1
Podcast
Building a Relationship of Trust with Your Son
featuring Alvaro de VicenteBuilding a Relationship of Trust with Your Son
Our headmaster, Alvaro de Vicente, offers a lecture on how to build a solid relationship of trust with your son. This relationship matters because it is the context within which you will form your boy’s character.
2
Podcast
From Anxiety to Adventure
featuring Kevin MajeresFrom Anxiety to Adventure
Adorning our school’s main hallway is a sort of charter for the Heights graduate which designates him as a man who is “optimistic toward life’s challenges,” as one who “sees freedom as an opportunity to choose the good.” Fostering these ideals in each student is a central aspect of the school’s mission. But, in a world that is increasingly filled with children suffering from anxiety, how—in very practical terms—can we help our students develop such an outlook on life? Last month, we heard from Mr. Alex Berthé on how...
3
Podcast
Discipline: On Respectful Dominion
featuring Colin GleasonDiscipline: On Respectful Dominion
What’s your approach to discipline? This week we feature a lecture delivered at The Heights by Mr. Colin Gleason, Lower School Head offering his thoughts on this question. He can’t answer for us as parents, but he can share his own philosophy as a teacher and school head. Regardless of whether you are thinking classroom or kitchen, Mr. Gleason encourages us to foster a culture of respectful dominion. And this respect relates to our son’s disposition towards us. But it also has import for our respect toward them–towards their dignity...
4
Podcast
Self-Mastery: Fostering Interior Freedom
featuring Alvaro de VicenteSelf-Mastery: Fostering Interior Freedom
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...
5
Podcast
Addiction: Possibilities for Endless Growth
featuring Kevin MajeresAddiction: Possibilities for Endless Growth
In this week’s episode, we continue our conversation with Dr. Kevin Majeres, turning our attention to the importance of setting challenges and the way actions shape emotions. Drawing on these two topics, Dr. Majeres helps us think through how parents can best help a son that is struggling with an addiction of any sort. In particular, Dr. Majeres responds to the following questions: What is addiction? What is the neuroscience behind addiction? How does the particular addiction of pornography tie into this general understanding of addiction? How can we—or our...
6
Podcast
Digital Minimalism: Creating a Philosophy of Technology Use
featuring Cal NewportDigital Minimalism: Creating a Philosophy of Technology Use
It has been said that the choice is not between philosophy and no philosophy, but between good philosophy and bad philosophy; for to have no philosophy is itself a philosophy, albeit a disastrous one. The same holds true for digital technology which, although often vital in the modern world, can be dangerous if used mindlessly. For these next two episodes, we welcome back Dr. Cal Newport, professor of computer science at Georgetown University and New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including Digital Minimalism and A World Without Email. In...
7
Podcast
Forming Your Young Son's Conscience
featuring Colin GleasonForming Your Young Son's Conscience
This week on HeightsCast we feature a recording of our most recent Heights Lecture Series featuring Colin Gleason, who discusses the formation of conscience in the young boy. Though we focus, among other things, on the formation of the will at The Heights, the formation of a boy’s moral compass–his conscience–is equally important. The forming of a child’s conscience begins at a very early age. The peer group, school, and culture will all be factors in our children’s moral growth, but no environment will affect the bearings of conscience more...
8
Podcast
Parental Prudence: On "Learning to Turn"
featuring Tom RoyalsParental Prudence: On "Learning to Turn"
While we often speak of the virtues we wish to see in our children, it is perhaps less common that we reflect on the particular virtues that we need to foster in ourselves. In this episode Mr. Tom Royals, 40+ year teaching veteran and Assistant Headmaster of The Heights, discusses the importance of parental prudence and its progeny: meekness, patience, and humility. In this week’s episode, we sit down with long-time Heights father and Assistant Headmaster, Mr. Tom Royals, to speak about the virtues of parenting. From his wealth of...
9
Podcast
Work and Acedia: On Our Original Vocation
featuring R. J. SnellWork and Acedia: On Our Original Vocation
A certain distinguished school leader, when asked when he would retire from his work, replied, “the day that I wake up and do not want to go to work.” A reply such as this perhaps strikes the modern ear as senseless. For many of us, work fills the greater portion of our daily lives, but do we feel ourselves thereby fulfilled? Especially today, we may often feel trapped in what seem like unspectacular sisyphean cycles. This week, R. J. Snell, editor-in-chief of Public Discourse and director of the Center on the University and Intellectual Life...
10
Podcast
Our Little Protectors: How do WE see our boys?
featuring Alvaro de VicenteOur Little Protectors: How do WE see our boys?
Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente helps us examine our own perception, a parents and teachers, of our boys. If we view them as budding protectors, we’ll treat them one way; if we see them as future “compliers,” it will be another. But what happens when we want to see them as protectors but treat them as compliers subconsciously? Alvaro helps parents and teachers form a vision of boys befitting their nature, and offers a road map to make that vision a reality in the lives and identities of the boys now...