Category: HeightsCast

In this week’s episode, we talk with headmaster Alvaro de Vicente about a central theme from our faculty workshop: self-mastery. As Alvaro explains, self-mastery is a certain integration of action, words, thoughts, and desires that gives one the interior freedom to not only do the good but to want to do the good. What does this self-mastery look like for teachers, for students, and for parents? How do we help our boys develop self-mastery? What is the role of a school in assisting parents with this great endeavor? As man is…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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 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:  What is addiction?   What is the neuroscience behind addiction?  How does the particular addiction of pornography tie into this general understanding of addiction?  How can we—or our…

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…

 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…