Heightscast

When we join a school community, it should be to join forces with teachers, administrators, and other families in the "conspiracy for the good" of our children. In this multi-engine partnership, how do parents best play their role as the stewards of their child's whole-person formation? In this rebroadcast from 2022, Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente covers the idea of wise, willing, and informed partnership with your children's school; what it really means to the "primary educators"; how a school can be compatible with that philosophy; and the importance of parent friendships. Chapters: 2:56 Entering a school partnership wisely 6:50 Entering the partnership fully 11:57 Parents' task: formation of the whole person 14:06 Ask what the teachers see 15:18 Match school culture with home culture 17:23 Your child's friendships 20:44 Parent friendships 26:39 Parent-teacher collaboration 32:04 When to pick up the phone, and the "conspiracy for good" Also on the Forum: Building Parent-Teacher Rapport featuring Kyle Blackme

Does a talented person have a duty to serve others? What do leading citizens really need to live well, freely, impactfully—even greatly? How do we, parents and educators, order the educational goods? "When I think of Thomas More's life, writings, and example, I think: here are the materials we need to answer those questions." So says Dr. Stephen Smith, professor at Hillsdale College and co-director for the Center for Thomas More Studies. St. Thomas More not only provided a robust theory of education and duty in his writings, but also a praxis of that education by his heroic actions at the Tower of London in 1535. Dr. Smith joins us this week to discuss how More's life and education can be a pattern for our one-day leading citizens. Chapters: 2:32 The living image of a great man 8:49 More's philosophy of learning 12:50 Virtue in the first place 16:25 Love of good advice 18:48 Leading citizenship: skill and integrity 24:51 Pride as the enemy 29:32 On modern times: "Do not abandon the ship" 35:14 Mentorship: tim

"Charity and clarity" are the lodestars when teaching middle school boys with various faith backgrounds—and who are developing faith dispositions of their own. Bill Dardis teaches middle school religion and eighth grade core at The Heights. In his sixteen years of experience, he's navigated many tricky waters with the boys, with the ultimate goal to bring them into a deeper and more engaged relationship with faith. Chapters: 3:19 Inviting boys deeper into their faith 8:17 A religion teacher has to pray 9:16 Following student questions 11:27 Charity: respecting parents' moral authority 12:32 Clarity: commitment to the truth 13:28 Avoiding relativism 17:17 Emphasizing essential questions 18:37 Persuasive common ground 25:21 Seeing the familiar as if for the first time 27:30 One, holy, catholic, and apostolic 31:45 When a student's life situation conflicts with the Catechism 37:59 Loving the job Links: The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton (seeing something familiar as if for the first time) Becoming Greece, t

The crisis of meaning among young people gets a lot of press; but a quieter crisis of calling afflicts every generation today. Dr. Arthur Brooks says the causes are the same: not knowing what our life is really and ultimately for. In his talk at The Heights Forum Convivium 2025, Dr. Brooks shares the facts about calling—where neuroscience, psychology, and theology all agree, and how he (finally) found his. He goes on to say that helping young people to discover the true Christian purpose of life and then one's personal calling is the missionary work of teachers. Chapters: 00:04:12 Teaching: a missionary field 00:06:15 Crisis of meaning among the young 00:07:35 Crisis of calling among more than the young 00:14:23 Sanctifying ordinary work 00:18:42 The marshmallow experiment: not all it seems 00:24:40 High achievers with no calling 00:27:55 Three tests for goal setting 00:36:12 Four profiles for career trajectory 00:44:31 Success addiction: when love feels conditional 00:48:33 Arrival fallacy: when the goal doe

Kevin Twomey is a husband, father, and a principal consultant at Table Group, founded by Patrick Lencioni, which specializes in helping executive teams build a healthy operational work culture. Lencioni's book, The Three Big Questions, brings that same expertise to bear on the modern frantic family: helping parents find their family identity, create intentional priorities, and live with more order and purpose. Chapters: 4:01 Typical family operations 9:09 Frantic families in a frantic world 14:36 What makes your family unique? 21:57 Parent leadership 26:02 What is your family's top priority right now? 32:30 "Priority" shouldn't be plural 36:52 Long-standing objectives 38:46 Temporary rally cries 39:49 How do you deploy these answers intentionally? 45:22 Staying on track Links: The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni The Frantic Family Model, family worksheet PDF Also on the Forum: Family Culture featuring Alvaro de Vicente How to Foster a Family Culture in Your H

