HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive

The Heights School
Podcast de HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive

Welcome to HeightsCast, the official podcast of The Heights School. Every week, we feature interviews with teachers, educators, and experts in a variety of fields, both here at The Heights School and beyond our school's walls. Our conversations concern the education and formation of men fully alive in the liberal arts tradition. In other words, we talk about the education of the kind of man you’d want your daughter to marry. We hope that these conversations may be both delightful and insightful; and that through them, your vocation as educators may be ever renewed. Join us!

  1. The Virtue of Studiousness

    19 SEPT

    The Virtue of Studiousness

    Part of the Teaching Sovereign Knowers Collection In recent years, a number of HeightsCast guests have touched on the same resounding theme: the modern creep of curiositas and acedia, both considered classical vices. But where there are two vices, Aristotle encourages us to look for a virtue at the Golden Mean. Mr. Michael Moynihan, head of The Heights upper school, finds it in studiousness. Adding to his collection of work on Teaching Sovereign Knowers, this episode unpacks Michael’s essay “Intellectual Virtue and Personal Sovereignty,” available on the Heights Forum. In it, he speaks to the why and how of pursuing studiousness as an intellectual virtue. For this, as with all virtues, allows us to stand before reality in an intentional way. Chapters: 3:43 Curiosity as an intellectual vice? 7:55 Acedia at the other end of the spectrum 10:15 Golden mean: studiousness 14:36 When is it curiositas, when is it engagement? 16:37 Studiousness as a virtue—of sorts 23:09 Standing before reality in an intentional way 26:23 Seeking the golden mean: sticking to a plan 29:21 Using “Great Books” well 34:46 Orienting students to the golden mean Links: Intellectual Virtue and Personal Sovereignty by Michael Moynihan The Idea of a University by John Henry Cardinal Newman Featured Opportunities: Headmaster’s Lecture at The Heights School (October 5, 2024) The Art of Teaching Conference at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2024) Also on the Forum: Teaching Sovereign Knowers Collection by Michael Moynihan On Hope and Despair featuring R. J. Snell Forming Deep Workers featuring Cal Newport

    40 min
  2. 29 AGO

    Restoring the Lord's Day

    As we embark on a new school year, we are full of resolutions for the family routine. How will we order our week to support the highest goods? How will we fit it all in? Not to be overlooked while charting the course: our keeping of the Sabbath. Last April, author and teacher Daniel Fitzpatrick released his book Restoring the Lord’s Day: How Reclaiming Sunday Can Revive Our Human Nature. Daniel sits down with us at HeightsCast to discuss the book, which examines the cultural drift away from a sense of Sabbath, why we should restore this God-given rhythm to our lives, and the scriptural support for how to do it. Chapters: 4:09 Inattention to the Sabbath: modern or ageless? 7:54 Acedia, primary vice against the Sabbath 12:32 Challenges of the five-day work week 17:24 Festivity and sacrifice 21:56 The draw of sports as they relate to beauty 24:30 The good, UNrestful activities of Sunday 31:09 Practical advice for young families 35:38 Preparing on Saturday 40:44 Concluding the Sabbath 43:22 Reckoning with the necessity of labor Links: Restoring the Lord’s Day: How Reclaiming Sunday Can Revive Our Human Nature by Daniel Fitzpatrick Joie de Vivre: A Journal of Art, Culture, and Letters for South Louisiana edited by Daniel Fitzpatrick Grace Fitzpatrick Art, Byzantine iconography by Grace Fitzpatrick Featured Opportunities: The Art of Teaching Conference at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2024) Also on the Forum: Work and Acedia: On Our Original Vocation featuring R. J. Snell Leisure and Acedia: On Contemplative Homes in a Frenetic Age featuring R. J. Snell

