:00 Sloth as the vice of our age
  • 31:36 Natural history as the counter to acedia and reductionism
  • 35:03 The little foxes: recognizing acedia creeping in
  • 35:55 What you are doing now is where God is calling you
  • 37:40 The divine drama of the most mundane things
  • 38:50 Sabbath and rest

Also on The Forum

Additional Resources

Aug 18, 2022

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:

  1. Teaches the right use of reason (grounding empirical sciences in realism at the bottom, and opening them to philosophy and transcendence at the top. In this vein, Michael challenges the current trends that simply limit the liberal arts to the humanities);
  2. Conveys meaning through a narrative approach, and in particular, meanings that offer a foundation resistant to materialism;
  3. Connects us to our tradition in such a way that facilitates authentic freedom; and
  4. Is firmly rooted in a realism that allows students to engage the real in a meaningful way.

More on the Forum:

Aug 11, 2022

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

  • 4:00 Not projects, but persons
  • 5:43 To be seen and known
  • 6:25 To be accompanied, not managed
  • 7:20 To be contemplated
  • 7:45 Charity as seeking to understand
  • 9:30 Only the beloved sings
  • 10:30 Accompanying as flowing from contemplating
  • 11:50 The importance of knowing our stress points
  • 13:08 ​​We are always teaching
  • 15:30 Why we should “waste time” with our children
  • 16:35 The importance of being available
  • 19:15 The need for simplicity when attending to our children
  • 21:00 The dangers of “search and destroy” mode
  • 25:00 Why we should welcome guests into our homes
  • 26:20 Storytelling around the dinner table
  • 27:05 Limiting corrections at the dinner table
  • 28:20 Parents and teachers are always learning
  • 28:55 The long view in parenting and education
  • 29:30 Loving your children as a manifestation of loving your spouse
  • 31:12 Parenting and teaching: overflows of the interior life

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

Aug 5, 2022

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 

  • 2:33 What is the classical style? 
    • 2:53 From the web
    • 2:43 Neoclassical architecture in D.C.
    • 6:33 Balance and classical architecture
  • 8:15 What is beauty? 
    • 11:44 On forms and the form
  • 13:18 Can we have a common conception of beauty? 
    • 14:07 Subjective aspects of beauty
    • 15:00 Beauty as movement toward the final cause
    • 16:10 Use and abuse 
    • 17:28 Personal taste and beauty
  • 19:17 What is nature?
    • 20:18 Ancient philosophers against nature
    • 21:38 Beyond mere accidental arrangement: objective nature
  • 23:08 Beauty: the balance of order and surprise
    • 24:05 Chesterton’s Manalive
  • 27:03 How does beauty relate to happiness?
    • 28:11 The philosopher as teacher of happiness
    • 29:38 The spontaneity of beauty
  • 31:00 Lessons from Classical sculpture: a brief introduction
    • 32:14 Contrapposto and the movement toward perfection
    • 34:23 Verism
    • 35:03 Architecture
  • 38:43 Beauty and the liberal arts

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

Jul 29, 2022

In this week’s episode, we continue our conversation with Dr. Kevin Majeres, turning our attention to the importance of setting challenges and the way actions shape emotions. Drawing on these two topics, Dr. Majeres helps us think through how parents can best help a son that is struggling with an addiction of any sort.  

In particular, Dr. Majeres responds to the following questions: 

  1. What is addiction?  
  2. What is the neuroscience behind addiction? 
  3. How does the particular addiction of pornography tie into this general understanding of addiction? 
  4. How can we—or our sons—set challenges? 
  5. How is flow the ultimate in self-mastery? 
  6. For the adolescent boy struggling with addiction, what sorts of challenges are we trying to help him craft? How do we help him frame out the sort of challenge that will free him?

As we hear from Dr. Majeres, true freedom consists in the ability to form a deep bond and faithfully maintain it over time. Rather than a mere negation—a freedom from some outside force—the deepest freedom lies in a freedom for, the ability to give of oneself to another. We might well say, then, that there is no greater freedom than the freedom of friendship, and that the greatest of friends is He who leads us in libertatem gloriae filiorum Dei: into the glorious freedom of the sons of God. 

Chapters

  • 3:22 Defining Addiction
    • 5:40 The Neuroscience of Addiction and the Divided Brain
    • 8:12 When the Left Hemisphere Takes Over
  • 9:15 Neuroscience and The Virtues
  • 10:11 Addiction to Pornography 
    • 11:35 The Danger of Responding with Mere Rules
    • 12:30 Freedom as the Ability to Form Faithful Bond 
    • 13:10 Growing Up Brave
    • 14:27 How Goods are Communicated through Bonds
  • 16:18 Parenting and Growth 
    • 17:18 Controlling the Controllable 
  • 18:54 The Physiology of Bonding
  • 19:10 The Neuroscience of Ends and Means
    • 19:55 Order in the Home 
    • 20:37 Focus on the Bond: People are not Projects 
  • 21:52 Growth in Mastery: Endless Dopamine 
  • 25:30 Types of Challenges and the Divided Brain
    • 26:25 Quality Challenges 
    • 28:04 Left Brain and Addictions
  • 30:12 Flow as the Ultimate in Self-Mastery
    • 30:48 Love as a Form of Flow
    • 31:20 Contemplation as a Form of Flow
    • 32:25 Contemplation and Work
  • 33:40 Helping Our Sons Craft Challenges
    • 34:20 The Importance of Deep Listening
    • 35:50 The Danger of Problem Solving for Our Sons
  • 38:34 How Should Parents Approach Challenges? 
    • 39:23 Outcomes vs. Growth
  • 41:10 Classical Virtue Theory and Neuroscience
  • 48:05 OptimalWork Resources

Additional Resources

The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist

Growing Up Brave by Donna Pincus

OptimalWork on YouTube

OptimalWork MasterClass

Also on The Forum 

On Freedom and Phones with Alvaro de Vicente 

Why Boys Need to Be Given Freedom by Andrew Reed

Freedom in the Upper School by Rich Moss

Jul 21, 2022

We have all experienced moments in which we are so immersed in a task that we lose track of time and performance feels effortless. For some, this may occur on the sports field; for others, in the classroom; and still, for others, in the performance hall.

