HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive

"Offer it up!" Do we receive that invitation with a wince or a nod? Heights Assistant Headmaster Tom Royals invites us to examine our approach to Lent and "offering it up"—with an emphasis on offering. Mr. Royals reflects on the "happy obligation" that is the habit of sacrifice, and he considers the liturgical seasons of Lent, Passiontide, Eastertide, and ordinary time as gifts from the Church. Chapters: 4:21 "Offer it up" 8:37 Look to the cross 10:59 Offering it up as a pattern and practice 12:47 Keeping the Lord company 16:22 Our reactions to setbacks 20:57 History of Lent: an ecclesial framework 23:22 Our Lent so far 25:44 Lent in the family culture 28:24 Easter: the feast of feasts 32:02 These next ten days Links: Holy Rosary (with images) by Josemaria Escriva Featured opportunities: Parents Conference: Fostering Our Sons' Faith at The Heights School (April 12, 2025) Teaching Essentials Workshop at The Heights School (June 16-20, 2025) Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025) Also on the Forum: Learn to Turn featuring Tom Royals

As a Valley veteran, Tom Steenson has seen patterns emerge from his two decades of parent-teacher conferences. He invites us to sit down for a not-so-hypothetical conference featuring the recurring advice he offers to the parents of his lower school students. In short, Mr. Steenson hopes to encourage parents in their parental authority and to help them identify (or sometimes even invent) opportunities for growth in their young men. Chapters: 3:25 Encourage parental instincts 7:03 Trust in the long game 9:02 "Better late than early"TM 11:38 Exercise his accountability 20:05 Let him help others 22:48 Don't eliminate friction 24:05 Beware the schedule 26:36 Help him want to read Featured opportunities: Parents Conference: Fostering Our Sons' Faith at The Heights School (April 12, 2025) Teaching Essentials Workshop at The Heights School (June 16-20, 2025) Also on the Forum: A Guide to Parent-Teacher Conferences by Kyle Blackmer Partnering with Parents by Michael Moynihan Communicating with Parents by Kyle Blackmer Dumb Phones, Feature Phones, and the New Tech Landscape featuring Alvaro de Vicente

"Are you a classical school?" It's a question many parents and educators will have to answer at some point. St. Martin's Academy in Fort Scott, Kansas, likes to say they're not exactly classical—more like medieval. At St. Martin's, a boys' boarding school and working farm for grades 9-12, Adam Taylor and a team of educators seek to nurture authentic masculinity, awaken wonder, and heal the imagination. This week on HeightsCast, Mr. Taylor talks with us about the vision of St. Martin's, and gives us ideas we can take into our own understanding of boys' education. Chapters: 3:35 The medieval model 7:12 The path to "Dean of Magistri" 14:38 Nurturing authentic masculinity 19:14 Healing the imagination 25:00 Boys need reality and heroes 33:49 Soulcraft: the role of work at St. Martin's 36:54 Forms of manly friendship 40:57 Time management for teachers 45:35 Recommended reading Links: St. Martin's Academy in Fort Scott, Kansas "The Necessity of Chivalry" by C. S. Lewis The Tuft of Flowers by Robert Frost John Senior and the Restoration of Realism by Fr. Francis Bethel Poetic Knowledge: The Recovery of Education by James S. Taylor Beauty for Truth's Sake: On the Re-enchantment of Education by Stratford Caldecott Beauty in the Word: Rethinking the Foundations of Education by Stratford Caledcott Featured opportunities: Parents Conference: Fostering Our Sons' Faith at The Heights School (April 12, 2025) Teaching Essentials Workshop at The Heights School (June 16-20, 2025) Also on the Forum: Breathing Narnian Air: Loving Modernity as a Medievalist featuring Jason Baxter Shaping Your Son's Moral Imagination featuring Alvaro de Vicente On Moral Imagination, Part I featuring Alvaro de Vicente

Pope St. John Paul II outlined the four pillars of formation for seminarians back in 1992 with his apostolic exhortation Pastores dabo vobis. For years, Fr. Carter Griffin has used this framework to walk with seminarians through a program of human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral formation at St. John Paul II Seminary in Washington, DC. With his recent book, Forming Families, Forming Saints, Fr. Griffin brings that rich framework into the context of parenting. In this episode, he provides parents with an overview of the four pillars of formation, and offers encouragement and practical wisdom about what it means for the family to be a "domestic church." Chapters: 5:43 Family: the domestic church 8:38 Similarities to seminary formation 10:45 Not just self-optimization 15:03 The four pillars of formation 18:30 Sincerity: the truth is never a problem 25:50 Parental expectations 30:29 A childlike relationship with God 33:48 What faith is 37:41 Introducing our children to prayer 43:42 Struggles with prayer 46:41 An apostolic approach for families 48:34 Comfortable with being different 52:52 Awareness of vocations: 11 and 11th 56:31 An outlook of hope Links: Forming Families, Forming Saints by Fr. Carter Griffin Optimal Work Program by Dr. Kevin Majeres Featured opportunities: Parents Conference at The Heights School (April 12, 2025) Teaching Essentials Workshop at The Heights School (June 16-20, 2025) Also on the Forum: Fostering Vocations in a Digital Age featuring Fr. Carter Griffin Magnanimity and the Great-Souled Man featuring Fr. Carter Griffin

