HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive

There should be no contradiction in pursuing hard sciences, humanities, and moral virtue all in one day. For upper schoolers switching classrooms every hour, or for teachers siloed in a single subject, it can be easy to mistake "education" for a series of distinct academic categories. In this rebroadcast from 2015, Upper School Head Michael Moynihan gives us a better framework. He urges us to look at how our school's different departments present a unified and infinitively connective worldview—one that invites inquisitive engagement and exercises the full scope of human reason. Chapters: 4:39 The strength of "entertainment culture" 8:16 Successful families 9:28 Assessing the educational landscape 11:32 Fragmented school subjects 14:20 Teaching persons, not subjects 17:18 Appreciating the full scope of human reason Links: Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton (see chapter 8, "The Romance of Orthodoxy") By the Communion of Persons Man Becomes the Image of God by Pope St. John Paul II The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers The Idea of a University by St. John Henry Newman Regensburg Address by Pope Benedict XVI Laudato Si by Pope Francis Also on the Forum: The Art of Teaching Sovereign Knowers by Michael Moynihan Featured Opportunities: Fall Open House at The Heights School (October 18, 2025) Fathers' Conference at The Heights School (November 1, 2025) Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

"Be perfect" (Matt. 5:48) and "anxious for nothing" (Phil 4:6). This tall order from the New Testament may put modern parents into a cold sweat. Parental perfectionism and anxiety are surely on the rise, but in his annual Headmaster's Lecture at The Heights School, Alvaro de Vicente talks us down. He shows us the compatibility and wisdom of these two Biblical encouragements by refocusing on the process of growth—moral, academic, athletic, and spiritual—over simply the apparent results. Chapters: 2:41 Introduction: being "good enough" 8:15 A new way to see perfection 10:07 Context changes our expectations 17:34 Setting reasonable expectations 24:46 Acknowledging our son's freedom 29:28 Parental anxiety: danger ÷ opportunity 36:54 Surrounded by goodness, a twitch upon the thread 40:53 Perseverance through hard times 47:42 Addressing real problems 53:15 Ultimately, in God's hands Links: Men in the Making, Alvaro de Vicente's Substack Loss of the Creature by Walker Percy Gilead by Marilynne Robinson Minority Report (2002) The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton Peace Like a River by Leif Enger Also on the Forum: Failure Is a Great Tutor—Don't Fire Him by Alvaro de Vicente Having Better Mentoring Conversations by Alvaro de Vicente Featured Opportunities: Fall Open House at The Heights School (October 18, 2025) Fathers' Conference at The Heights School (November 1, 2025) Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

The art of mentoring is not just for teachers and coaches, but also parents—who can never really be out of mentoring mode. In a recent Substack article, Alvaro de Vicente named five pitfalls for our attempts at mentoring young men. This week, he talks us through some of the takeaways, reminding us that mentoring is not a profound lecture but an ongoing conversation, and the goal is not to modify but to form. Chapters: 3:49 What mentoring is 4:35 Conversation as the basis 8:55 Parents: always in mentor mode 10:13 Presence over "meaningful content" 16:01 Weighty conversations 18:25 Daily conversations 21:24 Love unlocks a child 30:48 Urgent conversations 33:34 When to mandate 35:36 When to end the conversation 37:33 Formation is a game of inches Links: Men in the Making, Alvaro de Vicente's Substack Five Conversational Temptations Mentors and Parents Commonly Face by Alvaro de Vicente Peace Like a River by Leif Enger Only the Lover Sings by Josef Pieper Also on the Forum: Having Better Mentoring Conversations by Alvaro de Vicente Forming Others: What Mentoring Can and Can't Be featuring Colin Gleason Anthropological Foundations of Mentoring featuring Dr. Joseph Lanzilotti Mentoring without a Program: Joe Cardenas on Teaching the Whole Person featuring Joe Cardenas Featured Opportunities: Fall Open House at The Heights School (October 18, 2025) Headmaster's Lecture on Freedom in the Home at The Heights School (October 4, 2025) Fathers' Conference at The Heights School (November 1, 2025) link coming soon Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