Yet, we have likely also experienced the opposite. For many children, the struggle for concentration is probably more prevalent. 

Last week, we began a three-part series with Dr. Kevin Majeres. We discussed what anxiety is and how parents can help their sons—and themselves—turn occasions of anxiety into opportunities for growth. This week, we are back with Dr. Majeres to discuss attention and mindfulness.

In the episode, Dr. Majeres helps us begin to answer the following questions: 

  1. Although we all may know the symptoms, what really is at the heart of attentional issues?
  2. What is a distraction? How does it differ from an interruption? 
  3. What is occurring physiologically when boys experience attentional difficulties? 
  4. What are ways to develop the muscles of attention? 
  5. What are common practices that cause attention to atrophy? 
  6. Is medicating a good way to approach attentional issues? 
  7. What is mindfulness? What are ways for younger children to practice mindfulness? 
  8. How does freedom relate to mindfulness? 

In the end, mindfulness offers us a doorway into two aspects of freedom that are at the heart of human flourishing. Learning to attend to our work at school helps us to attend to others in society. And, in both instances, learning to attend well is a pathway to love; for what we love captures our attention — what lover does not often find his mind turning to his beloved? — and that to which we attend, we can begin to love.  

If education is the turning of a mind, as we hear in the Republic, then mindfulness may well be fundamental to its success. For when one turns toward the truth, he will thereby be ready not only to recognize it but, even more, he will be prepared to fall in love with it.  

Chapters

  • 2:05 Introduction and Review of Episode 1
  • 3:55 What is ADD and ADHD?
  • 4:38 The Two Halves of Attention
  • 6:28 Training the Default Mode Network
  • 7:28 The Neuroscience of Attentional Difficulties
  • 7:53 Theta Waves and the Muscle of Attention
  • 9:05 The Three Movements of Attentional Training
  • 9:55 Medication and the Gray Matter
  • 11:13 Are Attentional Difficulties a Fixed Trait?
  • 12:02 What Weakens the Attention
  • 12:45 Video Games
  • 13:25 How Music, Reading, and Work are not like Video Games
  • 14:53 Passive Attention
  • 15:30 Memory and Attention
  • 16:35 The Importance of Imagination
  • 18:01 Strengthening Attention
  • 19:15 Slowing Down and Mindfulness
  • 20:08 The Importance of Order and Predictability
  • 22:15 Silence and Work
  • 22:50 How distractions differ from Interruptions
  • 26:00 Mindfulness for Young Children
  • 30:18 The Golden Hour
  • 31:33 Strategies for a Helping a Reluctant Boy
  • 33:16 Forming the Perimeter
  • 37:33 Mindfulness and Interior Freedom
  • 38:50 The Freedom for Personal Bonds

Additional Resources

What is a Golden Hour? with Dr. Kevin Majeres and Sharif Younes

Back to the Basics: An Intro to OptimalWork with Dr. Kevin Majeres

OptimalWork on YouTube

Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies by Simone Weil

Also on The Forum 

From Anxiety to Adventure with Dr. Kevin Majeres

Why We Need Exposure to Nature by Eric Heil 

Training the Hand to Train the Mind by Robert Grieving 

Three Guiding Principles for Homework by Rich Moss

Jul 14, 2022

Adorning our school’s main hallway is a sort of charter for the Heights graduate which designates him as a man who is “optimistic toward life’s challenges,” as one who “sees freedom as an opportunity to choose the good.” Fostering these ideals in each student is a central aspect of the school’s mission. But, in a world that is increasingly filled with children suffering from anxiety, how—in very practical terms—can we help our students develop such an outlook on life?

Last month, we heard from Mr. Alex Berthé on how parents can find peace in an anxiety ridden world. This week on HeightsCast, we begin a series of discussions with Dr. Kevin Majeres, lecturer at Harvard Medical School and Founder of OptimalWork.  

In this three-part series, we take a deep dive into three sets of challenges which are becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s youth, and three mindsets or skills that can help us as parents and teachers to help our boys help themselves:

  1. Anxiety 
  2. Attention
  3. Addiction 

Our first discussion with Dr. Majeres focuses on anxiety. Combining years of experience as a psychiatrist and drawing on research in cognitive behavioral therapy, Dr. Majeres teaches us both what anxiety is and what we can do about it.  

In the episode, we learn: 

  1. The Foundation of Growth 
    1. The importance of having a growth mindset—seeing yourself as capable of real improvement. 
    2. Learning to reframe out of a fixed mindset
  2. Anxiety 
    1. Anxiety is adrenaline with a negative frame
    2. Adrenaline is a performance-enhancing hormone, which is meant to improve one’s capacities, whether physical or cognitive. 
    3. All anxiety disorders come from seeing anxiety as a disorder; they are the fruit of seeing the effects of adrenaline as a problem. 
    4. Children’s preferences are often manifestations of anxiety coupled with avoidance; it is crucial to help people from a young age to stay with a challenge and not flee from anxiety. 
  3. Reframing 
    1. Reframing is deliberately finding the opportunity for growth in a challenge that one had previously viewed negatively. 
    2. The way the body utilizes hormones depends on how we frame them; reframing is not mere wishful thinking. 
    3. Start small; don’t tackle the biggest challenge first. 
  4. Cheerfulness 
    1. Cheerfulness is often synonymous with courage. 
    2. The family is where we first learn to see challenges as opportunities.
    3. If parents foster a smiling approach to challenges, then even a quick thought of them can become a reframe for their children. 