The first images of a "protector" that flash through our minds might be the warrior, the superhero, the movie star physically holding back evil from invading the world…. Our lower school head, Colin Gleason, casts a different vision: the benevolent king, the merciful brother, the knight at vigil in the sanctuary. Yes, our role as fathers is to protect—most often through a steady presence that communicates security to our children. When we do our job well, they can live with confidence. In his talk from the Fatherhood Conference last fall, Colin identified five battlegrounds for establishing this kind of security, most of which are in our own homes. Also on the Forum: The Father as a Guide to the World featuring Michael Moynihan The Father as Presence featuring Andrew Reed Featured Opportunities: The Art of Teaching Boys Conference at The Heights School (May 6-8, 2026)

To prepare for Homer, Virgil, Beowulf, the Eddas, and Dante—The Heights begins with Tolkien. In a talk from 2016, former middle school core teacher and current upper school classics teacher Tom Cox defends the place of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in the epic tradition. He then explains why Middle Earth is so uniquely suited to the middle school, using Samwise the Stouthearted as our guide to the heart of a middle school boy. Chapters: 2:46 Rethinking "the middle" 4:01 How LotR prepares boys for upper school 7:57 How LotR meets boys in middle school 12:47 Contrasted with other epics 14:41 Samwise as a middle school model 24:47 Tolkien's lessons for teachers and parents 26:07 Samwise the Stouthearted: earning his epic epithet 31:18 "Bear one another's burdens, fulfill the law of Christ" Links: The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien The Iliad by Homer, prose translation by A. S. Kline Plutarch Podcast by Tom Cox Becoming Greece, textbook by Bill Dardis and Tom Cox B

From utero and into infancy, babies recognize their mother as being essentially one with them. So, being placed in their father's arms is in fact their first introduction to the "other," the outside world. The father will continue this crucial role as mediator and representative to the outside world throughout a boy's childhood. With decades of experience and dozens of personal anecdotes, Upper School Head Michael Moynihan addressed the 2025 Fatherhood Conference to share how a father's parenting outlook now will shape his son's vocational and professional readiness to enter the outside world as an adult. Chapters: 00:05:47 Mr. Moynihan's background 00:08:17 Fathers represent the outside world 00:12:21 Model God's loving fatherhood 00:17:02 Awaken the child's own agency 00:24:52 Partner with your wife to build this home culture Links: The Talk and Beyond: Raising Children in a Confused Culture by Michael Moynihan Decisive Parenting: Forming Authentic Freedom in Your Children by Michael Moynihan The Father and

Our mission is to assist parents in the intellectual, moral, physical, and spiritual formation of their sons… At The Heights, we repeat these words often, including a paraphrase at the beginning of every HeightsCast episode. But what constitutes intellectual formation? What does educating the intellect look like? Co-founder of the Hillbilly Thomists and Rector Magnificus at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas in Rome, Fr. Thomas Joseph White, joins us for a deep-dive into the rich Catholic understanding of intellectus, habitus, ratio, and what it means to "form" these God-given faculties. Chapters: 1:35 Intellectus: to read into reality 7:41 Modern challenges to intellectus 13:35 Habitus: a stable disposition towards excellence 17:59 Modern challenges to habitus 21:22 Ratio vs. intellectus 27:07 Intuitive "sight" as a function of intellect 32:27 Developing clear "sight" in the young 34:35 Forming the heart alongside intellect 38:47 Whether the heart and intellect fully integrate 44:01 Beauty reveals the

"Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matt. 16:25). This week we're joined by Fr. Carter Griffin, rector of the St. John Paul II Seminary in the Archdiocese of Washington, and Alvaro de Vicente, headmaster of The Heights School, to examine "discernment." It's become a Catholic buzzword, applied (or sometimes, perhaps, misapplied) to a number of life situations. Here, Fr. Carter and Alvaro discuss the methods and limits of vocational discernment—and the moral courage of commitment. Chapters: 3:45 Christian discernment 6:09 Misuses of the word "discernment" 9:39 Whether we can wrongly discern vocation 14:46 Choice paralysis 20:25 Submit to the process 25:48 Dating and marriage 29:55 Mentors and spiritual directors 33:21 Principles for discerning well 39:38 "Throw your life away"?! 46:17 The need for prayer 52:36 Crisis of vocations or crisis of faith? 59:59 Church choice and church-hopping Links: "The Catholic Church Has a Manpower Problem", 22 Sep

