HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive

This week on HeightsCast we feature Tom Cox, Upper School Latin teacher and one of the architects of the Core Humanities Sequence. In the Episode, Tom explains what epic poetry is, where it fits into our curriculum, and why we teach it. Weaving together themes from Homer, Virgil, and Dante, Mr. Cox shows us how these epic poems shape the boys' moral imaginations at a time when they are first begin...

"Have a great summer!" We hear it and say it incessantly, but what are we actually wishing for our boys? 21st Century America gives boys 3 months off--that is one quarter of the year and an enormous amount of time. Join Lower School Head, Colin Gleason, for a discussion of three ways that boys can fill their summer with healthy leisure and positive growth.

To learn more about the Summer Workshops, click here . Dr. Matthew Mehan unpacks the liberal arts. We can throw the term around to describe our school, but do we really understand what we mean? Is it more than a list of good books? Dr. Mehan explores what it means to be a student of the "arts of liberty"–a life long pursuit.  For all of us. Show Notes TheGuardian.com, Our Minds can be Hijacked St....

Lower School Head, Colin Gleason, discusses paternal patience and anger in this week's episode. If you, like so many dads, find yourself regretting the fact that you "lost it," listen in.  Mr. Gleason discusses anger and the ways that we, as fathers, can direct this emotion towards the good.  

At the heart of teaching is the desire to make an impact on the lives of one's students. Beyond conveying useful information or training them in resume-building skills, great teachers wish to help their students live well—to be fully alive. Such a task, difficult as it may be, is what mentoring is all about.  Yet most schools may not have a formal mentoring program. In these circumstances, how can...

"Education," wrote G. K. Chesterton, "is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another." If Chesterton is right, then education is about transmitting a culture, for what is culture if not the embodiment of a society's soul? And what "soul" can be passed on from one human to another if it is not first embodied?  To discuss the importance of culture both to society general...

In schools today, Shakespeare is often taught superficially. Students attempt to grasp the plot with the aid of their teacher, who helps them through the difficult Elizabethan English. At best they learn something about the beautification of language and the cultural significance of the Bard. But his work is not taught as it was written to be understood, that is, sapientially, for growth in practi...

In G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy, he tells a sort of parable in which children are given space to play on a mountain top surrounded by steep precipices on all sides. At first the children are left to play on the mountain top without any walls. Fearful of falling off one of the edges, they all huddle up in the middle. Then, walls are erected, and the security that such walls provide gives the childr...

As the world of academia becomes increasingly polarized, parents may be concerned about sending their children off to colleges where the general culture and ethos of campus are less than favorable to the worldview and way of life found in their own homes. Yet, many of these institutions are also prestigious and hold promise for success in one's professional career.  How, then, should parents think...

Parents love their children and desire the best for them. Yet at times the world seems full of dangers and obstacles to a child's ultimate good. Because of this, a certain fear may cast a shadow on the ways parents relate to their children.  To discuss parenting and fear, we welcome back Mr. Alvaro de Vicente to HeightsCast. In the episode, Alvaro explains some of the dangers of being overprotecti...

In the past twenty years, research suggests that parents are worrying more about their children and spending more to provide them with comforts. In spite of such worry and wealth, the past twenty years have also seen an increase in these same American-born children from well-to-do families being diagnosed with various psychiatric disorders. Meanwhile, parents tend to swing from overly strict to ov...

Hell, Dante expresses, is being trapped by our false attempts to be free. Thus, the Comedy's Satan is forever stuck in the ice of a lake made frozen by the beating of his wings as he attempts to "free" himself from the reality of God. Education, on the other hand, frees us from such a lake by leading us to embrace, with the fullness of our being, the Truth which sets us free. This week on HeightCa...

What does it mean to be "civilized"? What is justice? What is a citizen? Given the opportunity, would you have killed Julius Caesar? Was Nero inevitable, or is it possible to keep one's wits while running such a powerful empire?  These are a few of the questions that eighth graders at The Heights are challenged to ponder together in their core class. With the help of their teachers and a new histo...

