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Spring at The Heights brings more than just cherry blossoms; it welcomes visitors to campus. Our spring visit cycle is in full swing, and we’ve had the pleasure of hosting 10 institutions from across the country and beyond. Notably, we recently welcomed four school leaders from Hong Kong for a week-long immersion in The Heights culture and philosophy of education. Opening our doors to teachers and administrators is an essential part of sharing our vision and approach to educating boys. As one visitor put it, “If you merely describe it,...

Andrew Reed, Middle School Head and Leaders Initiative Director, recently led a day-long workshop for teachers at Summit Academy, focusing on the vocation and mission of teachers. In his first session, Andy outlined three levels of a teacher’s vocation: forming the mind in the context of a single class, forming the person in the context of a school, and forming the whole person in the context of a family. He encouraged teachers to widen the scope of how they see their work, to understand that they are called to not...

Last week, The Heights welcomed 55 educators to campus for its second bi-annual Art of Teaching Conference. The participants came from 12 states, as well as Canada, Portugal, and Mexico. Designed primarily for new teachers, the conference focused on essential pillars of education, including classroom management and discipline, pedagogy, and teaching methodologies. Sessions introduced attendees to The Heights School’s philosophy and vision of education—an approach that seeks to engage students as active agents in their own learning. A session on mentoring expanded the traditional view of a teacher’s role, encouraging...

This past weekend, The Heights School was delighted to welcome some 150 fathers from across the community for a day of reflection and fellowship at its annual Fathers Conference. This year’s event focused on how the life and teachings of St. Josemaría Escrivá can provide inspiration and guidance for men as husbands, fathers, professionals, and citizens living in the busyness of 21st-century Washington, D.C. The conference began with Holy Mass, setting a reflective tone for the hours ahead. The first talk, “A Father’s Worldview in the Message of St. Josemaría,”...

The Heights Forum launched the 2024-25 Leaders Initiative program this past Wednesday, welcoming ten school administrators from as far West as California, as far north as Canada, and as far south as the Carolinas. The year-long program aims to support these emerging educational leaders by providing an environment for focused exploration of topics pertaining to the core of a school’s mission: partnering with parents to foster the holistic growth of students. The Leaders Initiative cohorts will convene on a monthly basis. Drawing on The Heights School’s experience working with thousands...

This summer, contributors of The Heights Forum, in preparation for The Art of Teaching conference this fall, travelled around the US and even around the world to deliver lectures and conferences highlighting aspects of professional development within the realm of teaching. After a successful Teaching Vocation conference, The Heights School Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente flew all the way to Portugal to deliver four talks on the vocation of teaching. Building on points from Michael Moynihan’s “Teaching Sovereign Knowers” presentation, Alvaro stressed the importance for teachers themselves to be a conduit...

Educators from across the country traveled to The Heights School to exchange ideas on the formation and mentoring of boys this past June 13-14, 2024 for the second annual Summer Mentoring Workshop. Hosted on the school’s campus, participants included teachers and administrators from as far west as California and as far east as Portugal.  Intensive discussions spanning philosophical and theological anthropology, theories of formation, and strategies for nurturing transformative conversations, were supplemented by practical topics ranging from navigating difficult conversations to fostering collaboration with parents, all aimed at helping young...

On April 13, The Heights welcomed eighty-five fathers to campus for its second annual Fatherhood Conference. Building on the success of last spring’s Fatherhood Conference, which focused on the power and importance of paternal presence, the theme for this year’s conference was the virtue of magnanimity.  Featuring a blend of lectures and breakout discussions, this event also welcomed a long-time friend of the school, Fr. Carter Griffin, Rector of St. John Paul II Seminary in Washington. Following Mass and breakfast, Fr. Griffin opened the day with a lecture titled “Magnanimity...

Last week, The Heights welcomed a group of six school heads from Spain. Hailing from schools located throughout the Iberian Peninsula, the visitors were especially keen on learning about practically feasible ways to develop and improve the humanities programs offered at their schools. Through observations of core classes and strategic meetings with administrators at The Heights, the visitors worked on developing ways to integrate a solid humanities sequence into their already strong science and math programs. In addition to humanities, the school heads also sought to learn more about sharpening...

The conference for me felt like coming home. The clarity of vision your teachers and leadership presented was not just words, but clearly flowed into your relationships between each other and with your students. The intentionality of your campus design, the rhythms of your school day, and your approach to curricular development came together in a way I can only call ‘organic,”’and it was refreshing to me, as someone who has spent 18 years as an educator-administrator, to witness the ideals I have so long espoused in action, in such...

Last Saturday, The Heights opened its doors to some 120 parents—many parents of current Heights students, some friends of the school, and still other prospective Heights parents. Following on the success of last spring’s Fatherhood Conference, which similarly saw well over a hundred fathers in attendance, last Saturday’s event featured a blend of lectures, Q&A sessions, and breakout discussions. The topic was technology and freedom; or, in other words, how to raise children who have the ability to master technology and not to be mastered by it.  In many ways,...

The Reasonable Person is an outstanding introduction to logic as the art and science of sound reasoning. The book is informed by the author’s experience making Aristotle’s logic comprehensible and interesting to contemporary fourteen-year-olds, and it shows. Written for all those who desire to know the truth and to act in accordance with it, the book’s main point is compelling: we use reason in order to know the truth, and we study logic to improve our ability to find the truth together. The need for such a book in our current moment...

Practical wisdom, thought Aristotle, is impossible to attain except by experience. This is true of life, of the arts, and of professional crafts. The next best thing is the experience of older people combined with thoughtful reflection.  Such experience and thoughtful reflection is what the Forum sought to transmit this past summer during its workshops for the new teachers of the Archdiocese of Boston. Through the month of July, The Heights Forum offered workshops for the St. Thomas More Teaching Fellows. Focusing on key areas related to the teaching profession,...

I would say that the Leaders Initiative is the most influential thing, in the first few years of being a teacher or educator, that I’ve ever participated in. -Apprentice Principal (Brookline, MA) During summer 2022, the Forum launched the Leaders Initiative, a multi-month program of professional formation and executive coaching. The Initiative was the fruit of the Forum’s efforts to better serve educational leaders by giving intentional organization to something The Heights School had been offering for many years: counseling new school leaders and leaders of new schools.  Drawing on...