Please, thank you, after you… Do manners matter? Are they artifice or virtue? In this rebroadcast from 2019, lower school head Colin Gleason shares how manners can be the building blocks to a richer moral life—the habituation of virtue. He then offers practical advice for families and schools to help even young boys strengthen their "moral muscle" through manners that matter. Chapters: 1:34 Why start in the lower school 3:12 Manners: artifice or virtue? 5:34 Orienting them towards the needs of others 10:06 Manners that matter 13:31 Social manners for small children 17:57 Intergenerational social experiences 21:30 Coaching in advance 27:23 Our example Also on the Forum: Manners: The Art of Happiness by Robert Greving Manners Make (More Than) the Man, review of A Gentleman in Moscow by Robert Greving Featured Opportunities: Mustard Seed Communities, donations for Jamaica hurricane relief The Art of Teaching Boys Conference at The Heights School (January 7-9, 2026 / May 6-8, 2026)

In our school communities, we talk a great deal about moral and intellectual formation. But physical development, too, has an essential place in the whole-person, long-term vision of what our sons and students can become. Heights Athletic Director Dan Lively reminds us that the goals of athletic training don't begin and end with high school sports. In fact, lifelong functional fitness is in service to every vocation. It ensures that we and our sons are capable of having a positive impact—on the world and in our families—for as many years as we're on this earth. Chapters: 3:22 A long-term vision for your son's physical development 10:41 The goal: robust longevity 14:34 Health: more than avoiding disease 21:05 Mark Baker on functional fitness 24:14 Fitness increases one's potential for self-gift 25:58 Role of the school 31:51 Role of the family 40:09 Parents can play too 45:39 The thrill of middle school gains 47:32 Embrace your inner gym bro 52:01 The reluctant athlete Links: GuruAnaerobic, Mark Baker eBooks

One philosopher of our time claims that "today, the experience of beauty is impossible." Dr. Jason Baxter, director of the Center for Beauty and Culture at Benedictine College, begs to differ. Dr. Baxter joins us on HeightsCast to unpack his latest book, Why Literature Still Matters, which looks at why such a claim might feel true in our digital age. Then, he talks us through why and how we should reclaim our experiences of beauty for the health of our soul. Chapters: 00:03:34 The experience of beauty 00:08:44 Byung-Chul Han: the possibility of beauty today 00:15:41 Marc Auge: still living in the Enlightenment experiment 00:20:46 The soul is not a machine 00:24:57 Our task as parents, educators 00:35:05 Likes and emojis: the simplification of our interior life 00:49:23 A near-death experience in Sardinia 00:56:24 Beauty and mental health 00:57:40 Franny and Zooey: interiority matters 01:03:41 Recommended reading Links: Why Literature Still Matters by Jason Baxter Help! Where do I go from here? Part I: Poetry

The joy of "being known here" is not just for the students. When a faculty cultivates friendship, it benefits the entire school community. Tom Cox has been a middle and upper school Latin and Greek teacher at The Heights since 2009. Tom also hosts The Forum Faculty Podcast, now in its second year, which gives a slice of teacher breakroom culture: the kinds of conversations, rapport, and friendship that are born of our shared work and life as teachers. Tom joins us today to talk about how important faculty friendship is to making a school into a community, and what schools can do to support the planned and unplanned interactions that feed friendship. Chapters: 1:53 Tom Cox's history at The Heights 6:35 School as a community of friends 10:15 Using school trips for faculty bonding 14:58 Regional schools: community or society 17:01 Creating community over large distances 26:53 Building up faculty friendship 36:04 Friendship requires shared life, work 38:57 Facilitating that shared life 47:09 Planned and unplanned

What are parental rights? Are they a legal stance—or a philosophical one? In today’s conversation, Dr. Melissa Moschella of the University of Notre Dame discusses the profound and practical implications of the parent-child relationship. She then explores how those conclusions operate in the American legal tradition, tracing from natural law to John Locke to historic court cases and the public discourse today. Chapters: 3:46 True rights imply true duties 10:04 Natural law: knowable through reason 15:00 The rights and duties of parents 22:32 Role of the state in the American tradition 28:44 Twentieth-century shift, John Rawls 37:29 Whether schools can be value-neutral 43:34 Parental rights in American courts 46:47 Beyond religious liberty 55:00 School choice as parental choice 1:00:57 Public discourse: how to talk to friends, family, neighbors 1:05:30 Her book on natural law Links: Melissa Moschella, Ph.D., McGrath Institute for Church Life at Notre Dame To Whom Do Children Belong? Parental Rights, Civic Educa