An essential component of The Heights School’s mission is to help students discover the adventure hidden in every challenge they face. Having spoken with Dr. Majeres, we might phrase this skill as the ability to turn the adrenaline of anxiety into the adventure of everyday life.

Chapters

  • 2:35 Introduction to Possible Solutions 
  • 3:55 A Snapshot of Mindfulness
  • 5:08 A Snapshot of Addictions
  • 6:45 A Quick Biography of Dr. Majeres
  • 9:55 What is Anxiety? 
  • 13:34 Helping Young People with Anxiety
    • 16:58 Parents as Savvy Exposure Therapy Coaches
  • 19:12 The “A” Word: Should We Name It? 
    • 20:06 Safety Training
  • 23:23 Reframing from a Parent’s Perspective
    • 25:21 What is Reframing? 
    • 26:28 Game Theory
  • 28:13 Double Exposure, Double Mastery
  • 30:01 Breaking a Fixed Mindset
  • 34:18 The Importance of Being Cheerful
  • 36:50 Why Not to Complain
    • 38:23 Learning to See Challenges as Opportunities
    • 39:10 The Importance of Role Models 
  • 42: 55 Reframing Parental Anxiety

Additional Resources

The Golden Hour with Dr. Kevin Majeres 

Turning the Knots in Your Stomach into Bows by Jeremy Jamieson, et al. 

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck 

Also on The Forum 

“Learn to Turn”: Tom Royals on Parental Prudence

Parenting: Patience or Optimism with Andrew Reed

The Stressed Son: The Causes of Adolescent Anxiety with Alvaro de Vicente 

Be the Rock: Fatherhood During Times of Crisis by Kyle Blackmer

Toughness for the Adolescent Boy by Kyle Blackmer

Jul 5, 2022

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul tells us that he has “become all things to all people,” so that he might better share the blessings of the Good News with more people. To become such a man who can be for all seasons, however, one must have been educated for all seasons. A preparation of this sort is precisely what the Liberal Arts, rooted in the Western Tradition, afford those who wish to pursue them. In Cicero’s own words, these arts are apt for both all seasons and all settings:

Though, even if there were no such great advantage to be reaped from [the study of literature], and if it were only pleasure that is sought from these studies, still I imagine you would consider it a most reasonable and liberal employment of the mind: for other occupations are not suited to every time, nor to every age or place; but these studies are the food of youth, the delight of old age; the ornament of prosperity, the refuge and comfort of adversity; a delight at home, and no hindrance abroad; they are companions by night, and in travel, and in the country. (Pro archia poeta, 7.16)

Today we talk to Dr. Lionel Yaceczko about all things Western: Western Civilization, the Western Tradition, Western Culture. We discuss just what we mean by “the West," and why it has become so controversial in recent years. With Dr. Yaceczko’s guidance, we consider why a deep study of The West is still worth protecting and promoting, beyond nostalgia and mere academic interest.

In this week’s episode, Dr. Yaceczko sets the stage by offering a high level definition of these concepts, and then arguing that there is, indeed, something worth protecting in our tradition. This is especially true if we are interested in critiquing events of our own time and of times past, because the Western tradition is the source of so many of the commonly accepted standards now used to evaluate human conduct. Important concepts such as equality under law and justice for all are born of this culture, extending roots into both Rome and Christianity, and growing in the rich soil of both Roman and non-Roman peoples alike. 

We might disagree about what they mean or how we use them, but perhaps that's a good place for us to start. And, if so, let's start at the very beginning: there was Rome, the Church, the Romans, and the Gentes.

Chapters 

  • 2:39 Introduction
  • 3:12 What do we mean by “The West”?
  • 4:20 What is Paedea and in what does it consist?
  • 6:46 Why should we care so much about the Western Tradition?
  • 8:11 A poet on trial: Cicero’s Pro archia poeta
  • 16:50 A study for all ages
  • 19:48 Why has the West become so controversial?
  • 34:01 The most egalitarian form of elitism: Sharing the benefits we have received
  • 36:27 Being just judges of the tradition: recognizing both the good and the bad
  • 41:50 Righting wrongs from within: how the tradition gives us the very tools we use to critique it 

Suggested Reading

The Making of Europe: An Introduction to the History of European Unity by Christopher Dawson

Pro Archia Poeta by Marcus Tullius Cicero   

Also on The Forum

On Christianity and the Classical Education with Dr. Lionel Yaceczko 

History the Way it Was by Bill Dardis 

Defining the Liberal Arts with Dr. Matthew Mehan 

Is The Heights a Classical School? with Michael Moynihan

Jun 24, 2022

In the opening paragraph of his Confessions, St. Augustine writes, “our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”  For many, the first half of this famous line is a well-known feeling; it is, in many ways, “the feeling of actual life,” to put it in Hemingway’s own terms. Indeed, there lives deep down a desire in all of our hearts for some mysterious reality — a green light across the bay — which seems to forever escape our grasp. Many are dreamers; fewer have found an object worthy of the greatness of their yearning. 

What do we do about a situation such as this? And what, if anything, can modern literature do to help us?

This week, we sit down with Mike Ortiz to discuss one of the Upper School’s new courses in the English Department. The course we discuss considers two men who, though both great American authors of the first half of the twentieth century, differed greatly in both their lifestyles and their styles of writing.  The authors are the effervescent and romantic F. Scott Fitzgerald and the macho, realist Ernest Hemingway.  

For all their differences, however, both men shared at least one trait: a taste for the tragedies of life. Although their styles may diverge syntactically and verbally, the substance of what they express hits the reader with an equally direct force.  

In this episode, Mike helps us approach some of the darker aspects of these two men’s lives and literature, seeing their works in the broader context of their lives and their lives in the broader context of our liberal arts curriculum at The Heights. 

