HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive

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**HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive**

Welcome to HeightsCast, the podcast of The Heights School. With over 200 episodes, HeightsCast discusses the education of young men fully alive in the liberal arts tradition. The program engages teachers and thought-leaders in the educational/cultural space to support our community of listeners: parents, teachers, and school leaders seeking to educate the young men in their care. Instead of downloads, HeightsCast’s most important metric for success is the unknown number of thoughtful discussions it prompts in homes, faculty lunchrooms, and communities around the country and the world. Thank you for listening; thank you for continuing the conversation.

Latest Episodes:

Advice for the College Launch Aug 22, 2024

Show notes

"Picture yourself here."

"Become all you can be."

"This will be the best four years of your life."

The college pitch to high school seniors is alluring—though it doesn't sketch a very clear life plan for a young person entering higher education. As Heights Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente points out, a successful time in college can be measured in growth: Are you physically, spiritually, and intellectually stronger by the end of these four years? In order to answer yes, students will need to embark upon college with a plan and a healthy way of measuring those dimensions of growth.

This week on HeightsCast, Mr. de Vicente shares incredibly practical advice for spending the college years well, drawing on a letter he sent this summer to the newly graduated Heights class of 2024.

Chapters:

1:45 The best four years of your life?
6:44 Old truths remain fresh
9:17 College success measured by growth
12:05 Five battlefronts, five tools for success
12:36 One: Shower and eat breakfast
15:30 Two: Look at your day as a 9-to-5 job
19:26 Mr. de Vicente's study plan
25:32 Three: Find the right peer group
30:04 Four: Chart a path for spiritual growth
32:00 Five: Have a mentor
35:27 A reasonable study load, being effective without overloading
41:26 Laptop distractions in class
44:25 Breaking out of the "self-focused" college attitude
50:40 A truer pursuit of happiness

Featured Opportunities:

The Art of Teaching Conference at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2024)

Also on the Forum:

Considerations for College-Bound Students featuring Dr. Peter Kilpatrick of The Catholic University of America
The College Experience featuring Dr. Jonathan Sanford of University of Dallas
Rethinking College: Why Go? How? When? featuring Arthur Brooks

The Formation of a Teacher Aug 12, 2024

Show notes

Charlotte Mason's simple framework for a teacher calls him a "guide, philosopher, and friend." It's a lovely image—but what does that practical application look like? At the Forum Teaching Vocation Conference last winter, Heights teacher Tom Cox unpacked each of these terms citing ancient wisdom and loads of modern classroom experience.

Chapters:

6:09 Charlotte Mason and the teacher as guide, philosopher, and friend
7:44 Guide: one who has been there before
10:53 Communicating the "why"
14:18 Philosopher: starting in wonder, ending in wisdom
15:59 A storyteller stirring up wonder
20:01 Friend: beginning with a mutual love of something
22:28 Modeling friendship with fellow faculty
23:57 St. Aelred of Rievaulx's qualities of friendship
24:19 Dilectio, outward benevolent acts
24:54 Affectio, interior feeling
26:29 Securitas, freedom from anxiety
27:42 Iucunditas, pleasantness
30:00 Orient towards hope: begin and begin again

Links:

Grammaticus.co, Tom Cox's website featuring Latin and history courses, his blog, and podcast
The Plutarch Podcast by Tom Cox
Spiritual Friendship by Aelred of Rievaulx

Featured Opportunities:

The Art of Teaching Conference at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2024)

Also on the Forum:

Living the Teaching Vocation by Michael Moynihan
Teaching and the Vocation to Fatherhood featuring Tom Steenson
On Preparation for Teaching: Six Attributes of Great Teachers featuring Colin Gleason
The Teacher as Liberal Artist featuring Tom Longano

Forming Others: What Mentoring Can and Can't Be Jun 27, 2024

Show notes

In his address to the Forum's Mentoring Workshop held in June, our Head of Lower School Colin Gleason helpfully reframed just what mentoring is—and what it can't be. Though images of the sculptor, the director, and the master often accompany this rough term of "formation," Mr. Gleason reminds us that we are really more akin to gardeners, who attend to a living creation with its own freedom and will. So, how can we appreciate this situation and best work with it for the good of our mentees?

Chapters:

1:29 Neither the model nor the molder
3:39 We cannot 'do' the formation
5:56 Freedom to choose the good
10:19 "Thou mayest" (not thou shalt) "triumph over sin"
15:54 Exercising freedom requires formation
16:49 Manners: what the act looks like
18:57 Reasons: the intention behind the act
21:38 Images: how a person chooses the act
23:36 A mentor as such an image
25:49 Loving the good
29:51 Loving the person

References:

He Knows Not How: Growing in Freedom by Julio Diéguez
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf by Ben Hogan
InSideOut Coaching: How Sports Can Transform Lives by Joe Ehrmann

Also on the Forum:

Seeing Our Boys with Loving Eyes: Not Projects but Persons featuring Tom Royals
Why Boys Need Mentors featuring Joe Cardenas and Alex Berthé

Anthropological Foundations of Mentoring Jun 20, 2024

Show notes

In June, the Forum hosted a Mentoring Workshop for men across the country (and beyond) to consider the whys and hows of mentoring young boys into young men into men fully alive.

