HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive

To help our seniors synthesize the many ideas, events, and texts they've surveyed across high school—and to help them better understand their own cultural moment—Heights teachers have developed a senior core class titled "History of Western Thought." In this episode, Upper School Head Michael Moynihan and long-time teacher Austin Hatch discuss the course and its guide-text: Carl Trueman's Strange New World (2022). HOWT covers essential texts from Plato's Republic to Pope Benedict XVI's "Regensburg Address.". Its goal is not only to prepare students for college work but to prepare them to meaningfully engage with the culture they will inherit, understanding its origins and its underlying assumptions. Chapters: 00:02:31 History of Western Thought course 00:08:10 The "HOWT" syllabus 00:11:31 Strange New World, a primary source guide 00:14:13 Teens and the intellectual tradition 00:16:39 Seeing ideologies in motion 00:18:48 Pairing philosophical threads 00:27:26 Understanding our cultural moment 00:29:25 Pushing back on 'authenticity' 00:33:31 How students respond to the course 00:35:09 Thinking about friendship 00:41:04 Big ideas in a short class 00:44:32 Reading Trueman alongside your son Links: Strange New World by Carl Trueman "Canada Is Killing Itself" by Elaina Plott Calabro, The Atlantic, September 2025 Texts from the HOWT course: The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman Republic by Plato Phaedo by Plato The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle De Officiis by Cicero Moralia, vol. 1, featuring "How to Know a Flatterer from a Friend" by Plutarch Confessions by Augustine Summa theologiae by St. Thomas Aquinas Utopia by Thomas More Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes Frankenstein by Mary Shelley The Idea of a University by St. John Henry Newman Regensburg Address by Pope Benedict XVI Also on the Forum: American Restlessness featuring Dr. Benjamin Storey A Study for All Seasons: On the Western Tradition featuring Lionel Yaceczko Is The Heights a Classical School? by Michael Moynihan Featured Opportunities: Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

Properly understood, the imagination is not something you escape to; it's something you draw upon every day to make decisions, understand events, and communicate. This week on HeightsCast, Dr. Matthew Mehan explores the purposes of the imagination and the habits of wit and wisdom that help us insightfully process our world. We may think of the imagination at odds with reality. But, he says, cultivating the imagination actually makes us more capable, "wittier" thinkers about reality. Chapters: 00:03:05 Defining the imagination 00:05:31 "Good mother wit" 00:08:25 How LLMs undermine the wit 00:11:05 Beyond the "moral imagination" 00:15:33 Imagination of the Founding Fathers 00:20:03 Aesop and governing your animal spirits 00:24:28 The mistakes of Naturalism 00:27:57 18th century ABCs 00:32:13 Role models for the civic imagination 00:40:38 Who chooses what goes in 00:43:26 Reality educates us 00:46:39 Recommendations for parents 00:52:24 Metaphor control: guarding your hope 01:02:33 Humor and joy Links: mythicalmammals.com, Matthew Mehan's website "Restoring America's Founding Imagination" by Matthew Mehan Mr. Mehan's Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals by Matthew Mehan The Handsome Little Cygnet by Matthew Mehan The Plutarch Podcast by Tom Cox Illustrated Aesop's Fables by Aesop, with an introduction by G. K. Chesterton Fifty Years on the Old Frontier by James Cook Saints Series Podcast by The Merry Beggars The Boy Stories Series by Tom Longano Also on the Forum: Metaphor Control: A Modest Hope for Civilization by Matthew Mehan Shaping Your Son's Moral Imagination (article) by Alvaro de Vicente Shaping Your Son's Moral Imagination (lecture) featuring Alvaro de Vicente Seeing History: On Using Images in the History Classroom by Kyle Blackmer Featured opportunities: Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

