The photo above shows Lucy's tool box with its first coat of Danish oil. The step-by-step photos are all complete. Next come "beauty shots" for the opening page of the article. When I get the go-ahead from an editor, I begin to write and make sketches for the illustrator to work from.

Have you ever had the experience of being at the back of the room, raising your hand knowing that you have the right answer, but knowing as well that the teacher will ignore you as long as possible in the hopes that one of her pets will answer first? That's kind of what it is like being at the cutting edge of education. The real nitty-gritty is taking place in public schools where there are way too many students for the number of teachers, teachers are deprived of their creative turf by testing and "accountability", and few communities have either the will or the resources necessary to make changes. Administrators keep hoping some high tech, low cost solution will appear, but that waving hand at the back of the room, waves for the engagement in learning of all the other hands in the room.

It is expensive to engage the hands and to provide hands-on education for our children. It is also expensive and wasteful of the lives of our children to keep the hands idle. Perhaps that is the true meaning of the old saying: "Idle hands are the devil's workshop." So what if we put an end to our engagements in war and devoted those vast resources in the American classrooms? I know it won't happen yet, but when people get a chance to look up from their depressing educational circumstances, there is a small school in Arkansas that could serve as a model for change.