It's always best to start by defining terms. And so, the opening lecture for the workshop weekend featured Dr. Joseph Lanzilotti, theology scholar and upper school teacher at The Heights School, explicating the kind of Christian anthropology that precedes a mentoring relationship. In other words, how are we to understand what man is before we try to help him grow? For our benefit, Dr. Lanzilotti maps out this profound philosophical concept using St. Augustine's simple and most famous line: "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

Chapters:

2:07 St. Augustine's "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you"
4:56 What is man? Who is man? What is his telos?
7:54 Pope St. John Paul II's "adequate anthropology"
8:38 Finding an adequate anthropology in St. Augustine's restless heart
10:05 Fecisti nos: you made us
13:33 Ad te: for yourself
17:27 Inquietum cor nostrum: our hearts are restless
22:19 Donec requiescat in te: until they rest in you

Links:

Confessions by St. Augustine
I Burned for Your Peace: Augustine's Confessions Unpacked by Peter Kreeft
Gaudium et spes by the Second Vatican Council, promulgated by Pope St. Paul VI
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
Address to the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum" from January 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI
Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis

Also on the Forum:

Starting a Mentoring Program by Joe Cardenas and Nate Gadiano
Mentoring without a Program: On Teaching the Whole Person featuring Joe Cardenas

On Home as Social Hub: The Importance of Hosting Our Sons and Their Friends Jun 13, 2024

Show notes

Note from producer: This conversation was originally published on March 23, 2021, but has been updated and republished on June 13, 2024.

As we look forward to the wide expanse of summer, one thing certainly on our minds is how we can support our sons' friendships in the absence of school. Turns out, we needn't look further than our own living rooms. In fact, welcoming our children's friends into our homes may be the healthiest place for authentic, lifelong friendship to grow.

In a timely rebroadcast from 2021, Assistant Headmaster Tom Royals helps parents to see their homes as a venue for hospitality—one that integrates our children's social lives with the culture of the home. He especially highlights a vision for hosting teens, who often stray away from home-based gatherings just when it's most beneficial.

Chapters

01:45 Begin Interview
02:28 Parents building a culture of home gatherings
06:50 Hosting high schoolers, knowing your home
11:24 Co-ed hosting
12:56 Spontaneous hosting
15:05 Parents working with parents
16:12 Crucial years: establishing this culture before they launch
18:14 Hospitality and the temperaments of your children
20:24 The example of Fr. Robert Kimball
25:28 The role of the father
29:01 Parental presence at teen gatherings: freedom and formation
33:07 Modeling friendship, hospitality

Also on the Forum:

Friendship and the 21st-Century Boy featuring Alvaro de Vicente
Family Culture featuring Alvaro de Vicente
On Friendship after Senior Year featuring Dave Maxham

Dangerously Good: Forming Great Souls Jun 07, 2024

Show notes

Where to begin with the lofty, almost nebulous virtue of magnanimity—what St. Thomas Aquinas called "stretching forth of the soul to great things"? Of course we want to raise great-souled children, who even outstrip us in their vision of the good and their commitment to serving it. But words alone will fail to impart such a personal and complex mission.

At last April's Fatherhood Conference at The Heights, Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente tackled the challenge of how to teach magnanimity to our children. Following Fr. Carter Griffin's keynote address, Mr. de Vicente laid out the map: the obstacles we must navigate, the targets of opportunity we must seize, and the tools to pack for the mission.

Chapters

4:30 Defining magnanimity: a vision of and commitment to the good
External challenges to teaching magnanimity:
- 6:37 Identity culture
- 7:43 Sexualized culture
- 9:09 The "second-hand smoke" of culture
- 10:20 Materialism and affluence
- 13:18 Entertainment culture
- 16:01 Moral relativism
Internal challenges to teaching magnanimity:
- 19:23 Selfishness, "I deserve"
- 22:33 Anxiety
- 24:26 Personal weakness
- 26:26 Playing the wrong role: acting coach, not director
Opportunities for teaching magnanimity:
- 28:08 Dealing with our own anxiety
- 31:32 Communicating with God and spouse about each child
- 33:42 Emotional presence at home
- 37:50 Expressing affection
Ways to discuss magnanimity with your child:
- 40:00 Positive framework for "the talk"
- 40:52 Examples of virtue
- 44:36 Through sports
- 47:00 Dependable routines
- 47:50 Financial awareness
- 48:59 Forming a boy's intellect with conversation
Your best resources:
- 51:38 Friendship with like-minded parents
- 52:14 Online resources, podcasts
- 52:52 Spiritual direction53:46 Hope in God's grace

Also on the Forum:

Magnanimity and the Great-Souled Man featuring Fr. Carter Griffin

Featured Opportunities:

Mentoring Workshop at The Heights School (June 13-14, 2024)
The Art of Teaching Conference at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2024)
Leaders Initiative now accepting applications

Is His Free Time Freeing? May 31, 2024

Show notes

The modern instinct with free time is to fill it. Whether in our own lives or in the lives of our children, we imagine that something productive or mindless is the antidote to an uncommitted hour. Middle school teachers Kyle Blackmer and Shane O'Neill encourage us to think differently.

