HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive

"Offer it up!" Do we receive that invitation with a wince or a nod? Heights Assistant Headmaster Tom Royals invites us to examine our approach to Lent and "offering it up"—with an emphasis on  offering . Mr. Royals reflects on the "happy obligation" that is the habit of sacrifice, and he considers the liturgical seasons of Lent, Passiontide, Eastertide, and ordinary time as gifts from the Church....

As a Valley veteran, Tom Steenson has seen patterns emerge from his two decades of parent-teacher conferences. He invites us to sit down for a not-so-hypothetical conference featuring the recurring advice he offers to the parents of his lower school students. In short, Mr. Steenson hopes to encourage parents in their parental authority and to help them identify (or sometimes even invent) opportuni...

"Are you a classical school?" It's a question many parents and educators will have to answer at some point. St. Martin's Academy in Fort Scott, Kansas, likes to say they're not exactly classical—more like medieval. At St. Martin's, a boys' boarding school and working farm for grades 9-12, Adam Taylor and a team of educators seek to nurture authentic masculinity, awaken wonder, and heal the imagina...

Pope St. John Paul II outlined the four pillars of formation for seminarians back in 1992 with his apostolic exhortation Pastores dabo vobis . For years, Fr. Carter Griffin has used this framework to walk with seminarians through a program of human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral formation at St. John Paul II Seminary in Washington, DC. With his recent book, Forming Families, Forming Saints...

A great learning experience comes at the material using different practices—listening, reading, memorizing, interrogating, doing, speaking, and/or writing about the idea until it crystallizes in the student's mind. And a great teacher facilitates those practices in his class plan. For his talk at the 2024 Forum Teaching Conference, upper school teacher Austin Hatch borrowed the "three modes of tea...

Mr. Tom Cox's approach to telling great stories in the classroom starts with a self-limiting 3×5 notecard. The challenge when telling any story from history is that all such stories run together, are infinitely entangled, and lack the defined clarity of exposition, crisis, climax, and denouement. Mr. Cox provides a practical framework and examples for "putting flesh on dry bones" in an effective,...

If we've decided against smart phones for our kids, can dumb phones come to the rescue? New options for families have hit the tech market, offering few or select features, and giving parents new things to consider when it comes to kids and phones in 2025. Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente offers a framework for thinking about smart phones, dumb phones, and feature phones in a culture still weighed down...

"It is an atmosphere we breathe in, rather than an argument we consider." Thus wrote T. S. Eliot about the very idea of happiness Americans have adopted for their own. When raising sons in modern America, we should understand what cultural air they—and we—are breathing. Is that "pursuit of happiness" keeping our hearts and minds restless? In their book,  Why We Are Restless , Dr. Benjamin Storey a...

At our 2024 Teaching Conference, Dr. John Cuddeback of Christendom College unpacked what boys need from their fathers and teachers in order to grow into the men they truly desire to be. And what boys desire, he argues, comes from their God-given nature: one that resonates with fatherhood, moral character, and the ability to speak truth. Chapters: 6:21 Today's rejection of masculinity 10:11 Educati...

It's true: we talk too much. And we know that just one more brilliant lecture from us will not solve our boys' every problem—but we can't seem to help ourselves. This week on HeightsCast, lower school head Colin Gleason takes an intentional look at how we as parents and educators engage our boys, and how we might do better. The conversation reminds us that parenting is relational, not a delivery s...

In this episode, our guest (an AP U.S. History teacher) and our host (an AP Government teacher) delve into the worthy American most likely missing from your U.S. history or government class. Orestes Brownson was a nineteenth-century political thinker who wrote about the American project through his unique lens as a post-Civil War American-Catholic. He was well known in his time but is often only f...

All the first universities were—St. Thomas Aquinas would tell us—Catholic ones. But in this modern day, it takes intentionality to maintain the rich tradition of Catholic education. In a talk recorded for HeightsCast, Dr. Peter Kilpatrick, president of The Catholic University of America, spoke to families at The Heights about what it means to be a Catholic university. He first consults the experts...