It’s difficult, Mike’s interlocutor reminds us, to be truly a man fully alive and not feel much pain, for to have lived fully is to have loved with a full heart; and, on this side of paradise, to have loved means to have suffered much. But, as we hear in the episode, reading and studying great authors such as these and, what is more, learning to see the tragic characters of their works in a broad context may be more than a little help in preparing our students to face the many tragic romances of a dreamer and encounter the realism of true Romance.

Chapters 

  • 2:17 Background to Hemingway’s Good Friday 
  • 5:55 A New Model for English Classes
  • 10:44 The Great Contrast: A Romantic and A Realist
    • 16:05 The Iceberg Theory 
  • 23:13 How to Read Modern Literature without Becoming a Cynic
    • 26:35 The Danger of Cynicism
    • 28:00 To Get the Feeling of Actual Life
  • 30:05 From The Sun Also Rises
    • 35:04 The Loneliness and Inadequacy of Promiscuity 
  • 37:38 From The Great Gatsby
    • 41:14 A Dreamer without an Object
  • 43:30 From My Lost City
    • 44:30 Called Back to Love: Dante and Fitzgerald
  • 45:40 From Troubled Lives to Decline and Death
  • 50:15 The Tragedy Behind the Tragedy

Further Reading

Today is Friday by Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald 

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

My Lost City by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Hemingway’s Brain by Andrew Farah

On Stories by C.S. Lewis

The Troubled Catholicism of Ernest Hemingway by Robert Inchausti

Also on The Forum

Hemingway’s Good Friday by Mike Ortiz

Modern Literature: On Curating the Contemporary with Mike Ortiz

Exploring and Expressing the Human Condition through Literature with Mike Ortiz

Jun 15, 2022

Growing up is, at least in part, a process of learning to ask, and learning to answer, certain fundamental questions. These include timeless queries such as “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?” Our sons, in particular, might ask themselves, “What does it mean to be a man?” and “What is the point of my life right now, given that I’m not a man yet?”

Our boys’ attempts to answer these questions, along with the answers those efforts yield, will lead them to a certain self-awareness—an identity of sorts. Ultimately, we want our boys to know themselves as they are: beloved sons of a Creator God who loves them deeply as a Father. Their lives, then, become an adventure of deepening in that awareness and of living accordingly. The earlier our lads can start down this path, the better.

In this episode, our headmaster explores:

  1. How we all develop self-awareness
  2. How our boys, in particular, do this, especially by means of a “persona”
  3. How we, as parents, can foster a healthy persona in our sons.

As the great sage, Yogi Berra, reminds us: you've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there.  This advice is true enough, but we can add that if you don’t get going, you never will.  So, let us not be paralyzed by perfection.  As we help our sons sail out of port, we can trust that with the help of good friends, good teachers, and the Good God Himself, it won’t be too long before he finds himself—and, even better, gives that self away out of love for the other.  

Chapters

  • 2:50 Introduction 
  • 5:44 The Anxiety of Not Knowing Where to Go 
  • 9:22 Lecture Outline
  • 10:15 How Your Discover Your Who Your Are
    • 11:10 The Inward Way: Learning About Ourselves by Self-examination 
    • 16:35 The Outward Way: Learning About Ourselves by Interacting with Others
  • 20:45 How a Young Man Navigates Identity Today 
    • 20:58 Comfort in Numbers 
    • 29:21 Developing a Persona 
  • 32:51 What Parents and Teachers Can Do to Help Boys Develop a Healthy Sense of Self 
    • 33:05 Identify and Guide the Persona 
    • 39:29 Show Boys Their Deeper Layers 
    • 47:52 The Power of Example 
  • 52:56 Conclusion: Why You Should Not Worry

Also on The Forum 

Mr. Alvaro de Vicente on Moral Imagination: Part I 

Mr. Alvaro de Vicente on Moral Imagination: Part II

The Issue of Identity: Who does your son think he is? By Mr. Rich Moss 

May 20, 2022

As parents, we cannot help but yearn for our child's success.  Obviously this is rooted in a beautiful and healthy love.  But sometimes that love can give way to fear, and that fear leads to anxieties that are unhealthy, not only for us, but for our children as well.  What can we do about this?  How can we care deeply about our children, without worrying so much that our worrying actually begins to weigh on the little guys we’re worrying about?

This week, we bring to you a recent Heights Lecture given by Mr. Alex Berthé, Licensed Clinical Social Worker and former Heights teacher/mentor.  Blending clinical expertise with his own personal experiences, Alex helps us unpack the forces—rooted in love, though often expressed in fear—that are feeding our anxieties.  In particular, Alex offers reflections on four key areas: 

  1. The importance of delighting in your children and really getting to know them, as they really are and not as you wish they were. 
  2. Why it is essential to put the relationship with your spouse first and to find trusted partners in parenting.
  3. The need to leave behind perfectionism: good enough is enough to move our children toward the good.
  4. The necessity of deepening our faith in God and respecting the freedom of our children.  

Anchored in hope and optimism, Alex shares how we, as parents subject to these powerful yet often subconscious forces, can reinforce our boys' confidence in their identity as children of God through rediscovery of our own.  

As we hear, wisdom in parenting often consists in learning what things to ignore.  If wisdom begins in wonder, as we hear from Socrates, then perhaps our worries will end when we learn to view our children—even at their lowest points—with the wonder with which our heavenly Father views us.  

