life. faithful.

 I'm revisiting something I haven't written about in a while--education. I've been involved in education in one way or another throughout my entire life. My dad was a teacher and coach when I was born, I was in college for what seemed like an eternity (it encompassed my years from 2002 until 2015, with a small break when Nathan and I moved to Oregon for his time in the Coast Guard), I spent a few years in high school classrooms, and I've worked in higher education since 2019. Recently, UCSD released the results of a study on their math remediation course. Besides a massive increase in the number of students required to take remedial math, their study showed that a majority of students in that course couldn't solve middle school math problems. While so much of the world was shocked by the results, I just nodded...because I (and probably anyone teaching math or physics) have known that was true for years. To be honest, the decline started a long time ago. I would argu...

About a month ago, I had the opportunity to spend a weekend at Higher Ground. It's a weekend retreat designed to help those who attend draw closer to God. Though I'm exponentially more comfortable putting words on paper than speaking them out loud, I was tasked with the last talk of the weekend called, "Days to Come." Though it is given by a different person each weekend, the theme of the talk stays the same. After a weekend spent getting closer to God, that last talk is meant to be both an encouragement and a challenge. Though it's been changed a bit, I would like to share that talk with you (and you have the benefit of reading it yourself instead of listening to me, so there's that). *** When’s the last time you fixed a hole in a sock—or even just fixed a button on a shirt—instead of throwing it away? Or you knock a mug off the counter, maybe even a favorite, and just grumble as you pick up the pieces and toss them in the trash, because you know you could ne...