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)