In the broader society, mistrust increasingly defines the parent-teacher relationship. But it doesn't have to be this way. As a Heights parent and seventh grade core teacher, Kyle Blackmer shares a practical vision for sound parent-teacher relationships. It begins with understanding parents and teachers in their true, cooperative roles for a child's good. And it ends with developing real friendship between parents and teachers as they pursue this good together. Chapters: 1:29 Decline of the parent-teacher relationship 4:51 Parents' true role as primary educators 10:18 How teachers relate to parents 13:40 How parents relate to teachers 18:28 Shared understanding of the goal 20:52 School as a community 26:39 Building parent-teacher relationships Links: We Need to Talk About Parent-School Relationships by Daniel Buck Also on the Forum: Partnering with Parents: Some Implications for Parents as Primary Educators by Michael Moynihan Communicating with Parents by Kyle Blackmer The Role of Parents in the Conspiracy for the Good featuring Alvaro de Vicente Order and Surprise: Lionel Yaceczko on Beauty and the Western Tradition featuring Lionel Yaceczko Humility and Teaching: On Leading While Walking Backward by Joseph Bissex Parents as Primary Educators by Michael Moynihan Featured Opportunities: Headmaster's Lecture on Freedom in the Home at The Heights School (October 4, 2025) Fathers' Conference at The Heights School (November 1, 2025) link coming soon Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

"One of the best places to cultivate a Catholic worldview in the hearts and minds of young people … is in the backcountry," writes Fr. John Nepil in his recent release, To Heights and unto Depths. Fr. Nepil, who has led dozens of group treks through the mountains of Colorado and said Mass atop every fourteener in the state, joins us to talk about adventure and a young man's theological education. The backcountry, he says, is rich in lessons of creation, dependence, suffering, and beauty—restoring our sense of being created and loved by a self-giving God. Chapters: 5:18 What draws us to the mountains 9:04 "Nature" vs. "creation" 13:16 Fatherhood 16:00 Dependence 20:44 Cultivating a worldview 25:54 Guiding the conversation (or not) 28:13 Redemptive suffering 31:23 Starting with beauty 38:59 Physical vs. metaphysical limits 46:46 Men doing hard things together 48:29 The backstory of the book 50:39 A habit of reading Links: To Heights and unto Depths by Fr. John Nepil Rethinking Mary in the New Testament by Edward "Ted" Sri Daughter Zion: Meditations on the Church's Marian Belief by Joseph Ratzinger Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton Also on the Forum: Why We Go: Seven Benefits of the Backcountry by Elias Naegele The Way of Encounter by Joe Breslin Why We Need Exposure to Nature by Eric Heil Featured Opportunities: Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

How many times a day do I tell my son what to do next? In this rebroadcast from 2015, our Head of Middle School Andrew Reed offers his ideas on cultivating an environment at home (and in the classroom) where boys can develop their own academic will. This entails not only greater freedom but also—just as necessary—a close and reliable family bond. Mr. Reed explains how this counterintuitive pair works together to teach a boy to choose the good for himself. Chapters: 6:32 The will: a marker for success 9:02 Overmanaging: telling them what to do 10:54 Boys grow from experience and challenge 12:33 The indifferent boy 14:43 Prompt the will with a question 17:31 Create an environment of freedom 20:16 But keep a close family bond 22:33 Manage the influences 24:21 A parenting examination of conscience 27:10 Patience and optimism 29:00 The will, freedom, and good academic habits Links: Developing Academic Habits: A Guide for Parents by Andrew Reed The Key to Success? Grit, a TED Talk by Angela Lee Duckworth, May 2013 (transcript here) Also on the Forum: Academic Habits and a Student's Developing Will by Andrew Reed Featured Opportunities: Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

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)