As teachers and parents, it is often difficult to find the balance between leniency and strictness, love and fear. Getting the right tone, being firm in principle and flexible in preference, is indeed an art and an especially difficult one. While nothing can replace personal experience for growing in this art, self-reflection is a great aid to this end.  This week on HeightsCast, Mr. Colin Gleason...

It's not merely where you are going, but how you get there, that matters. And as we often find ourselves going places in cars, it is worth stopping to consider how we spend our car rides.  In this week's episode, we welcome back to the podcast Mr. Kyle Blackmer for a discussion of the daily commute. Whether we carpool or ride solo, Mr. Blackmer helps us to reframe how we approach this daily endeav...

In a recent national survey of adults in America, a striking sixty-one percent of young adults (age 18-25) reported feeling serious loneliness. Such feelings of loneliness were also accompanied by anxiety and depression. Although humans are by nature social animals, it would seem that forming deep friendships may not always come so naturally. How do we form friendships? How do we help our sons for...

With another year having passed—perhaps even sped by—and a new one underfoot, HeightsCast returns with a discussion of time and solitude with Mike Ortiz and Rob Greving. Together, Mike and Rob invite us to slow down as they unpack their two recently published articles on the Forum.  Mr. Ortiz dives into Henry David Thoreau 's cabin life and the importance of intentional times of solitude in our li...

From the very start, the founders of The Heights understood education to consist in the communication of a culture. As culture often enters a boy's mind through his senses, an important means of this transmission is the art and architecture of a school. Indeed, in many ways buildings embody the ideals of an institution.  This week Joe Cardenas, head of mentoring and long-time art history teacher,...

In many schools, education is understood in reductively intellectual terms. The point of teaching, it would seem, is merely to inform, to fill the mind with data, to train the intellect to perform tasks and solve puzzles. To be sure, information and intellectual virtues are essential aspects of education; but they are not the whole, and to make them so would be to reduce the person to his mind.  I...

In this episode, we feature a recorded lecture given by Rich Moss in his introductory presentation at the Art of Teaching conference hosted by The Heights Forum last week. In this talk, Rich explains why teaching is an art, what that art is, and what are the tools utilized by the teaching artist.

Boys love concrete details and, even more, they love when those concrete details form the fabric of a hero's tale. Indeed, as Aristotle himself knew, better than telling adolescents merely about virtue is giving them examples of heroes, for good men are not made in theory, but in practice and boys need to see virtues practiced to be inspired themselves. What better place to turn than an author who...

This week on HeightsCast, we feature headmaster Alvaro de Vicente's open house speech on the mission and vision of The Heights School. In the speech, Alvaro helps parents discern the right school for their son. Understanding education to be essentially about partnering with parents to transmit a culture, he encourages parents to thoughtfully consider the culture of our school and how it relates to...

This week on HeightsCast, we feature a recording of the 2022 Headmaster's Lecture on the man fully alive . In this lecture, Mr. Alvaro de Vicente helps us understand what we mean when we use St. Irenaeus' oft-quoted though seldom understood words that gloria Dei est vivens homo : the glory of God is living man.  Mr. de Vicente shares his thoughts on the destination and the road ahead, suggesting t...

In this week's episode, we discuss science fiction with Mr. Joe Breslin, fifth grade teacher and soon-to-be published author of Other Minds: 13 Tales of Wonder and Sorrow . Surveying the wide umbrella of literature and film termed "sci-fi," Mr. Breslin helps us understand what makes this genre of literature valuable, interesting, and beautiful. As Mr. Breslin explains, science fiction done well of...

From the boys' choir in the lower school to the men's chorus in the upper school, informal performances at faculty dinners to songs at the annual Maryland Day Gala, singing echoes throughout the whole of The Heights experience. This week, we sit down with Mr. Patrick Love, music teacher at The Heights since 2004, to discuss not only when and where we sing at The Heights but  why  we love to sing s...