This week on HeightsCast, the duo shares practical reasons and methods for protecting our family's free time, which helps to cultivate interests, relationships, and the wellbeing of the whole person. They speak especially to our role as parents, teachers, and coaches: to clear the way of obstacles and model our own good use of free time.

Chapters:

3:27 Good free time
5:33 Role of parents in a child's freetime: not entertaining but spreading a feast
7:34 Sunday as the day of rest
10:03 Leisure not as a thing "to do"
12:17 The Sabbath and sports
17:10 Overscheduling as an obstacle
22:42 Wasting time vs. free time
25:57 Cultivating interests, fostering friendships
30:53 Consumerism as an obstacle
35:20 Why free time is ultimately valuable
42:06 Modeling healthy free time

Links:

Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper

Also on the Forum:

Leisure and Acedia: Contemplative Homes in a Frenetic Age featuring R. J. Snell
A Summer Fully Alive by Nate Gadiano
What Is the Difference between Free Time and Leisure? by Joseph Bissex
Friendship for the 21st Century Boy featuring Alvaro de Vicente

Dr. Peter Kilpatrick of CUA: Considerations for College-Bound Students May 24, 2024

Show notes

Today we talk to Dr. Peter Kilpatrick, President of The Catholic University of America, who offers our graduates advice about how to make the most of college. He shares his thoughts on civic discourse, selecting a major, affording college, and more. In addition, he roots the entire college experience in the bigger quest to know one's self; but is that possible in a dorm? Our guest today answers emphatically "yes" and makes suggestions about how to advance in this life-long quest. Finally, Dr. Kilpatrick emphasizes the importance of mentorship and human relationship in personal growth, urging students to seek out meaningful connections during their precious and limited undergraduate time.

Chapters:

5:03 Costs of college
6:40 The real purpose of college
8:59 Knowing oneself: asking the ultimate questions
13:09 Pursuit of the professions as a path to knowing oneself
16:04 Financial big picture
22:18 Choosing majors and minors
28:54 Fruits of the spirit as a means of choosing a path of study
33:12 The use of full human reason
41:00 Fostering an integrated sense of reality while in college
44:10 Mentorship and human relationship in a world of AI and self-teaching
49:05 Freedom of speech and earnest inquiry on campus
57:20 Assuming leadership positions on campus
1:01:42 Making the most of residential life

Links:

Fruits of the Spirit, Works of the Flesh: homily from May 19, 2024 by Bishop Robert Barron
General Audience from June 16, 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI

Also on the Forum:

The College Experience featuring University of Dallas President Dr. L. Sanford
Rethinking College: Why go? How? When? featuring Arthur Brooks

Alvaro de Vicente on Freedom and Obedience May 17, 2024

Show notes

"Porque me da la gana!" In his book Friends of God, St. Josemaría writes, "I opt for God because I want to, freely, without compulsion of any kind." But how can we teach our children to use their freedom for the good in this whole-hearted way? For that matter, how can we as adults orient our wills toward the same?

In this episode of HeightsCast, Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente explores the delicate relationship between obedience and freedom. He provides us with a framework to think about man's condition of freedom, and how we as parents can transition our children forward from obedience to the rest of the virtues.

Chapters:

3:03 The universe as a playground of freedom
5:49 Our parenting goal of becoming dispensable
7:34 External freedom: liberties granted by external forces
19:37 Internal freedom: purposeful self-determination
26:00 Obedience as a temporary training ground for internal freedom
29:57 Avoiding parent perfectionism
32:07 The apostolate of imperfect dinners
33:02 Being models for our children
34:47 The importance of predictability
36:51 "Porque me da la gana": because I deeply want to
42:12 Parenting is an art, not a science

Links:

Introduction to Christianity by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict)
Pastoral Letter from February 10, 2024 by Fernando Ocáriz, Prelate of Opus Dei

Also on the Forum:

Freedom in the Upper School by Rich Moss
Why Boys Need to Be Given Freedom by Andrew Reed
Moral Imagination, part I with Alvaro de Vicente
Moral Imagination, part II with Alvaro de Vicente

Dr. Kevin Majeres on Anxious Generation and Bad Therapy May 03, 2024

Show notes

In this episode Dr. Kevin Majeres offers his thoughts on two recent books: Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, and Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier. Both books seek to tackle major questions such as screens and socials, overprotective parenting, anxiety and depression, and the appropriate response to those conditions. Dr. Majeres optimistically offers helpful and poignant suggestions to parents fully aware seeking to mindfully raise mindful children.

Chapters