Michael Moynihan and Austin Hatch on Teaching the History of our Strange New World

To help our seniors synthesize the many ideas, events, and texts they've surveyed across high school—and to help them better understand their own cultural moment—Heights teachers have developed a senior core class titled "History of Western Thought." In this episode, Upper School Head Michael Moynihan and long-time teacher Austin Hatch discuss the course and its guide-text: Carl Trueman's Strange New World (2022). HOWT covers essential texts from Plato's Republic to Pope Benedict XVI's "Regensburg Address.". Its goal is not only to prepare students for college work but to prepare them to meaningfully engage with the culture they will inherit, understanding its origins and its underlying assumptions. Chapters: 00:02:31 History of Western Thought course 00:08:10 The "HOWT" syllabus 00:11:31 Strange New World, a primary source guide 00:14:13 Teens and the intellectual tradition 00:16:39 Seeing ideologies in motion 00:18:48 Pairing philosophical threads 00:27:26 Understanding our cultural moment 00:29:25 Pushing back on 'authenticity' 00:33:31 How students respond to the course 00:35:09 Thinking about friendship 00:41:04 Big ideas in a short class 00:44:32 Reading Trueman alongside your son Links: Strange New World by Carl Trueman "Canada Is Killing Itself" by Elaina Plott Calabro, The Atlantic, September 2025 Texts from the HOWT course: The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman Republic by Plato Phaedo by Plato The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle De Officiis by Cicero Moralia, vol. 1, featuring "How to Know a Flatterer from a Friend" by Plutarch Confessions by Augustine Summa theologiae by St. Thomas Aquinas Utopia by Thomas More Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes Frankenstein by Mary Shelley The Idea of a University by St. John Henry Newman Regensburg Address by Pope Benedict XVI Also on the Forum: American Restlessness featuring Dr. Benjamin Storey A Study for All Seasons: On the Western Tradition featuring Lionel Yaceczko Is The Heights a Classical School? by Michael Moynihan Featured Opportunities: Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)