"… the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild." G. K. Chesterton This week we feature a rebroadcast of a 2021 talk from our lower school head, Colin Gleason. Mr. Gleason addressed the topic of discipline using decades of experience in the Valley, converting the lessons he shares with his homeroom teachers into ideas for parents at home. Ultimately, his guidance is all about bringing a long-term vision and great love into our attitudes of discipline, willing the good for our boys with all earnest humility. Whether you're thinking the kitchen or the classroom, Mr. Gleason encourages us to foster a culture of respectful dominion. Chapters: 3:54 The parenting crisis 7:04 Defining discipline 9:20 Boys, immaturity 14:44 Raising them to our level 16:30 Unanxious leadership 18:53 Things Valley teachers don't say 20:47 Freedom via boundaries 24:10 Prudent corrections 27:47 Give options 28:47 Establish a culture 30:40 Rely on natural consequences 33:14 How lessons really sink in 35:07 To discipline should be to love 39:10 What Valley teachers do 41:33 You're the expert for your child Links: Wimps and Barbarians by Terrence O. Moore To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton Also on the Forum: Self-Mastery and Interior Freedom by Alvaro de Vicente Discipline in the Classroom: On the Art of Order featuring Colin Gleason Why Boys Need to Be Given Freedom by Andrew Reed Featured Opportunities: Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

In 2008, Tom Vander Woude died saving the life of his youngest son. But this radical self-gift was really the culmination of a quiet life of daily virtue with a heart of faith. Chris Vander Woude, the fifth of Tom and Mary Ellen's seven sons, now carries the story of his father's life and death across the country, as well as sharing the process towards canonization that began this year with the assignment of a postulator in Rome. Chris joins us today to speak about fatherhood and the extraordinary man who exemplified it for him. Chris invites you to reach out to him at 5thvwson@gmail.com or info@tvwguild.org. Chapters: 00:04:50 The life of Tom Vander Woude 00:07:34 His sacrificial death 00:17:17 His character 00:23:23 Physical strength: one's readiness for action 00:28:52 Faith: one's trust and mission 00:39:18 Fatherhood and Down syndrome 00:50:52 Father of seven sons: tandem work 01:00:10 Tom's discipline: priorities and good humor 01:04:39 Hosting and friend culture 01:07:44 Tom as a husband 01:13:03 Balancing family and community 01:17:22 Towards canonization 01:28:44 "Man fully alive" Links: Tom Vander Woude Guild, website A Father's Sacrifice, video interviews with the Vander Woude family The Father: 30 Meditations to Draw You into the Heart of God by Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, featuring Tom Vander Woude's story Tragedy at Rattlesnake Falls: Opus Dei Mourns the Drowning of Three of Its Members, National Catholic Register, 3 July 2025 Also on the Forum: Forming Families, Forming Saints featuring Fr. Carter Griffin To the Glory of God and the Memory of Emil Beer by Mark Grannis Featured opportunities: Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

They know we love them; but do our children sense that we like them? And how does that relate to their formation? In the intense season of togetherness that is summer break, headmaster Alvaro de Vicente recommends four practices to help us live more in the present and enjoy our children—even when the anxieties of life come knocking. Chapters: 00:02:17 Distinction between loving and liking 00:06:49 Four tools for cultivating "like": 00:08:02 1. Express triple-gratitude 00:10:45 2. Spend unnecessary time 00:15:25 3. Find the humor 00:17:15 4. Pray for the grace 00:18:38 Why liking them matters 00:22:59 Living in the present: an antidote to anxiety 00:29:12 The "four tools" for teachers 00:35:42 Whether humor belongs in bad situations 00:41:14 Don't take the bad too personally 00:46:03 Emotional stabilizers: marriage, friendship, prayer Links: I Believe in Love: A Personal Retreat Based on St. Thérèse de Lisieux by Fr. Jean C. J. D'Elbée Peace Like a River by Leif Enger The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War by Douglas Brunt Also on the Forum: Reframing Our Desire to Be Liked featuring Alvaro de Vicente Seeing Our Boys with Loving Eyes: Not Projects but Persons featuring Tom Royals Featured opportunities: Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

