HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive

"… 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."

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.

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

Wimps and Barbarians by Terrence O. Moore

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton

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

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 [email protected] or [email protected].

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"

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

Forming Families, Forming Saints featuring Fr. Carter Griffin

To the Glory of God and the Memory of Emil Beer by Mark Grannis

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.

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

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

Reframing Our Desire to Be Liked featuring Alvaro de Vicente

Seeing Our Boys with Loving Eyes: Not Projects but Persons featuring Tom Royals

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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)

The Importance of Ugly History by Mark Grannis

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.

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

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)

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

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.

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

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

Teaching Essentials Workshop at The Heights School (June 16-20, 2025)

Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

As more families scrutinize their post-high school options for virtue and value, the field has perhaps never been wider. Choosing a path carefully, with the right balance of priorities, should be the goal for every high school graduate.

Before serving as our headmaster, Mr. Alvaro de Vicente was the Heights college counselor. Over the last few decades, he's witnessed an exciting shift in the way students and their parents can evaluate, prioritize, and choose a path after graduation that serves the whole person well. And while colleges are responding more and more to these good demands, Mr. de Vicente also explores how high schools and employers could keep pace with the changes.

2:32 Am I on the education treadmill?

4:16 Purposes of college: personal growth, financial growth

8:32 Keeping the two purposes in proper proportion

12:20 The wider field of alternatives

15:42 How high schools must respond

19:35 Peer groups on the alternative path

24:22 If virtue and value aren't in balance

27:33 The future graduate's options

29:54 The future of hiring

A Short Guide to the Purposeful College Decision by Alvaro de Vicente 4/25

Advice for the College Launch featuring Alvaro de Vicente 8/24

Considerations for College-Bound Students featuring Dr. Peter Kilpatrick 5/24

The College Experience featuring Dr. Jonathan Sanford

Rethinking College: Why Go? How? When? featuring Arthur Brooks 7/2021

Teaching Essentials Workshop at The Heights School (June 16-20, 2025)

Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)

Human reason: what is it? How does it cooperate with faith and the will? How can we distinguish between authentic reason and its counterfeits—particularly in an age of relativism, pluralism, scientism, and artificial intelligence?

Here to unpack a heavy topic is Fr. Gregory Pine, a Dominican friar, instructor at Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC. You may recognize his voice as a frequent contributor to podcasts like Godsplaining and Pints with Aquinas. Following a talk with our juniors, Fr. Pine graciously joined us in the studio to offer a wealth of ideas on this natural capacity and inclination to understand God's world.

00:05:19 Defining human reason 00:08:23 Modern preference for practical reason 00:12:17 Modern preference for relativism 00:17:18 Faith, reason, and the will assist each other 00:24:05 Teaching apologetics today 00:28:26 Finding truth in a pluralist world 00:34:59 AI: a counterfeit of intellect 00:41:30 AI: an anthropology 00:44:36 Closing thoughts from Arthur Brooks, Thomas Aquinas, and Aristotle

Prudence: Choose Confidently, Live Boldly by Fr. Gregory Pine

The Dominican House of Studies, home of the Pontifical Faculty and The Thomistic Institute

Godsplaining Podcast hosted by the Dominican friars of the Dominican House of Studies

Beauty for Truth's Sake by Stratford Caldecott

"Why You Should Go with Your Gut" by Arthur Brooks

Teaching Essentials Workshop at The Heights School (June 16-20, 2025)

Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)