A great learning experience comes at the material using different practices—listening, reading, memorizing, interrogating, doing, speaking, and/or writing about the idea until it crystallizes in the student's mind. And a great teacher facilitates those practices in his class plan. For his talk at the 2024 Forum Teaching Conference, upper school teacher Austin Hatch borrowed the "three modes of teaching" proposed by author and educator Mortimer Adler. These are: didactic instruction, supervised practice, and active participation. Mr. Hatch explains why they are each needed in good proportion, and what each can look like in the classroom. Chapters: 00:04:25 The beginning and end is friendship 00:09:57 Didactic instruction: be brief and clear 00:12:23 Supervised practice: make the time 00:20:54 Active participation: host a seminar or performance 00:31:27 Beholding a man in performance 00:33:21 Q1: preparing students for a seminar 00:35:07 Q2: escaping the grade game Links: Paideia Program: An Educational Syllabus by Mortimer Adler De Amicitia (On Friendship) by Cicero Featured opportunities: Teaching Essentials Workshop at The Heights School (June 16-20, 2025)

Mr. Tom Cox's approach to telling great stories in the classroom starts with a self-limiting 3×5 notecard. The challenge when telling any story from history is that all such stories run together, are infinitely entangled, and lack the defined clarity of exposition, crisis, climax, and denouement. Mr. Cox provides a practical framework and examples for "putting flesh on dry bones" in an effective, compelling way that students will remember. This talk was delivered at the Forum Teaching Conference in the fall of 2024. Featured opportunities: Teaching Essentials Workshop at The Heights School (June 16-20, 2025) Also on the Forum: A Better Approach to History featuring Tom Cox and Bill Dardis Keeping the Story in History by Mark Grannis 9/22 Seeing History: On Using Images in the History Classroom by Kyle Blackmer 2/22History the Way It Was by Bill Dardis

If we've decided against smart phones for our kids, can dumb phones come to the rescue? New options for families have hit the tech market, offering few or select features, and giving parents new things to consider when it comes to kids and phones in 2025. Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente offers a framework for thinking about smart phones, dumb phones, and feature phones in a culture still weighed down by anxiety and distraction. Chapters: 4:04 Deciding when 5:17 Phones as tools 10:05 The dumb phone: what problem is it solving? 16:11 The feature phone: constant connection 17:30 Healthy friendship 22:03 An age of distraction, even offline 23:44 The need for silence 26:29 School policies 27:14 Family policies Links: School Phone Bans Alone Do Not Improve Grades or Wellbeing, The Guardian, February 5, 2025 Apple Just Reinvented Its Biggest App, The Atlantic, September 14, 2016 The Anxious Generation: The Great Rewiring of Childhood by Jonathan Haidt Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation by Josef Pieper Featured opportunities: Parents' Conference: Passing the Faith On to the Next Generation at The Heights School (April 12, 2025) link coming soon Also on the Forum: Technology in the Home: Perspective, Principles, and Practices by Michael Moynihan Forming iGen: On the Forces that Shaped Them featuring Alvaro de Vicente When Is Your Son Ready for a Smart Phone? featuring Alvaro de Vicente Smart Phones: Why Wait When He's "the Only One" featuring Joe Cardenas On Freedom and Phones featuring Alvaro de Vicente Reconsidering Electronics under the Tree featuring Alvaro de Vicente

"It is an atmosphere we breathe in, rather than an argument we consider." Thus wrote T. S. Eliot about the very idea of happiness Americans have adopted for their own. When raising sons in modern America, we should understand what cultural air they—and we—are breathing. Is that "pursuit of happiness" keeping our hearts and minds restless? In their book, Why We Are Restless, Dr. Benjamin Storey and his wife Dr. Jenna Silber Storey explore the inheritance of American-style happiness: where did it come from? Who has wrestled with it before? And how should we really engage with it? Ben Storey sits down with us to discuss this week on HeightsCast. Chapters: 00:08:44 Montaigne's recipe for happiness 00:15:16 "Immanent contentment": now is enough 00:17:19 Pascal's reach for God 00:20:11 Rousseau's earthly transcendence 00:29:09 The American Dream 00:33:45 Democracy and restlessness 00:39:38 The highs and lows of infinite possibility 00:45:02 Advice for high school seniors 00:49:30 Advice for parents Links: Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment by Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey Also on the Forum: ChatGPT Holds These Truths to Be Self-Evident by Mark Grannis The Importance of History, Part I featuring Dr. Matthew Spalding

At our 2024 Teaching Conference, Dr. John Cuddeback of Christendom College unpacked what boys need from their fathers and teachers in order to grow into the men they truly desire to be. And what boys desire, he argues, comes from their God-given nature: one that resonates with fatherhood, moral character, and the ability to speak truth. Chapters: 6:21 Today's rejection of masculinity 10:11 Education: formation of right appetites 15:33 What they enjoy and what pains them 18:52 What boys should desire 21:26 To be fathers 29:15 To be men of character 31:33 To articulate the truth 33:32 How we educate: by example 36:16 By curating influences 37:57 By great art 42:49 By direct articulation, in friendship Links: LifeCraft, John Cuddeback's website featuring free courses, videos, and articles True Friendship: Where Virtue Becomes Happiness by John Cuddeback The Intentional Household Podcast hosted by John and Sofia Cuddeback Also on the Forum: Made in the Image and Likeness: On Man and Masculinity featuring Bishop Erik Varden Friendship for Fathers featuring John Cuddeback The Man Fully Alive: On Our Vision featuring Alvaro de Vicente

Colin Gleason, Head of the Heights Lower School and soccer coach, discusses the art of listening in parenting and education. He emphasizes that effective communication fosters relationships rather than just delivering information. Gleason warns against over-supervision which stifles genuine expression in boys. He shares strategies for nurturing emotional growth and highlights the importance of meaningful conversations. The discussion encourages parents to create safe spaces for their sons to express themselves freely and build trust.