Category: HeightsCast

From the very start, the founders of The Heights understood education to consist in the communication of a culture. As culture often enters a boy’s mind through his senses, an important means of this transmission is the art and architecture of a school. Indeed, in many ways buildings embody the ideals of an institution.  This week Joe Cardenas, head of mentoring and long-time art history teacher, joins us for a conversation on the importance of beauty in education. Rooting the conversation in the American tradition, Joe helps us see why…

In many schools, education is understood in reductively intellectual terms. The point of teaching, it would seem, is merely to inform, to fill the mind with data, to train the intellect to perform tasks and solve puzzles. To be sure, information and intellectual virtues are essential aspects of education; but they are not the whole, and to make them so would be to reduce the person to his mind. In this talk, taken from our recent Art of Teaching Conference, Anton Vorozhko helps us understand the role of the heart in the…

In this episode, we feature a recorded lecture given by Rich Moss in his introductory presentation at the Art of Teaching conference hosted by The Heights Forum last week. In this talk, Rich explains why teaching is an art, what that art is, and what the tools are utilized by the teaching artist.

Boys love concrete details and, even more, they love when those concrete details form the fabric of a hero’s tale. Indeed, as Aristotle himself knew, better than merely telling adolescents about virtue is giving them examples of heroes, for good men are not made in theory but in practice, and boys need to see virtues practiced to be inspired themselves. What better place to turn than to an author who has taught generations of leaders, not least of which were this country’s founders? That man is Plutarch, and our guide…

This week on HeightsCast, we feature headmaster Alvaro de Vicente’s open house speech on the mission and vision of The Heights School. In the speech, Alvaro helps parents discern the right school for their son. Understanding education to be essentially about partnering with parents to transmit a culture, he encourages parents to thoughtfully consider the culture of our school and how it relates to the culture of their own homes. In addition, Mr. de Vicente offers a few words on our vision of manhood, suggesting that to be a good…

This week on HeightsCast, we feature a recording of the 2022 Headmaster’s Lecture on the man fully alive. In this lecture, Mr. Alvaro de Vicente helps us understand what we mean when we use St. Irenaeus’ oft-quoted though seldom understood words that gloria Dei est vivens homo: the glory of God is living man. Mr. de Vicente shares his thoughts on the destination and the road ahead, suggesting that to live fully on earth we must understand that the fullness of life is found only in heaven. And if we are to…

In this week’s episode, we discuss science fiction with Mr. Joe Breslin, fifth grade teacher and soon-to-be published author of Other Minds: 13 Tales of Wonder and Sorrow. Surveying the wide umbrella of literature and film termed “sci-fi,” Mr. Breslin helps us understand what makes this genre of literature valuable, interesting, and beautiful. As Mr. Breslin explains, science fiction done well offers a celebration of the human person, showing us in often strange ways what is possible for us as thinking beings. Moreover, by removing us from the humdrum of our…

From the boys’ choir in the lower school to the men’s chorus in the upper school, informal performances at faculty dinners to songs at the annual Maryland Day Gala, singing echoes throughout the whole of The Heights experience. This week, we sit down with Mr. Patrick Love, music teacher at The Heights since 2004, to discuss not only when and where we sing at The Heights but why we love to sing so much. As you’ll hear, singing—broadly understood—is at the heart of our school’s mission. Cantare amantis est, St. Augustine tells us:…

The problem with science education today is not that it is too scientific at the expense of being philosophic or Christian. The problem is that it is not scientific enough such that it has often become dogmatic rather than data-driven.    This week on HeightsCast we talk with upper school head Michael Moynihan about a new initiative of his on the Forum: the Initiative for the Renewal of Science Education. In the episode, Michael discusses the need for a new synthesis in the liberal arts, combining the best of modern…

In this week’s episode, we talk with headmaster Alvaro de Vicente about a central theme from our faculty workshop: self-mastery. As Alvaro explains, self-mastery is a certain integration of action, words, thoughts, and desires that gives one the interior freedom to not only do the good but to want to do the good. What does this self-mastery look like for teachers, for students, and for parents? How do we help our boys develop self-mastery? What is the role of a school in assisting parents with this great endeavor? As man is…