Months ago, Heights teacher Joe Lanzilotti took up a prodigious project: reviewing the body of popular literature on boys' education. Partway through his journey, Dr. Lanzilotti catches us up on the diversity of scientific, biological, psychological, and moral perspectives—and how they cohere into a bigger picture of boys and where their developmental needs differ from those of girls. Framing the evidence with papal guidance from the last century gives us a solid starting-point to consider the education of boys according to their nature. Chapters: 00:04:09 The timeline of research on boys 00:08:26 Why attend to the sex difference 00:10:36 Definition of a man: fatherhood, sonship 00:15:06 Sex differences manifest early 00:21:05 The secular evidence supports natural law 00:28:51 The importance of role models 00:32:10 Single-sex education 00:34:55 Athletic trials 00:36:10 Male friendship 00:42:11 The collaboration of men and women 00:50:25 Parents, teachers: be not afraid 00:59:40 Educate boys according to their nature Links: The Male Brain by Louann Brizendine Defending Boyhood by Anthony Esolen No Apologies: Why Civilization Depends on the Strength of Men by Anthony Esolen The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt The War Against Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers The Two Sexes: Growing Up Apart, Coming Together by Eleanor Maccoby Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax How to Raise a Boy by Michael Reichert, which Dr. Lanzilotti critiques "Letter to the Bishops on the Collaboration of Men and Women" by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger "Letter to Women" by Pope John Paul II Mulieris Dignitatem by Pope John Paul II The Gurian Institute, training programs on boys' and girls' academic development American Institute for Boys and Men, advocates for evidence-based policy solutions Also on the Forum: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about The Male Brain by Dr. Joseph Lanzilotti Raising the Boys: Saving the Difference by Dr. Joseph Lazilotti Featured opportunities: Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025) January Workshop at The Heights School (January 7-9, 2026) link coming soon May Workshop at The Heights School (May 6-8, 2026) link coming soon

The ever-changing tech landscape and the ever-growing research on interactive screens means that the topic must come up anew year after year. For parents trying to keep pace, Clare Morell has compiled the most up-to-date research into her recent release, The Tech Exit. Armed with the facts and interviews with dozens of Tech Exit families, she encourages parents that it's never too late to reverse course on smartphones. United with other families trying to do the same, we can replace the new "smartphone milestone" with real milestones that emphasize the goods of the real world. Chapters: 00:03:56 Getting the metaphor right 00:08:32 The myth of time limits, parental controls 00:11:24 Boys and online extortion 00:14:23 A culture inherent to smartphone use 00:17:51 A parent's willpower vs. Big Tech 00:22:30 The alternatives: feature phones, landlines 00:31:25 Not your mama's internet 00:34:43 Brain drain: new research on attention, making memories 00:39:41 How to reverse course with teens 00:43:01 The 30-day digital fast 00:47:17 A new digital paradigm: F.E.A.S.T. 00:56:13 Digital accountability in the home 01:00:30 Morell's personal tech use 01:05:22 The father's role 01:09:56 Encouragement to start Links: The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones by Clare Morell The Tech Exit Supplementary Resources by Clare Morell Reset Your Child's Brain by Victoria Dunckley Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt 'Sextortion' Scams Involving Apple Messages Ended in Tragedy for These Boys, 7 June 2025, WSJ How Broken Are Apple's Parental Controls? It Took 3 Years to Fix an X-Rated Loophole, 5 June 2024, WSJ Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One's Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity, April 2017, UChicago Press Also on the Forum: Dumb Phones, Feature Phones, and the New Tech Landscape featuring Alvaro de Vicente Technology in the Home: Perspective, Principles, and Practices by Michael Moynihan Smart Phones: A New Mythos by George Martin On Self-Mastery, Technology, and Parental Discernment featuring Alvaro de Vicente Smart Phones: Why Wait When He's "The Only One" featuring Joe Cardenas Featured opportunities: Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

