HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive

Apr 11 2024 44

HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive Podcast artwork

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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Michael Moynihan on Freedom in Education

Apr 11 2024 48 mins

In this week's episode, Mr. Michael Moynihan discusses freedom in education. Michael traces the development of our philosophical understanding of freedom through the centuries, starting with the Greeks and moving into the modern age. Next he presents the Christian ideal of freedom as a resolution and expansion of these conflicting understandings, along with some implications of thi

Alexandre Havard on Free Hearts and Magnanimity

Mar 25 2024 55 mins

This week's episode features Mr. Alexander Havard, an internationally recognized authority on leadership and virtue. Mr. Havard gives us, as parents and teachers, a beautiful introduction to the virtue of magnanimity. In addition, Mr. Havard helps us understand the critical role of the human heart in the process of first embracing and then living a life of virtue. A good education

Chris McKenna on Parenting in a Digital Age

Mar 11 2024 64 mins

This week's episode features Chris McKenna, founder and CEO of Protect Young Eyes (ProtectYoungEyes.com), who discusses the challenges and opportunities of raising sons in a digital age. Our guest has been on the frontlines of the current battle to protect children from digital exploitation, both criminal and corporate. As we form sons into men of freedom, it is grossly negligent t

R. J. Snell on Hope and Despair

Feb 29 2024 68 mins

For many people today, avoiding existential despair is like shoveling water from a damaged ship: the effort, no matter how valiant, is ultimately futile. Stuck in an immanent frame, a frame which lacks any real transcendence, one is left without a substantial source for hope. The above remains true, though in different ways, even for believing and practicing Christians. As children

Teaching Sovereign Knowers

Feb 20 2024 43 mins

This week we feature a lecture offered by Head of Upper School, Michael Moynihan, at the most recent Teaching Vocation Conference. In his presentation, Michael encourages us as teachers to engage our students as free and rational agents, even when they don't want to be engaged as such. Michael offers us some helpful insights into the principles that should guide our teaching, as we

The College Experience with UD President Jonathan Sanford

Feb 12 2024 51 mins

Many of us assume that college will inevitably follow on high school's heels, but why? Why go to college, and, once there, how do we make the most of the "college experience?" University of Dallas' President, Dr. Jonathan Sanford, shares his thoughts on these questions and offers guidance as to how this experience should be different at a Catholic liberal arts university. Our appro

On Emotional Presence and Imperfect Parenting

Feb 01 2024 41 mins

Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente discusses the importance of "imperfect parenting.' Ours is an age of external perfection, but when our son's fail to achieve the standards we set for them, our own anxiety can be the chief obstacle to our boys' thriving. Emotional presence in an imperfect parent facilitates a child's thriving by subsuming him into that of his mother and father. Hear our

Teaching and the Vocation to Fatherhood

Jan 18 2024 42 mins

While most professions work on an object which is ultimately transient—a doctor, for example, works to heal the body which will ultimately die, an engineer to design a bridge which will deteriorate over time, an entrepreneur to start a business that will likely persist at most a handful of generations—the object of a teacher’s work is a human person, whose ultimate destiny is

Rhetoric: On Forming Soul-Leaders

Dec 20 2023 70 mins

Dr. Scott Crider of the University of Dallas introduces us to Rhetoric, an art of persuasion that allows our future leaders to lead souls (and themselves) to the good. Dr. Crider discusses the nature of rhetoric, its place in the tradition of liberal learning, its role in a technologically advanced society (and classroom), and how it can be practiced by our students, not only later

On Grades: A Teacher's Perspective

Dec 11 2023 32 mins

In a HeightsCast episode released in September, headmaster Alvaro de Vicente offered guidance for parents on how to understand, interpret, and respond to their sons’ grades while also nurturing strong and lasting bonds. This week we welcome Tom Steenson to HeightsCast to discuss grading from the teacher’s perspective. Tom offers practical advice to teachers, framing grades as