Our Mission
The Heights Forum is a department of The Heights School. We assist parents, school leaders, and teachers in their own efforts to educate boys into men fully alive. Through in-person and digital resources we share our experience in forming the hearts and minds of boys, and invite you to join the conversation.
The Father as Protector
Featuring Colin Gleason
Our role as fathers is to protect—less often as superheroes and more often as a steady presence. When we do our job well, they can live with confidence.
Cortex, Schmortex
By Mark Grannis
I think I was in my early thirties when I first heard a scientific observation that has since passed into common knowledge, namely, that our brains aren’t fully developed until age 25. While I don’t remember exactly when I first heard this factoid, I am confident that it was after my twenty-fifth birthday. In other words, I don’t think there has ever been a day on which my immaturity could be explained by the neuroscientists’ assertion that my brain was still a work in progress. And yet my brain was...
An Epic Education: Tolkien in the Middle School
Featuring Tom Cox
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...
Educating Boys: Nature, Risk, and the Making of Men
By Dr. Joseph Lanzilotti
In order to thrive, boys need teachers and parents to give them the freedom to act out their natural need for physical play.