In our school communities, we talk a great deal about moral and intellectual formation. But physical development, too, has an essential place in the whole-person, long-term vision of what our sons and students can become.

Heights Athletic Director Dan Lively reminds us that the goals of athletic training don't begin and end with high school sports. In fact, lifelong functional fitness is in service to every vocation. It ensures that we and our sons are capable of having a positive impact—on the world and in our families—for as many years as we're on this earth.

3:22 A long-term vision for your son's physical development

10:41 The goal: robust longevity

14:34 Health: more than avoiding disease

21:05 Mark Baker on functional fitness

24:14 Fitness increases one's potential for self-gift

25:58 Role of the school

31:51 Role of the family

40:09 Parents can play too

45:39 The thrill of middle school gains

47:32 Embrace your inner gym bro

52:01 The reluctant athlete

GuruAnaerobic, Mark Baker eBooks

Athlete or Academic: What's the Real Priority in Schools? on the Forum Faculty Podcast

Movement as Foundation of Fitness featuring Dan Lively

Character Formation in Elite Athletics featuring college coach Brad Soderberg

Mustard Seed Communities, donations for Jamaica hurricane relief

The Art of Teaching Boys Conference at The Heights School (January 7-9, 2026 / May 6-8, 2026)

One philosopher of our time claims that "today, the experience of beauty is impossible."

Dr. Jason Baxter, director of the Center for Beauty and Culture at Benedictine College, begs to differ. Dr. Baxter joins us on HeightsCast to unpack his latest book, Why Literature Still Matters, which looks at why such a claim might feel true in our digital age. Then, he talks us through why and how we should reclaim our experiences of beauty for the health of our soul.

00:03:34 The experience of beauty
00:08:44 Byung-Chul Han: the possibility of beauty today
00:15:41 Marc Auge: still living in the Enlightenment experiment
00:20:46 The soul is not a machine
00:24:57 Our task as parents, educators
00:35:05 Likes and emojis: the simplification of our interior life
00:49:23 A near-death experience in Sardinia
00:56:24 Beauty and mental health
00:57:40 Franny and Zooey: interiority matters
01:03:41 Recommended reading

Why Literature Still Matters by Jason Baxter

Help! Where do I go from here? Part I: Poetry by Jason Baxter

Beauty Matters, Substack for Jason Baxter

jasonmbaxter.com featuring articles and lectures

Center for Beauty and Culture at Benedictine College

Saving Beauty by Byung-Chul Han

Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity by Marc Auge

The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich

A Letter to Our Daughter by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan

"A Prayer for My Daughter" by W. B. Yeats

"Burnt Norton" from Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot

Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger

"A Hill" by Anthony Hecht

"Advice to a Prophet" by Richard Wilbur

The Loss of the Creature by Walker Percy

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Breathing Narnian Air: Loving Modernity as a Medievalist featuring Dr. Jason Baxter

Receiving Beauty: A Liberal Arts Education featuring Dr. George Harne

Order and Surprise: On Beauty and the Western Tradition featuring Dr. Lionel Yaceczko

Mustard Seed Communities

The Art of Teaching Boys Conference at The Heights School (January 7-9, 2026 / May 6-8, 2026)

The joy of "being known here" is not just for the students. When a faculty cultivates friendship, it benefits the entire school community.

Tom Cox has been a middle and upper school Latin and Greek teacher at The Heights since 2009. Tom also hosts The Forum Faculty Podcast, now in its second year, which gives a slice of teacher breakroom culture: the kinds of conversations, rapport, and friendship that are born of our shared work and life as teachers. Tom joins us today to talk about how important faculty friendship is to making a school into a community, and what schools can do to support the planned and unplanned interactions that feed friendship.

1:53 Tom Cox's history at The Heights

6:35 School as a community of friends

10:15 Using school trips for faculty bonding

14:58 Regional schools: community or society

17:01 Creating community over large distances

26:53 Building up faculty friendship

36:04 Friendship requires shared life, work

38:57 Facilitating that shared life

47:09 Planned and unplanned interactions

50:49 Real communities pass on a culture

57:26 The fruit of staying in one place

"A Faculty of Friends" from Gregory the Great Academy in Elmhurst Township, Pennsylvania

Plutarch Podcast by Tom Cox

The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis

Man and the State by Jacques Maritain

The World-Ending Fire Collection by Wendell Berry

True Friendship: Where Virtue Becomes Happiness by John Cuddeback

"Charles" by Shirley Jackson

"The Work of Local Culture" in What Are People For? by Wendell Berry

The Forum Faculty Podcast hosted by Tom Cox

Friendship and the 21st-Century Boy featuring Alvaro de Vicente

Friendship for Fathers featuring John Cuddeback

On Friendship after Senior Year featuring David Maxham

Fathers' Conference at The Heights School (November 1, 2025)

The Art of Teaching Boys Conference at The Heights School (January 7-9, 2026 / May 6-8, 2026)