Featured

Pair of black high-top sneakers with white laces on a concrete surface casting shadows.
What’s the Good of a School?
Helping your child flourish means not putting her first.
D. L. Mayfield
Essay
Painting of a peanut butter jar with a knife and some peanut butter on a slice of bread.
A Debt to Education
Student debt forms us just as radically as a university curriculum does.
John Thornton Jr.
Essay
Group of children standing closely together in a narrow hallway near a door.
Soviet Kindergarten
Kindergarten was a miniature model of real life, where days of glory and success intertwined with periods of failure and bad luck.
Eugene Vodolazkin
Personal History
Illustration of a girl with curly hair and red hat walking in a dark forest with a basket.
The World Is Your Classroom
A grandmother’s advice: Love life and love people, and the world will be your classroom.
Fida Meier
Essay
Young girl in a pink shirt playing a violin indoors with focus and concentration.
Orchestras of Change
José Abreu’s model of music instruction for the poorest children has been replicated around the world.
Essay

Insights

Illustration of a girl with curly hair and red hat walking in a dark forest with a basket.
The World Is Your Classroom
A grandmother’s advice: Love life and love people, and the world will be your classroom.
Fida Meier
Essay
Leafless branches casting shadows on snow with a bright blue sky background.
On Praying for Your Children
More is accomplished through prayer by carrying the matter quietly than by using many words.
Johann Christoph Blumhardt
Reading
Three people standing outdoors near trees and greenery, two women in patterned outfits and one man in a dark shirt.
How Far Does Forgiveness Reach?
Emmanuel and Cancilde, neighbors on opposite sides of the Rwandan genocide, tell their story.
Denise Uwimana
Reading
White dove with outstretched wings in front of a radiant orange and blue circular halo.
The Blessed Woman of Nazareth
Advent’s holiest consolation is that the angel’s annunciation met with a ready heart in Mary.
Alfred Delp
Reading
Illustration of a person bungee jumping inside an open book using a red ribbon as the cord.
The Good Reader
Reading virtuously means, first, reading closely.
Karen Swallow Prior
Pawel Kuczynski
Portfolio

Web Exclusives

Young boy in a red sweater faces away, looking at blurred lights and carousel in the background.
Me and My Drum
The story of a little drummer boy who didn’t belong.

Arts & Letters

Three book covers: 'Bread and Wine' with forest, 'The Crucified Is My Love' with cross, 'Easter Stories' with landscape.
A Trio of Lenten Readers
In preparing for Lent each year, we find ourselves turning repeatedly to a handful of proven spiritual classics.
Maureen Swinger
Editors’ Pick
Smiling elderly man with glasses and beard beside elderly woman wearing glasses and a headscarf outdoors.
Verena Arnold
Saying goodbye to our sharpest proofreader.
Maureen Swinger
Lives
Colorful abstract painting of a girl with braided hair, a blue jacket, and bright geometric shapes.
My Fearless Future
What was it like to be a girl when time was clocked by jump rope chants?
Another View
Sketch of a person playing violin with swirls and waves emitting from the instrument's bow and strings.
The Given Note
A visual interpretation of Seamus Heaney’s poem asks where music comes from.
Julian Peters
Comic
Sepia-toned sketch of an elderly man sitting on a wooden chair reading a small book.
Readers Respond: Issue 19
Letters to the editor.
Forum
Close-up of five children smiling and making faces closely together outdoors.
The Children of Pyongyang
We are dedicated to establishing the first-ever treatment center for disabled children in North Korea.
The Doers
Sunlight filters through a window onto a wooden table and chairs in a dim room.
The Habit of Lack Is Hell to Break
It rained while I was writing this / It rained, and my father died, / and it stopped, and it rained …
Christian Wiman
Poem