Highlights

  • What causes parental anxiety? 
  • The stages of child development and how parents respond. 
  • Striking the balance between demanding too much and letting too much pass by. 
  • Why comparisons in parenting can be detrimental. 
  • How much energy are you putting into achieving a particular outcome for your son? 
  • The importance of reframing in parenting. 
  • Why Charity must be our number one priority: don’t cry over spilt milk. 
  • Wisdom in parenting is learning what to ignore. 
  • How our own fears and anxieties can manifest in our anxieties about our children. 
  • The importance of being vulnerable.
  • We don’t always need a solution; sometimes accompaniment is enough.
  • Love the child that you actually have. 
  • Faith and freedom: your child is not you and you are not God. 
  • How parents themselves develop, even as their children do.
  • What is the root of parental frustration? 
  • Why you should let your child make decisions for himself, even if he may err at times. 
  • People over papers: setting priorities straight. 
  • More than they show: why we must be attuned to what is occurring beneath the surface. 
  • Name it to tame it. 

Further Reading

Compass: A Handbook on Parent Leadership by James B. Stenson

Also on The Forum 

Toughness for the Adolescent Boy by Mr. Kyle Blackmer

Learn to Turn: Tom Royals on Parental Prudence

May 6, 2022
In this week’s episode, we sit down with Mr. Michael Moynihan to discuss his new book, The Talk and Beyond.  In the book, Michael shows parents how they can best communicate to their children God’s plan for human love.  The book offers insights on how parents can comprehensively form their children to embrace the beauty of marriage.  

In this episode, we speak with Michael about: 

  1. The significance of the title: why the beyond part is crucial. 
  2. What “the talk” is and how parents can approach it. 
  3. Why his book is especially relevant in today’s current culture.
  4. The broader context—both historical and philosophical—for his book’s insights. 
  5. Some key messages that his book seeks to convey. 

As we hear from Michael in the episode, it is not enough to present God’s plan for human love as a series of negative rules.  What is needed, rather, is to form men and women who are prepared to embrace the positive adventure that love entails.  We need to help our children be daring so that, when they are sent into the world, they will be prepared to live out that crusade of manliness which our world needs, and to undo the savage work of those who see man as merely a beast. 

“To be happy,” wrote St. Josemaria, “what you need is not an easy life but a heart which is in love.”  And, we might add, to have a heart in love is not the work of a single moment, but the task of a whole life.  Indeed, this is the task of each day: to grow ever deeper in love.  

Show Highlights

  • The meaning of the title 
  • The talk: what it is and how to do it
  • Why the beyond part is more important 
  • How to communicate the beauty of God’s plan for the love between a man and a woman 
  • Why both indirect and direct means of formation are necessary 
  • Why it is not enough to just have the talk and then move on 
  • Importance of the book in today’s culture. 
  • How this book relates to Michael’s other projects
  • Why a child’s identity ought to be rooted in God
  • On the broader context for navigating cultural trends 
  • What is the role of educators in these matters?
  • How literature, movies, and other forms of entertainment shape our children’s notion of love
  • The importance of telling the love story of mom and dad
  • How do you prepare kids to enter a wounded world 
  • Why we need to set our sights very high

Further Reading 

Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier

Decisive Parenting by Michael Moynihan 

The Father and His Family by Michael Moynihan

Apr 28, 2022

On this week’s episode, we discuss technology with Mr. John Beatty, IT director at The Heights School.  While in past episodes we have spoken about smartphones, social media, and other forms of digital technology, in this episode we turn our attention particularly to the use of the internet on desktop computers.  

As always, our aim is not merely to put up walls and make rules, but rather to help our sons grow in freedom.  Our sons are not machines to be programmed, but rather humans to be formed; and this means that their intellect and will must be engaged.  In the end, we want to graduate men who are prepared to embrace all that is good in the modern world, and so it is important that they be capable of using technology well.  

To this end, Mr. Beatty offers advice that is not only technical, but also human:

  1. What are some overarching themes parents should keep in mind as they begin to introduce their children to technology? 
    1. Computer security is not perfect; a filter is insufficient. 
    2. It is important to consider the human aspects of technology use. 
    3. A relationship of trust is fundamental. 
    4. All things in due time; it is important to consider the age of our children. 
  2. What age would you begin to introduce your child to the internet? 
    1. Need to see the internet as a tool, not a toy; introduce it according to need, not whim. 
    2. Important to keep the computer in a public place
    3. Important to help them to use this machine, just as we do when teaching our children to drive.  
    4. It can be helpful to have different accounts. 
  3. How would  you introduce more freedom when the child reaches middle school?
    1. Use parental controls as guard rails to help them,  as they grow in virtue.
    2. Teach them to use their time well.
    3. Helpful to have the default setting be more locked down and then add things as needed.
  4. How do you approach the transition from middle to upper school?
    1. Remember that filters and walls will only prevent around 80% of negative content. 
    2. Parents have the responsibility to be attentive to their children’s computer use.
    3. As they grow, you can increase their freedom, just as one does with driving a car. 
  5. Is checking our child’s accounts a breach of trust?
    1. It is important to build relationships outside of negative rules. 
    2. Think of the internet as analogous to eating. 
  6. How should parents who are not technologically savvy approach these questions? 
    1. Helpful to use physical metaphors.
    2. Google is your friend.
    3. Ask other parents for help!

Also on The Forum

 

Virtuous Use of Technology with Mr. Joe Cardenas 

Digital Minimalism with Cal Newport 

Computers and Technology in Education at The Heights by Michael Moynihan

When is Your Son Ready for a Smartphone with Mr. de Vicente 

When is He Ready for a Smartphone with Mr. Alex Berthe

Apr 8, 2022

We have often heard it said that parents are the primary educators of their children.  Among others, we find the seeds of this idea in Cicero, for whom nature herself has instilled a “strangely tender love” for one’s children.  It is likewise hinted at in Aquinas, who referred to the parental care of young children as a sort of “spiritual womb”.  More to the point, just over half a century ago The Church herself, in Gravissimum educationis, has reminded us of this fundamental fact: “since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators.”  For this reason we view education as a partnership and as a co-conspiracy for the good of the boy.