In 1858, six-year-old Edgardo Mortara is forcibly removed from his family's home in accordance with civil and canon law. His Jewish family's legal appeal invokes, to great effect, the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. Dr. Matthew Tapie and former Heights teacher Dr. Lionel Yaceczko join us this week to pull apart this difficult case with the assistance of St. Thomas, who gives a theological basis for parental authority in accordance with natural law—a useful perspective for our culture today. Chapters: 00:04:06 The Mortara Case (1858) 00:11:12 The personality of an original document 00:15:23 The Mortaras' appeal to Thomas Aquinas 00:17:13 Handling difficult history 00:21:36 Thomas Aquinas: natural law and parental duties 00:33:39 Parallel roles of educator, translator 00:39:07 Gradual handoff of parental authority to the child 00:46:06 Why the Mortara Case resurfaces today Links: The Mortara Case and Thomas Aquinas's Defense of Jewish Parental Authority by Dr. Matthew Tapie Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues by Alasdair MacIntyre Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara movie (2023) Also on the Forum: The Importance of Ugly History by Mark Grannis Featured opportunities: Teaching Essentials Workshop at The Heights School (June 16-20, 2025) Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

In a world competing for our attention, our guest this week admits: "It's probably harder to read novels now than it ever was." But their value cannot be overstated. The novel's unique humanity, its careful and open treatment of the human experience, helps us to develop a sympathetic imagination, tuning our hearts and minds in a way that non-fiction argument simply cannot. Christopher Scalia, author of 13 Novels Conservatives Will Love (but Probably Haven't Read), makes the case that it is a distinctly conservative interest to explore the Western tradition through fiction. Recommendations in hand, he invites adults to refresh their reading list with novels—from the very inception of the form up to the present. Chapters: 1:47 The great book rut 4:11 Novels: the medium of recent Western tradition 5:30 The 18th-century bildungsroman 9:47 "Conservative" themes 16:18 The American dream in My Ántonia 22:39 Miraculous realism in Peace Like a River 29:02 Acknowledging the existence of evil 31:44 Wonder and encounter over strict interpretation 37:03 Revisiting works from your school years 38:47 Why narrative works 42:01 Books that nearly made the cut Links: 13 Novels Conservatives Will Love (but Probably Haven't Read) by Christopher Scalia Christopher J. Scalia at American Enterprise Institute The History of Rasselas by Samuel Johnson (1759) Evelina by Frances Burney (1778) Waverley by Sir Walter Scott (1814) The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1852) Daniel Deronda by George Eliot (1876) My Ántonia by Willa Cather (1918) Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937) The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark (1963) The Children of Men by P. D. James (1992) Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (2001) Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (2004) The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006) How I Won a Nobel Prize: A Novel by Julius Taranto (2023) Also on the Forum: Heights Forum Book Reviews On Reading Literature by Joseph Bissex Some Summer Reading Recommendations for Teachers by Tom Cox Modern Literature: On Curating the Contemporary featuring Mike Ortiz Guiding Our Boys through Modern Literature featuring Joe Breslin and Lionel Yaceczko Featured opportunities: Teaching Essentials Workshop at The Heights School (June 16-20, 2025) Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

As we conclude the school year, parents are turning their sights to summer and the much-anticipated family vacation. We bear such hope for rest and connection on these trips—but we can too easily end up chasing a bucket-list. Head of Mentoring Joe Cardenas offers a timely intervention for our vacation planning, reminding us to plan for people before places. Bringing his own family traditions and Crescite Week experiences to the question, he offers a new set of questions to help us plan and enjoy a truly transformative, restorative vacation for all members of the family. Chapters: 00:02:57 The anti-bucket list approach 00:08:23 "You need a change of soul" 00:10:11 Rest 00:13:46 Linger at table 00:15:18 Soak in a limited itinerary 00:17:10 Build in time for reflection 00:19:53 Better vacation planning questions 00:23:27 See it as a pilgrimage 00:28:33 Plan for people before places 00:34:55 Naturally layer in meaning, traditions 00:42:08 Share the highs and lows 00:45:12 The key: to plan ahead of time Also on the Forum: Three Components of a "Great" Summer featuring Colin Gleason Taking Advantage of Summer (for the Non-Working Boy) by Elias Naegele A Summer Fully Alive by Nate Gadiano Mentoring Sons to a Successful Summer featuring Joe Cardenas Four Ways to Have an Incredible Summer by Tom Steenson Featured opportunities: Teaching Essentials Workshop at The Heights School (June 16-20, 2025) Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)