Publications and Other Musings

Substack

Subscribe to my new (free!) Substack, Wide-Open Horizons, because I’m pretty sure 2025 2026 is going to be the year I finally get a newsletter off the ground.

Now onto things I’ve actually written…

Publication Archives

I write for Christianity Today most frequently, but occasionally for other outlets as well, including the New York Times and The Atlantic and The Free Press.

Immigration Stories

Immigration is a topic I think is overly simplified at almost every turn, with real people turned into political pawns by both the left and the right. Here are some of my stories that I hope “complicate the narrative,” whatever your narrative might be… one thing is for sure: there are no easy answers to be found here, but I’ve done my best to be honest… please read, share, and above all, don’t settle for simple answers to complicated problems. To me, this is some of my most meaningful writing work.

Education Series

I’m writing an education series for Christianity Today, exploring nationwide challenges and trends that affect all of us through the lens of what I see happening in my own community, Midland, Texas. I’ll add links here as I complete pieces; but I invite you to join the conversation. Write to me at education@christianitytoday.com and share what you see in your communities, both glimmers of hope and causes for concern. 

  • Intro: Are the Public Schools Falling Apart?
    “Last month, on opening weekend at a new Bass Pro Shops store about 15 minutes from my home, a group of men started fighting, reportedly because one of them had taken too long in the bathroom. Viral videos that spread in the aftermath show at least five or six men throwing punches and pushing each other down underneath the mounted heads of bison and bears and other wild beasts.” Keep Reading
  • EdTech: The School Tech Situation is Worse Than You Think
    “When my youngest was in early elementary and just learning to read, she’d rarely come home with books. Instead, I’d find her clicking randomly on words in a reading practice game. Once, I asked what she was doing. “Oh,” she said, “after you click the wrong word three times, it tells you the answer and then lets you play the game!” Keep Reading (Part 1 of 3)
  • EdTech: Death By a Thousand Error Messages
    “According to some older students I know, coolmathgames.com easily sneaks past the program though it’s more arcade than algebra. Meanwhile, these students tell me, GoGuardian blocks TED Talks they’ve been assigned to watch for English class (flagged: possible entertainment) and articles their health teacher assigned them to read (flagged: sensitive content). As one student told me, and demonstrated with a screen recording, “They can’t seem to block slime videos, but they block videos about trade relations with China.” Keep Reading (Part 2 of 3)
  • EdTech: Turn Toward Each Other and Away From the Screen
    “We implemented tech-forward education with little thought for the consequences, dreaming about what could be possible instead of carefully discerning what would be wise. Now we solve each tech problem with a new tech solution, layering program on program and screen on screen and disregarding how poorly many of these solutions play out in real life, at real schools, for real children.” Keep Reading (Part 3 of 3)
  • Teaching Math in America: I’m Not Being Disrespectful, Mama. I Just Don’t Understand.’
    “In eighth grade, she learned, her daughter couldn’t read an analog clock. She didn’t understand basic fractions or how to turn them into percentages. She didn’t know her multiplication tables. Middle school math was getting more difficult, but she didn’t have the foundational skills necessary to do harder computations. Her struggles would only get worse.” Keep Reading (Part 1 of 3)
  • Teaching Math in America: The Many Factors of America’s Math Problem
    “Classroom time is increasingly given over to complex discussions of math concepts, while fundamental math fluency is neglected. What good is it to understand triangle congruence defined by rotations, reflections, and translations when you can’t multiply 12 times 12 in your head?” Keep Reading (Part 2 of 3)
  • Teaching Math in America: First, Honesty. Then, Multiplication Tables.
    “In many ways, what happened with math instruction in the United States mirrors better-known problems with how our children have been taught to read…We chose to believe that exposing kids to good books would be enough to teach them to read and to love reading. It didn’t work.” Keep Reading (Part 3 of 3)

Other Work

Here are some of my other personal favorites essays and reported pieces through the years:

And finally an index of pretty much all my other work that only I would ever find useful…