In other episodes we have discussed the role of parents as educators of their children.  Similarly, we have considered the school’s side of the great conspiracy for the good of the boy.  We are aware of our duties, of how we sometimes fall short as teachers, and of our obligation to rise and fight to the end for the good for the good of our students.

In this week’s episode, we shift our focus to the role of parents and their duties towards school and community in the educational partnership.  Alvaro responds to the following questions:

  1. What is some general advice for parents when they enter into partnership with a school? 
    1. Enter the partnership wisely; know what the school is about. 
    2. Enter the partnership fully, without eroding any piece of what the school has to offer both curricularly and extracurricularly. 
    3. Stay on task when your child encounters a difficulty; the goal is education, not pain-free comfort. 
  2. What is the general relationship between parents and their child viz. the school? 
    1. The formation of the whole person 
    2. Avoid advocating and over-protecting 
    3. Conspire with the school for the good of the child 
    4. Match the culture of school and the culture of the home. 
  3. What is the task of parents as co-partners with the parents of their children’s friends? 
    1. It is important to know the parents of your children’s friends
    2. Take an interest in your son’s friends not merely as a group, but as individuals. 
    3. Work together with your son’s friends’ parents
  4. What is the role of parents viz. their child’s teachers? 
    1. Be a matchmaker: strengthen your son’s relationship with his teachers, just as his teachers should support a child’s relationship with his parents 
    2. Clarify with a teacher if there any question about what is happening at school
    3. Be honest with teachers, providing information that you think would facilitate his work in the formation of your child 

Show Highlights 

  • Parents and teachers: the conspiracy for the good
  • What a school can hope for from the parents in this benevolent conspiracy
  • What is the general role of parents? 
  • What does that actually mean for parents to be primary educators?  
  • Parents’ task with regard to their relationship with son
  • Parents as co-partners with other parents 
  • The role of parents as partners of their son’s teachers

Also on The Forum

Family Culture with Mr. Alvaro de Vicente

On Home as Social Hub with Mr. Tom Royals

Ways to Foster a Family Culture by Mr. Alvaro de Vicente

Creating a Culture of Learning in the Home by Mr. Alvaro de Vicente

Parents as Primary Educators by Mr. Michael Moynihan

“The Talk”: On the Role of Schools and Fathers with Mr. Michael Moynihan

Mar 31, 2022

It is not on bread alone that man lives, but also on every word that he receives. And just as one's diet shapes his bodily growth, so too does one’s verbal digest contribute to his interior development. Of course, not every sort of bodily growth is good; and, likewise, not every slogan that one receives is in itself spiritually salutary.

In this week's episode, Mr. Kyle Blackmer considers the ways in which phrases, lyrics, mantras, slogans—in a word, the words we hear repeatedly—shape the imagination, at times for good and, at other times, for ill.

In the context of education and parenting, it is particularly important that we attend to the ways in which these oft-repeated lines may subtly influence our children. Even more, it is crucial that we help our children think actively for themselves about what they consume; for without the engagement of one's own mind, a child remains deprived of that precious fruit, from which a liberal arts education derives its name: freedom.

Surrounding our children with words both wise and witty, not only will their minds be directed to what is true, their hearts will not be far from what is good. 

Show Highlights: 

  • How phrases, mantras, slogans, commercials, advertising, lyrics influence our thoughts. 
  • From thoughts to words, words to action, and action to character
  • Why we should be thoughtful about what we and our children consume 
  • From where do these phrases come?
  • Is it all bad? The reason for hope
  • How to help your child be an prudent listener 
  • The power of repetition 
  • What is the impact of these messages on boys? 
  • Maria Montessori and the absorbent mind
  • How the young mind is particularly impressionable and why this matters 
  • Striking a balance between lecturing and letting it all in 
  • Beyond negation alone: the importance of drowning evil in an abundance of good 
  • How to turn slogans to the good 
  • We are always learning; the question is what are we learning?
  • Why you should make a family motto 

Also on The Forum 

Mar 25, 2022

This week on HeightsCast, we bring to you a lecture from the 2022 Teaching Vocation Conference.  In this lecture, Head of Lower School, Mr. Colin Gleason, offers advice on how to prepare for the teaching profession.  Although the ultimate preparation for teaching is teaching itself, he nevertheless offers us six verbs—actions—that great teachers do well and that aspiring teachers would do well to work on.  

  1. A great teacher speaks
    1. Teachers communicate their ideas primarily through words.  In order to do this well, the ability to speak publicly is a sine qua non.   and to draw out from students ideas of their own 
    2. Teaching is more than the delivery of information.  A teacher must first win over his students.  Speaking well—holding a student’s attention like a preacher does his congregation or a singer her audience—is necessary to this end. 
    3. Concrete suggestion: tell stories.  Even in the maths and sciences, good teaching is animated by good storytelling.  Practice with friends and family. 
  2. A great teacher listens 
    1. Teaching does not consist in simply signaling what is on a page.  It is a two way street.  A teacher is like an orchestral conductor, who moves between score and sound, adjusting as needed.
    2. A common bad habit of teachers is over-taching, that is: talking too much.  In order to gauge students’ reception, a teacher must be attentive to them in real time. 
    3. Teaching is personal, so the teacher should seek to listen not only to the group as a whole, but also to each student as an individual. 
    4. Teaching is, at root, assisting parents.  A great teacher listen also to parents, who are the primary educators. 
    5. Concrete suggestion: find a good mentor.  In order to listen well, we need personal guidance and someone, who listens to us. 
  3. A great teacher sees 
    1. Seeing is paramount to the personal approach. 
    2. A crippling bad habit: prejudice, that is to judge too soon, before one sees the actual reality of the student before him.  Judging quickly blinds a teacher. 
    3. One of the beauties of the teaching profession is seeing the growth of a student. 
    4. Concrete suggestion: we need to be artists, which, in the first place, means seeing.  Teachers mold souls and to do this, they must have the intention of seeing as an artist.  In our daily lives, now, in our families and at work, are we attentive to the people around us? 
  4. A great teacher laughs
    1. A teacher ought to enjoy being with his students, to be caught up in the sense of awe and wonder at the student he serves. 
    2. Teachers need to have a sense of humor.  Taking oneself too seriously could be a death nail as a teacher.
    3. Although we are grown up, we need not have grown old.  
    4. Concrete suggestion: remember the art of play.  A teacher should remember that he is still part boy; his job is a joyful one. 
  5. A great teacher studies 
    1. A teacher must be continually learning. 
    2. Study fuels the teacher, keeping his mind fresh.  
    3. A teacher models study for his students; they see his actions and draw lessons therefrom.
    4. Concrete suggestion: read and study, even apart from any degree programs.  What a teacher needs is two-fold: to know his subject well and to love his students even more.
  6. A great teacher explores
    1. Education is an adventure, which means that a teacher should be in the trenches alongside his students. 
    2. Teaching comes from the person; it is an overflow of his own sense of adventure. 
    3. Adventure does not mean haphazard.  It takes work to be creative.  Spontaneity in the moment is often the fruit of diligent planning before. 
    4. Concrete suggestion: exercise prudence in choosing what school you work at. Three aspects to consider in a school:
      1. Cohesive spirit and identity; imagine yourself living that spirit.
      2. Content of the curriculum (especially books taught). 
      3. Freedom

