HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive

Hillsdale College Dr. Matt Spalding continues his conversation with us about American History, and the theory of education in 20th century America.

If you haven't listened to Part I of the episode, listen here.

• 3:28: Schools are trying to do too much in their study of History.
  • APs and other similar courses and curricula force us to cover too much ground in a superficial way.
  • The most important task for parents and teachers is to give students an imagination. Otherwise, history becomes flat and dry.
  • We should be more simple in our approach; students can find data on their own with ease if they have basic skills.
  • We have to break through the idea that there are no absolute truths.
• 8:28: American education shifted in the Progressive Era due to the influence of, among others, John Dewey.
  • Classical and Medieval thought had a shared understanding of reality, which is why Shakespeare, Aristotle and Aquinas could all talk about the same things.
  • In the modern world, there is a shift beginning with Machiavelli, and running through Hegel.
  • This though enters the American context through the Progressive Era. There were two key assumptions to this line of thinking. (1) There are no permanent things, and everything is relative; thus the pursuit of truth and knowledge makes no sense. (2) All things change with time; they are historical. Past thinkers, including the founders, did not have a historical sense; all things are relative to their time.
  • This yields an education system that is not about transferring knowledge, but about discovering ourselves through a deconstructive process. This is a departure from the world of Churchill, the Founders, the Classical and Ancient worlds, in which education served the process of "liberating" the mind to know these timeless truths.
  • Progressive history is summed up in quote by Carl Becker, "Whether the Declaration of Independence is true is a meaningless question." To the contrary, that is the question. It was what Washington and Lincoln grappled with, as do we today.
• 17:19: What are colleges looking for in a high school graduate?
  • Student who will flourish in college is the one who can do the basic human things as the "rational animal." The great gift is the gift of speech--articulating, communicating, reading, being able to discuss other things that others have communicated.
  • Students must have a basic framework of history, along with the main aspects of character and human nature.
  • This student will flourish if the objective of college is not necessarily a professional degree. To the contrary, college should be a time when you continue your thinking, with other people learning to think, guided by someone with years of experience guiding, such that one liberates his mind using the wisdom of the past. College is an organized experiment in thinking well about the true things.
  • A young man's capacity to flourish and succeed is seen, more than anywhere else, in his character.
  • High school should provide a good education: knowledge, yes, but also habits of thinking and doing that are rooted in more than mere technical knowledge.

Dr. Spalding's most recent book is We Still Hold These Truths.

Matt Spalding discusses the importance of studying history, and the problems with the contemporary approach.

Dr. Matthew Mehan unpacks the liberal arts. We can throw the term around to describe our school, but do we really understand what we mean? Is it more than a list of good books? Dr. Mehan explores what it means to be a student of the "arts of liberty"–a life long pursuit. For all of us.

Dan Lively joins us for a podcast on Systems for Athletic Success.

Why Sytems and not Goals?

Scott Adams, "How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big."

Washington Post Article on GW's Nick Griffin.

Systems for Athletic Success

MobilityWod

Systems for Commitment and Communication

Do sports always build character?

• Cal Newport on APs, Worklife Balance, and How to be a High School Superstar (https://heightsforum.org/podcast/forming-deep-workers-part-ii/)
• Joe Cardenas and Gerard Babendreier on the Strategic Enterprise of Study (https://heightsforum.org/podcast/the-strategic-enterprise-of-upper-school-study-a-k-a-homework/)

This week we re-listen to an interview with Eric Heil on the importance of Green Time. Through his experience teaching 3rd graders, Eric demonstrates the benefits that come with exposure to nature.

Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente discusses things that we can do to help our sons "walk with kings, but keep the common touch" (Kipling) in this age of affluence. Listen to part 1 to hear him discuss the challenges; part 2 presents positive points for us to consider as we navigate the current era.

This podcast features the first half of a lecture delivered by our headmaster on the topic of Raising Boys in an Age of Affluence. We live in one of the wealthiest cities, in the wealthiest country, in the wealthiest era in the history of the world. In general, there's no place we'd rather be and we are blessed. There are however, certain predispositions that societal affluence can engender in our students and sons. There are also many things that we, as parents and teachers, can do to cultivate our sons into tough, mindful, devoted men. Tune into HeightsCast next week for part II of the lecture.

The Heights requires its students to study Latin. Why? Is it from a love of the old? Are we simply fascinated by antiquity? To the contrary, there are excellent practical and existential reasons for classical studies. The benefits we seek in language study generally are found to be more powerful within the particular study of Latin. Moreover, speaking the language of the ancients allows us to communicate with them. This bears fruit in our capacity to know the truth, and our ability to serve the polity through well-informed and practical citizenship. Listen in to hear Mr. Myers and Dr. Yaceczko discuss why your sons will spend at least three of their years here learning a language that can help us be fully alive.

Today on HeightsCast, Joe Cardenas, Head of Mentoring at The Heights, proposes 5 purposes of study. Our boys should always have a "why" in mind before they roll up their sleeves and dive into their study. But are grades enough? Not really--at least they shouldn't be. Joe argues that there is a deeper purpose to our deep study.