Category: Article

Engaging Boys in the 20th-Century Epic Middle-school boys, like the hobbits of the Lord of the Rings epic, don’t understand their place in the world and feel, more often than not, like they are along for the ride rather than contributing anything substantive to their own lives or anyone else’s. This lulls them into a malaise that makes the areas of their lives where they do have control (video games, sports, etc.) become the defining features of their identities. The adults in their lives wring their hands and wish they…

Editor’s Note: In the spirit of Parent-Teacher Conferences which just happened last week, and in a nod to our roots, we dig up an archival article on the importance of the parent-teacher relationship. Michael Moynihan, head of the Upper School, helps us get the right perspective on what we mean when we say “Parents are the primary educators of their children.” I once mentioned to a parent, rather in passing, that our educational philosophy at The Heights School is based on our belief that parents are the primary educators of their…

Responsible or Dependent: Can Allowance Play a Role? Allowance is a tricky issue for many families. It is important for our kids to have access to money, in order to learn how to spend, save, donate, and manage money. We also want our kids to help out at home and learn to maintain order. Many times we tie these two ideas together, but that may not be the best solution.  Further complicating this mess, there is some debate on what allowance should be used for. Is it discretionary spending? Should…

An Analog Antidote Any person who desires to explore the continually unfolding game board on which the family relationships play will agree that evenings spent locked onto our various glowy devices can only burn lives. This is why wise people annoy us by telling us to turn off the glowy things. Alvaro de Vicente, our headmaster, has a great podcast on training the boys for freedom with, rather than slavery to, their phones. But simply removing one potentially detrimental form of entertainment does not solve the problem unless we replace…

Editor’s Note: Since we’re celebrating our 50th Anniversary this year, we thought it’d be appropriate to dig back into the archives and see what The Heights was like in the decades that brought us here. Today we go back 14 years to 2005 when Joe Cardenas wrote an article about self-esteem.  Self-Esteem Boosts and Our Culture’s Flight from Reality Reality Check! We hear this expression in our daily interactions and the evening news alike. It’s normally used when a person or an institution has drifted away from the facts. A…

I am convinced that the greatest challenge for teenagers today is not the smartphone. Overuse of consumer technology does contribute to disturbingly high rates of adolescent anxiety (a), but this addiction is not the source but the symptom of our current difficulty. The deeper challenge is the overwhelming cultural pressure to be indifferent. This attitude of indifference guides adolescents through the world with dazed eyes, more comfortable to stare for hours at images on a screen than to pause and briefly observe the world around them. It is more than…

Perhaps you already have chores; maybe your parents gave them to you. Actually, I hope you have chores around the house that your parents gave you. It’s good to learn some responsibility from those who are trying to shape you into the healthy, mature, hard-working adults that one day will need to work to pay my social security. In any case, you should go ahead and give yourself two more chores on top of those imposed from your parents.  WHAT??? Why would I, a kid, want to give myself extra…

Five Things I Wish I Had Known In 2006 I experienced some momentous first experiences. My first wedding anniversary, the birth of my first child, and my first time working a full-time position teaching middle school and high school. At the beginning of that school year, my headmaster told me that he thought it took a person two years to find out whether he was called to this profession or not called to this profession. He also mentioned a study covered by a New York Times article that found the…

We are all temporal creatures. We live in time the way fish live in water or the way trees hug for life with their roots in the soil. But it’s a funny thing about trees that they cling to the sunlit air for life as well. Every farmer and forester knows that trees need sunlight. And with a bit of help from biology class, we learn that they need the carbon-filled air too. That is, trees are as rooted in the high heavens as they are in the lowly earth,…