Category: Article

What should society do about economic inequality? Does a larger empire make a greater leader? What is the meaning of suffering? What societal trends weaken a civilization? How can we tell right from wrong? The above questions are not the typical questions heard in a history class! What ever happened to “How many Confederate troops fought at Shiloh?” or “Which battle turned the tide and led to Napoleon’s eventual defeat?” Tom Cox, Chris Breslin, and I—the faculty who teach the 8th-grade Core Humanities Sequence—spent the 2016-17 school year compiling an…

  A boy sits, head canting to the right, his mud-touched shoulder pressed against the wooden moulding that caps the pew end. The light from the altar partly reveals a face at rest from the day’s furious activity. He has striven, and acted, and now can only be in the presence of another. The student’s hands curl absently on an unopened chapbook, but his eyes never lose their golden mark. It calls to mind the story of the peasant at adoration. “What do you say to Him?” asked the French…

The classical education movement has grown tremendously in recent years. Throughout the United States and abroad, hundreds of small classical academies have emerged, some of which are growing into well-established schools. There are professional associations that support these classical schools and even publishing companies that provide curriculum materials. The movement encompasses homeschools, private schools, religious schools, and even some public charter schools. Many people have wondered how The Heights fits into the classical education movement. Is The Heights a classical school? If not, in what ways does a Heights education…

Quiz Time? The Juniors in Moral Theology class glance furtively at each other as Mr. Gleason passes out what appears to be a quiz. The unspoken question is answered, “Gentlemen, this is not for a grade. I simply want you to write next to each statement whether it is a fact or an opinion. We will be discussing this in class.” A few of the boys visibly relax. Fifteen minutes later the class begins what will become a lengthy and heated discussion, spanning multiple class periods, on matters foundational not only…

Each fall, our students in The History of Western Thought find themselves reading Plato’s Phaedo, an account of the last day of Socrates, and the work in which he treats of the immortality of the human soul.  This is, many times, the boys’ first foray into a full Platonic dialogue.  Why do we begin the year there, and what do we hope a student will gain from reading this seminal text? To begin, Plato provides for . . . a good beginning.  Serious thought, on the level of our capstone…

Our nation and our world are undoubtedly in a time of crisis. We are living through a historic period of uncertainty and anxiety. In the fallout of the Coronavirus pandemic, many of our society’s most powerful institutions have been shaken, in some cases, right down to their foundations. Our children are living through these uncertain times right along with us; in many ways, their lives have been uprooted by “social distancing” and “stay at home” guidelines even more than our adult lives have been. During this tumultuous time in the…

Editor’s Note: We bring you this essay from our archives, going back to 2003. Many of the questions we ask about schools—often innocent enough in intention—presuppose a metaphor of schooling, a vision of its methods, its purposes, its myriad responsibilities. This “mental model,” as educational theorists like to call it, can implicitly shape the questions we ask, and sure enough, many of the answers we find. Yet in the avalanche of everyday tasks, it is easy to dismiss such a perspective as too abstract, mere theory we don’t have time…

Today we feature a letter written by our Headmaster to Heights families in 2007.  There are 13 years under the bridge, but the principles that applied then, apply now.  The same forces are at work for our sons’ attention.  Read on for the headmaster’s guidance on creating a culture of learning in the home. Dear Parents, For a change, this letter does not deal with events coming up, or buildings, or school news. Rather than writing about what is happening, I am writing to you about what may not be…

The Inspiration On the first Friday of school in September 2017, I was looking for a news article to use in AP Spanish class that would spark a lively discussion and help us get comfortable debating things in Spanish. The first article that caught my attention was about a guy who swore that he hadn’t been sick in 10 years, and he attributed it to taking cold showers. The idea of cold showers was not new to me; I had heard of a few friends and colleagues that did it…

Editor’s Note: At a recent faculty meeting day, a lunch conversation about how to divide and name different periods of history led to Lucas Lopes, Freshman Core teacher, inviting Lionel Yaceczko to give the following talk to his class as they were studying the period between the Roman Empire and Medieval Christendom. In the second century of the Christian Aera, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and…