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Essay
Saving the Difference: A Review of Michael Reichert's "How to Raise Boys: The Power of Connection to Build Good Men"
by Joseph LanzilottiSaving the Difference: A Review of Michael Reichert's "How to Raise Boys: The Power of Connection to Build Good Men"
In the book How to Raise Boys: The Power of Connection to Build Good Men, Michael Reichert provides advice and testimonials aimed at helping parents and educators raise thriving boys. Reichert’s book is a response to a legitimately recognized crisis involving boys who, he notes, are five times more likely to be diagnosed with a psychological disorder than are girls.[1] Many of the challenges that maturing boys face Reichert attributes to the loss of close and meaningful relationships with those who ought to be offering care. He recognizes that “too...
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Article
Self-Mastery
by Alvaro de VicenteSelf-Mastery
The following essay first appeared as an article in Alvaro de Vicente’s Substack publication, Men in the Making. For more articles like this one, you can visit his page here. Subscribe to stay up-to-date on his writing. Parents and teachers often limit the goal of education to transferring information about the world and training in skills to prosper within it. Certainly, these are important parts of a complete education, but they are not the whole. A more complete understanding of a boys’ school’s mission involves the formation of the whole...
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Article
Hopeful Parents, Hopeful Sons
by Alvaro de VicenteHopeful Parents, Hopeful Sons
The following essay first appeared as an article in Alvaro de Vicente’s Substack publication, Men in the Making. For more articles like this one, you can visit his page here. Subscribe to stay up-to-date on his writing. Over a century ago, the great Catholic writer and philosopher G.K. Chesterton wrote about the distinction between the supernatural virtue of hope and the disposition popularly referred to as “optimism.” On the eve of his reception into the Catholic Church, Chesterton was struck by the Penny Catechism’s teaching that the two sins against hope are presumption...
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Podcast
Loyalty in an Culture of Sentimentalism
featuring Alvaro de VicenteLoyalty in an Culture of Sentimentalism
The sentimentalism of our greater culture is a formidable—yet surmountable—challenge to young men. Our sons are relentlessly encouraged to follow their affections and feelings wherever they might lead, whatever their commitments. How can we, as parents and teachers, help our boys to become men who love the world without being pulled off course by the sentiments and affections that are a natural aspect of our God-given humanity? As part of our parent lecture series at The Heights School, Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente offers his insights to navigating the cultural challenge...
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Podcast
Forming Faithful Men
featuring Alvaro de VicenteForming Faithful Men
As a community of believing parents and teachers, passing the Faith on to our sons is mission essential. Heights Headmaster, Alvaro de Vicente, discusses how parents and teachers can model, explain, facilitate, and support the faith of our fathers in the next generation. Below is a recording of the live Q&A webinar that took place on March 20, 2019.
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Podcast
Forming Wise Risk Takers
featuring Alvaro de VicenteForming Wise Risk Takers
Why all the tree climbing, virtue talk, and fancy old books? It’s all part of our grand conspiracy to form wise, courageous, risk-takers. Hear our Headmaster, Mr. Alvaro de Vicente, discuss how The Heights goes about teaching boys to manage risk in a virtuous, intelligent manner. The process isn’t mud-free, and we can guarantee mistakes–your sons’ and our own. But the end result, with prayers and God’s grace, is a “man fully alive,” who understands that living isn’t the sole purpose of life.
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Article
Why Boys Need Freedom
by Andrew ReedWhy Boys Need Freedom
Unless a boy is free to make some decisions on his own, he will not be as capable of making good decisions as a young man. Boys need to be given freedom so that they have the chance to "opt-in" to all that is good in the world.
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Podcast
Dangerously Good
featuring Alvaro de VicenteDangerously Good
Where to begin with the lofty, almost nebulous virtue of magnanimity—what St. Thomas Aquinas called “stretching forth of the soul to great things”? Of course we want to raise great-souled children, who even outstrip us in their vision of the good and their commitment to serving it. But words alone will fail to impart such a personal and complex mission. At last April’s Fatherhood Conference at The Heights, Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente tackled the challenge of how to teach magnanimity to our children. Following Fr. Carter Griffin’s keynote address, Mr....
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Podcast
The Man Fully Alive
featuring Alvaro de VicenteThe Man Fully Alive
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...
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Article
What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Male Brain
by Nate GadianoWhat Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Male Brain
Articulating our vision, reviewing the literature on boys’ education, and sharing our experiences educating boys into men fully alive.