There are many mediocre teachers in the world, so if you are going to be a teacher, become a great one.  This, of course, does not mean perfection, but rather continual improvement.  To be a great teacher is not to have made it, but to be continually on the way.  In Mr. Gleason’s words, a teacher is like the guide on a white water rafting expedition.  Indeed, we are all in the same boat and, not only are we learning, we are laughing. 

Also on The Forum 

Guidance for Aspiring Teachers with Alvaro de Vicente

Seneca on the Teacher’s Job by Tom Cox

The Teacher as Liberal Artist with Dr. Matthew Mehan and Mr. Tom Longano 

Cultivating Friendship in the Classroom by Austin Hatch

Aristotle on the Student’s Job by Tom Cox

Further Reading 

The Art of Teaching by Gilbert Highet  

Only the Lover Sings by Josef Pieper 

Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf by Ben Hogan

Mar 16, 2022

A teacher is one who leads while walking backward. Even more, he is one who leads with the humble hope that he will one day be surpassed by those who are following him; for while a teacher may have traveled down the proverbial path a time or two before, he must nevertheless rediscover it with each new student.

In this week’s episode we sit down with Mr. Joe Bissex to discuss the importance of humility in the classroom.  In the episode, we consider the following questions: 

  1. What is humility? What is it not? 
  2. What are some markers of humility? 
  3. What is the role of a teacher in the classroom? 
  4. What does it mean for a teacher to point the way? 
  5. As a teacher, how do you admit failure? Why is it important to do so?
  6. What is the connection between generosity and humility in the classroom?

As you’ll hear, if a teacher remains humble and sincerely elicits his students’ contributions, it does not infrequently happen that what he had missed on his first ten treks, he may—with the fresh insight of a new student—discover on the eleventh. And in this discovery, both teacher and student will have the joy of knowing that both are disciples of the one Teacher, who is the Truth itself, and whose way makes all things new. 

Show Highlights 

  • What is the role of the teacher in the classroom? 
  • How does a teacher lead? 
  • Why a teacher should hope his student will one day surpass him
  • Humility as rejoicing in the ways one’s students will–or already have–surpassed you
  • Why it is important for a teacher to humbly recognize his failures 
  • How sincere questions can lead to the greatest of discoveries 
  • The need to petition for student’s help 
  • Why a teacher should be open to the changing his mind 
  • Teaching and the unexpected 
  • Teaching is modeling a way of thinking, not the mere conveyance of facts
  • Why a teacher does not need to have all the answers ahead of time
  • Humility in testing: how to assess students in a way that goes beyond fact checking alone
  • Joy as the fruit of humility 
  • The importance of having the generosity to pray for one’s students, and the humility to ask one’s student’s for prayers.

Also on The Forum

Guidance for Aspiring Teachers with Alvaro de Vicente

Seneca on the Teacher’s Job by Tom Cox

The Teacher as Liberal Artist with Dr. Matthew Mehan and Mr. Tom Longano 

Cultivating Friendship in the Classroom by Austin Hatch

Aristotle on the Student’s Job by Tom Cox

Feb 25, 2022

While we often speak of the virtues we wish to see in our children, it is perhaps less common that we reflect on the particular virtues that we need to foster in ourselves. In this episode Mr. Tom Royals, 40+ year teaching veteran and Assistant Headmaster of The Heights, discusses the importance of parental prudence and its progeny: meekness, patience, and humility.

In this week’s episode, we sit down with long-time Heights father and Assistant Headmaster, Mr. Tom Royals, to speak about the virtues of parenting.  From his wealth experience, Mr. Royals shares with us practical advice on the habits to make the home bright and cheerful schools of virtue.  Beyond mere theorizing about virtue, Tom’s anecdotal approach in this episode gives us concrete insights into how each moment in the home, whether a setback or a success, can be an occasion for growing in virtue.

Parenting may at times be a messy affair, but as we hear from Mr. Royals it is also a joyful one.  In his own words, it is a dance.  If we want to help our children mature into men and women of character, then we ourselves need to learn to be childlike, which means always beginning again no matter how old we may—always finding new ways to grow in those virtues which make us not only into mature adults, but also keep us young at heart. 