Advent invites us to reflect on our Christian disposition, oriented towards peace, hope, joy, and love. St. Josemaría Escrivá was known to summarize that disposition by calling it, simply… "simple." In The Way , he praises the apostles and St. Joseph for imitating Jesus himself in being simple . And then he exhorts us: "May you not lack simplicity." Heights faculty Joe Cardenas and Nate Gadiano jo...

"The air of Narnia had been working upon him … and all his old battles came back to him, and his arms and fingers remembered their old skill. He was King Edmund once more." In this week's wide-ranging discussion, Dr. Jason Baxter talks about fellow Medievalist C. S. Lewis's ideas of story and history—and how those ideas matter for the education and formation of a thoroughly modern people. What can...

In this episode we feature a lecture from Heights Lower School Head, Colin Gleason, at the last  Art of Teaching  conference. In the talk, Colin explores the concept of "unanxious leadership" in the classroom, emphasizing the importance of teachers maintaining a calm, grounded presence. He explains that anxiety often arises when teachers feel they are in constant conflict with students or struggli...

How do we justify reading? Do we justify reading? Heights fifth grade teacher and published fiction author Joe Breslin chases away such questions. Though fiction can have utility, even moral impact—fiction at its best is an art created and received with wonder. In this fascinating conversation, Mr. Breslin reflects on writing, reading, and gets us to the heart of what it actually means to do somet...

A surprising number of Catholic conversions in the last hundred years begin with one man: G. K. Chesterton. A modern Catholic favorite, Chesterton looms large in subjects as diverse as theology, satire, marginalia, philosophy, politics, and mystery fiction. Our guest today is Dale Ahlquist, founder and president of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton. His own journey of conversion started with...

The task of fatherhood is critical, dynamic—and daunting. How could one address hope to address it all? During the Fatherhood Conference at The Heights School this month, Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente boiled it down to this: God chose this for you. You are called. Accepting this simple starting point should give fathers the confidence to take on the role, and the humility to seek God's grace while...

What is beauty? Is it definable? What is it for, how are we drawn to it—and why do we sometimes resist it? This week we welcome Dr. George Harne, president of Christendom College and an accomplished medieval and music history scholar. Drawing on his perspective as head of a vibrant Catholic liberal arts college, he speaks to us about the liberal arts as a path of study driven by beauty and contemp...

Dr. Jeremy Beer's study of American society over the last 200 years, overlaid with psychology research and statistics about American charitable giving, has brought about his recent book:  The Quest for Belonging . The book directly advises nonprofit and fundraising leaders, though it just as much informs the everyday giver. This week on HeightsCast, Beer helps us see that charitable giving at its...

It turns out that modern psychology, neuroscience research, "habit hacks," and popular self-help literature can all be summed up in one very classical idea: the virtues. So asserts Dr. Andrew Abela, founding dean of the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America. This week on HeightsCast, he helps us unpack his new book,  Superhabits , in which he rebrands the virtues as "super...

The sentimentalism of our greater culture is a formidable—yet surmountable—challenge to young men. Our sons are relentlessly encouraged to follow their affections and feelings wherever they might lead, whatever their commitments. How can we, as parents and teachers, help our boys to become men who love the world without being pulled off course by the sentiments and affections that are a natural as...

Last weekend,  The Wall Street Journal  published a front-page story on American young men and the crisis of masculinity. It featured hard stories of the "aimless and isolated"—but could ultimately offer no solutions. This week on HeightsCast, we're pleased to welcome Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim, Norway. Bishop Varden has authored several books exploring human personhood, including topics of m...

It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out. So writes the fictional devil Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood in C. S. Lewis's epistolary novel  The Screwtape Letters . But where devils may wish to keep the good out, Heights headmaster Alvaro de Vicente highlights the ways we as parents can keep the good in. By...

Part of the Teaching Sovereign Knowers Collection In recent years, a number of HeightsCast guests have touched on the same resounding theme: the modern creep of  curiositas  and  acedia , both considered classical vices. But where there are two vices, Aristotle encourages us to look for a virtue at the Golden Mean. Mr. Michael Moynihan, head of The Heights upper school, finds it in studiousness. A...