There should be no contradiction in pursuing hard sciences, humanities, and moral virtue all in one day. For upper schoolers switching classrooms every hour, or for teachers siloed in a single subject, it can be easy to mistake “education” for a series of distinct academic categories. In this rebroadcast from 2015, Upper School Head Michael Moynihan gives us a better framework. He urges us to look at how our school’s different departments present a unified and infinitively connective worldview—one that invites inquisitive engagement and exercises the full scope of human reason. Chapters: 4:39 The strength of “entertainment culture” 8:16 Successful families 9:28 Assessing the educational landscape 11:32 Fragmented school subjects 14:20 Teaching persons, not subjects 17:18 Appreciating the full scope of human reason Links: Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton (see chapter 8, “The Romance of Orthodoxy”) By the Communion of Persons Man Becomes the Image of God by Pope St. John Paul II The Lost Tools of Learning by Dor

“Be perfect” (Matt. 5:48) and “anxious for nothing” (Phil 4:6). This tall order from the New Testament may put modern parents into a cold sweat. Parental perfectionism and anxiety are surely on the rise, but in his annual Headmaster’s Lecture at The Heights School, Alvaro de Vicente talks us down. He shows us the compatibility and wisdom of these two Biblical encouragements by refocusing on the process of growth—moral, academic, athletic, and spiritual—over simply the apparent results. Chapters: 2:41 Introduction: being “good enough” 8:15 A new way to see perfection 10:07 Context changes our expectations 17:34 Setting reasonable expectations 24:46 Acknowledging our son’s freedom 29:28 Parental anxiety: danger ÷ opportunity 36:54 Surrounded by goodness, a twitch upon the thread 40:53 Perseverance through hard times 47:42 Addressing real problems 53:15 Ultimately, in God’s hands Links: Men in the Making, Alvaro de Vicente’s Substack Loss of the Creature by Walker Percy Gilead by Marilynne Robinson Minority R

The art of mentoring is not just for teachers and coaches, but also parents—who can never really be out of mentoring mode. In a recent Substack article, Alvaro de Vicente named five pitfalls for our attempts at mentoring young men. This week, he talks us through some of the takeaways, reminding us that mentoring is not a profound lecture but an ongoing conversation, and the goal is not to modify but to form. Chapters: 3:49 What mentoring is 4:35 Conversation as the basis 8:55 Parents: always in mentor mode 10:13 Presence over “meaningful content” 16:01 Weighty conversations 18:25 Daily conversations 21:24 Love unlocks a child 30:48 Urgent conversations 33:34 When to mandate 35:36 When to end the conversation 37:33 Formation is a game of inches Links: Men in the Making, Alvaro de Vicente’s Substack Five Conversational Temptations Mentors and Parents Commonly Face by Alvaro de Vicente Peace Like a River by Leif Enger Only the Lover Sings by Josef Pieper Also on the Forum: Having Better Mentoring Conversations

In the broader society, mistrust increasingly defines the parent-teacher relationship. But it doesn’t have to be this way. As a Heights parent and seventh grade core teacher, Kyle Blackmer shares a practical vision for sound parent-teacher relationships. It begins with understanding parents and teachers in their true, cooperative roles for a child’s good. And it ends with developing real friendship between parents and teachers as they pursue this good together. Chapters: 1:29 Decline of the parent-teacher relationship 4:51 Parents’ true role as primary educators 10:18 How teachers relate to parents 13:40 How parents relate to teachers 18:28 Shared understanding of the goal 20:52 School as a community 26:39 Building parent-teacher relationships Links: We Need to Talk About Parent-School Relationships by Daniel Buck Also on the Forum: Partnering with Parents: Some Implications for Parents as Primary Educators by Michael Moynihan Communicating with Parents by Kyle Blackmer The Role of Parents in the Conspirac

“One of the best places to cultivate a Catholic worldview in the hearts and minds of young people … is in the backcountry,” writes Fr. John Nepil in his recent release, To Heights and unto Depths. Fr. Nepil, who has led dozens of group treks through the mountains of Colorado and said Mass atop every fourteener in the state, joins us to talk about adventure and a young man’s theological education. The backcountry, he says, is rich in lessons of creation, dependence, suffering, and beauty—restoring our sense of being created and loved by a self-giving God. Chapters: 5:18 What draws us to the mountains 9:04 “Nature” vs. “creation” 13:16 Fatherhood 16:00 Dependence 20:44 Cultivating a worldview 25:54 Guiding the conversation (or not) 28:13 Redemptive suffering 31:23 Starting with beauty 38:59 Physical vs. metaphysical limits 46:46 Men doing hard things together 48:29 The backstory of the book 50:39 A habit of reading Links: To Heights and unto Depths by Fr. John Nepil Rethinking Mary in the New Testament by Edwar