Show Highlights

  • The virtues that parents of older need to live 
  • Often talk about virtues needed in keds, but can forget about virtues that we need to foster in ourselves 
  • The family is the first school: parents cannot abdicate their call to be educators 
  • It is a journey and a messy affair; no thornless roses here. 
  • How we can learn to turn all circumstances into occasions for loving God 
  • Parents cannot hide: kids seeing everything
  • The adventure of the evening and the importance of leaving one’s anxieties at the door 
  • Handling the little things of the day 
  • Kids model our manner and our conduct 
  • Need to keep resetting the button with children 
  • The importance of being present and accompanying our children 
  • The art of fatherhood in three movements: be there, show love and interest to your wife and each child, you’re gonna make mistakes: laugh at them.
  • Prudence requires you to know your children in their particularity 
  • Parenting is often preparing for the future; we are parenting future forty year olds
  • Prayer and self-knowledge are indispensable
  • How do you get children out of themselves?
  • The romance of daily life in the home
  • Need to be attentive to the time and place of corrections 
  • Propose, don’t impose.

Also on The Forum

Jan 19, 2022

Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente helps us examine our own perception, a parents and teachers, of our boys. If we view them as budding protectors, we'll treat them one way; if we see them as future "compliers," it will be another. But what happens when we want to see them as protectors but treat them as compliers subconsciously? Alvaro helps parents and teachers form a vision of boys befitting their nature, and offers a road map to make that vision a reality in the lives and identities of the boys now in the process of becoming the men we need.

Jan 13, 2022

In the first talk of the 2022 Teaching Vocation Conference, Rich Moss describes some of the joys and travails of teaching, as he seeks to answer the question, "why teach?" In short, because we are called to it, because we love reality, because we love teaching, and because we love our students.

Dec 17, 2021

This week, we sit down with Dr. Lionel Yaceczko to discuss his new book on the fourth century Roman grammarian, Ausonius of Bordeaux.  In looking at his life, we dive deeper into various aspects of classical education.  As Ausonius lived through an important period of religious, political, and cultural change, considering his life also affords us the opportunity to think about how the advent of Christianity affected (and continues to affect) classical education.  

With Christmas fast approaching, perhaps this discussion may serve to remind us that teaching is pointing and that its ultimate purpose is to point us to the Teacher.  

Show Highlights 

  • Who is Ausonius and why should educators study him? 
  • The life and times of a Roman teacher, beaurocrat, and Christian convert 
  • What Ausonius’s life can teach about classical education 
  • What is a Quaestor
  • What is a grammaticus? A rhetor?
  • Education in Late Antiquity 
  • The most egalitarian form of elitism? How the liberal arts can liberate 
  • The importance of memorization in education 
  • How the advent of Christianity changed classical education 
  • A new canon for education: introducing Sacred Scripture to the liberal arts 
  • May I be so bold? Rhetoric and persuasion in Late Antiquity
  • What is a litterator? On the stages of education before the grammaticus: Abecedarium, elementa, and the road to the masterpieces
  • On the importance of study for teachers, and teaching for researchers 
  • Augustine and the vir perfectus as vir sapiens in the service of the Word
  • From philologoi to theologoi: how Revelation changes everything

Suggested Reading 

Ausonius Grammaticus: The Christening of Philology in the Late Roman West by Lionel Yaceczko 

Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire by Peter Brown

The World of Late Antiquity by Peter Brown

The Regensburg Address by Pope Benedict XVI

Also on the Forum

Defining the Liberal Arts 

What’s in a Name? Shedding Light on the Dark Ages

History the Way it Was… and the Way It Should Be

Dec 1, 2021

Continuing with the theme of mentoring, this week Mr. David Maxham discusses how we, as parents and teachers, can better mentor struggling students by taking a step back and focusing on the basics. He offers three practical guideposts for these wonderful guys to strive for as they take steps toward becoming the man they were made to be. We remain, as always, optimistic.

After establishing a relationship of trust with your mentees, Mr. Maxham recommends helping our boys structure their days around the following three key moments: 

  1. Waking up in the morning 
  2. Midday break 
  3. Going to sleep at night 

Anchoring resolutions to these three moments, Mr. Maxham explains, helps the boys to achieve their goals. As half the battle in achieving a goal lies in being mindful of it, attaching them to parts of the day that occur without fail can be a strategy for success.  

A good place to start when building the foundation could be: a morning offering after waking up, a brief moment of recollection at midday, and an examination of conscience before going to bed at night. As the boys develop more goals, having this framework in place will be a helpful support. 

Moreover, as parents, we can help our sons develop these habits by practicing them both ourselves and together as a family. A quick morning offering at breakfast or a brief moment of family prayer in the evening are excellent ideas. And asking our children to pray for us is a great way to not only help them pray, but also to help each of us, who, as we all know, need all the grace we can get. Although there are many things that a six year old boy may not be able to help his parents with, he can pray for them; and that is worth the whole world. 

Show Highlights

  • Where to begin with a mentee who is struggling 
  • The dangers of overwhelming mentees with too much 
  • How to help your mentee develop goals 
  • The importance of framing questions with the right language 
  • How you son can put a structure in place to get to the root of problems
  • Why parents and educators need to have long-term vision
  • Habits are not things that you just turn on and off
  • Keep it simple: the three key moments in the day and how to anchor resolutions to them
  • How many goals should a mentee work on at once?
  • How parents can coach their sons in the foundations 
  • Ask your children to pray for you 

Also on The Forum

Nov 17, 2021
What's your approach to discipline? This week we feature a lecture delivered at The Heights by Mr. Colin Gleason, Lower School Head offering his thoughts on this question. He can't answer for us as parents, but he can share his own philosophy as a teacher and school head. Regardless of whether you are thinking classroom or kitchen, Mr. Gleason encourages us to foster a culture of respectful dominion. And this respect relates to our son's disposition towards us. But it also has import for our respect toward them--towards their dignity and their nature, both as humans and as human boys.

Please include links to books:
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton

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