Helping educators clarify thinking and strengthen practice

Boys often present a challenge to educators. Statistically, they represent 80% of disciplinary problems in schools, are more than twice as likely to be expelled as girls, and usually lag behind in self-discipline. Many schools, moreover, aren't designed with the particular needs of boys in mind. This talk presents a three-part framework for working with the nature of boys, helping them grow physically, morally, and intellectually into men fully alive. The talk can be adapted for teachers, administrators, or parents, and the topic can be further developed through a series of sessions, each exploring a single facet of the approach in greater depth.

Parents are the primary educators; the work of a school is to assist them, not supplant them. At the same time, parents often present a challenge to teachers and administrators. What should be a school's greatest ally is too easily cast as a problem to manage. This talk helps teachers and administrators reframe their relationship with parents and find practical ways to strengthen that partnership—in both formal and informal settings.

At the heart of education lies a paradox: there is no formation without freedom, and no freedom without formation. How can schools embrace freedom without letting liberty run wild into license? What's the right approach to guidance at each age level? How can teachers and parents provide support and structure without stifling agency? This talk takes up questions such as these. The talk can be adapted for teachers, administrators, or parents. The topic can be further developed through a series of talks, each exploring a single facet of the approach in greater depth.

Being male is a matter of biology; being a man, a question of character. Though manners aren't virtues themselves, they can be a great training ground for them, as well as one of their concrete expressions. Indeed, one mark of a man is that he is mannerly: a gentleman. This talk shows how manners can become the building blocks of a richer moral life, and offers practical advice for families and schools on strengthening even the young boy's "moral muscle" through the manners.

How you understand what you're doing shapes both your approach and your ability to sustain it over the long haul. Teaching is arguably the second most important job there is, yet its value is rarely reflected in its level of societal prestige. This talk explores the teaching vocation: what it means for it to be a vocation, how to know if it's yours, and what success looks like while living it.

Most people think transmitting the faith means getting your child to obey certain rules and follow particular practices. Though not entirely wrong, this idea is inadequate. This talk expands parents' and teachers' understanding of what it means to form children in the faith, exploring five dimensions of passing it on and practical strategies for each.

This session combines instruction in the Socratic seminar with a practicum in it. The talk identifies key principles for leading a seminar and guiding knowledge through the Socratic method; the practicum is a seminar on a text relevant to the art of teaching itself.

This topic examines how a curriculum is delivered and received—teaching in such a way that a student becomes truly engaged in learning, that he becomes what Walker Percy called a "sovereign knower." The talk combines cultural commentary with philosophical reflection and practical application, and can be expanded into a series, each focusing in greater depth on a single facet of the approach.

Thanks to researchers and writers like Jonathan Haidt, schools are waking up to what many parents and teachers have long known: technology is not an unalloyed good in education—in fact, it poses real challenges. How should parents and teachers approach technology, both at home and at school? This talk can be adapted to cover a range of topics: AI, smartphones, computers, and the like.

What is mentoring? How can teachers take a mentoring approach? What are the best practices and common challenges to mentoring students today? What conversational pitfalls can parents and teachers easily fall into? This topic answers these questions—and more. It can be covered as a single lecture or as a series of talks on particular topics.