    53 min
  3. 22 AGO

    Advice for the College Launch

    “Picture yourself here.” “Become all you can be.” “This will be the best four years of your life.” The college pitch to high school seniors is alluring—though it doesn’t sketch a very clear life plan for a young person entering higher education. As Heights Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente points out, a successful time in college can be measured in growth: Are you physically, spiritually, and intellectually stronger by the end of these four years? In order to answer yes, students will need to embark upon college with a plan and a healthy way of measuring those dimensions of growth. This week on HeightsCast, Mr. de Vicente shares incredibly practical advice for spending the college years well, drawing on a letter he sent this summer to the newly graduated Heights class of 2024. Chapters: 1:45 The best four years of your life? 6:44 Old truths remain fresh 9:17 College success measured by growth 12:05 Five battlefronts, five tools for success 12:36 One: Shower and eat breakfast 15:30 Two: Look at your day as a 9-to-5 job 19:26 Mr. de Vicente’s study plan 25:32 Three: Find the right peer group 30:04 Four: Chart a path for spiritual growth 32:00 Five: Have a mentor 35:27 A reasonable study load, being effective without overloading 41:26 Laptop distractions in class 44:25 Breaking out of the “self-focused” college attitude 50:40 A truer pursuit of happiness Featured Opportunities: The Art of Teaching Conference at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2024) Also on the Forum: Considerations for College-Bound Students featuring Dr. Peter Kilpatrick of The Catholic University of America The College Experience featuring Dr. Jonathan Sanford of University of Dallas Rethinking College: Why Go? How? When? featuring Arthur Brooks

    59 min
  4. The Formation of a Teacher

    12 AGO

    The Formation of a Teacher

    Charlotte Mason’s simple framework for a teacher calls him a “guide, philosopher, and friend.” It’s a lovely image—but what does that practical application look like? At the Forum Teaching Vocation Conference last winter, Heights teacher Tom Cox unpacked each of these terms citing ancient wisdom and loads of modern classroom experience. Chapters: 6:09 Charlotte Mason and the teacher as guide, philosopher, and friend 7:44 Guide: one who has been there before 10:53 Communicating the “why” 14:18 Philosopher: starting in wonder, ending in wisdom 15:59 A storyteller stirring up wonder 20:01 Friend: beginning with a mutual love of something 22:28 Modeling friendship with fellow faculty 23:57 St. Aelred of Rievaulx’s qualities of friendship 24:19 Dilectio, outward benevolent acts 24:54 Affectio, interior feeling 26:29 Securitas, freedom from anxiety 27:42 Iucunditas, pleasantness 30:00 Orient towards hope: begin and begin again Links: Grammaticus.co, Tom Cox’s website featuring Latin and history courses, his blog, and podcast The Plutarch Podcast by Tom Cox Spiritual Friendship by Aelred of Rievaulx Featured Opportunities: The Art of Teaching Conference at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2024) Also on the Forum: Living the Teaching Vocation by Michael Moynihan Teaching and the Vocation to Fatherhood featuring Tom Steenson On Preparation for Teaching: Six Attributes of Great Teachers featuring Colin Gleason The Teacher as Liberal Artist featuring Tom Longano

    33 min
  5. Anthropological Foundations of Mentoring

    20 JUN

    Anthropological Foundations of Mentoring

    In June, the Forum hosted a Mentoring Workshop for men across the country (and beyond) to consider the whys and hows of mentoring young boys into young men into men fully alive. It’s always best to start by defining terms. And so, the opening lecture for the workshop weekend featured Dr. Joseph Lanzilotti, theology scholar and upper school teacher at The Heights School, explicating the kind of Christian anthropology that precedes a mentoring relationship. In other words, how are we to understand what man is before we try to help him grow? For our benefit, Dr. Lanzilotti maps out this profound philosophical concept using St. Augustine’s simple and most famous line: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Chapters: 2:07 St. Augustine’s “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you” 4:56 What is man? Who is man? What is his telos? 7:54 Pope St. John Paul II’s “adequate anthropology” 8:38 Finding an adequate anthropology in St. Augustine’s restless heart 10:05 Fecisti nos: you made us 13:33 Ad te: for yourself 17:27 Inquietum cor nostrum: our hearts are restless 22:19 Donec requiescat in te: until they rest in you Links: Confessions by St. Augustine I Burned for Your Peace: Augustine’s Confessions Unpacked by Peter Kreeft Gaudium et spes by the Second Vatican Council, promulgated by Pope St. Paul VI The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri Address to the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum” from January 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis Also on the Forum: Starting a Mentoring Program by Joe Cardenas and Nate Gadiano Mentoring without a Program: On Teaching the Whole Person featuring Joe Cardenas

    32 min

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Welcome to HeightsCast, the official podcast of The Heights School. Every week, we feature interviews with teachers, educators, and experts in a variety of fields, both here at The Heights School and beyond our school's walls. Our conversations concern the education and formation of men fully alive in the liberal arts tradition. In other words, we talk about the education of the kind of man you’d want your daughter to marry. We hope that these conversations may be both delightful and insightful; and that through them, your vocation as educators may be ever renewed. Join us!

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