grasping the full attention of the whole child.

Standardized tests usually offer  a choice of three or four answers to each question. There will be one correct answer, and two or more that are deliberately wrong. The reason why some students do well on standardized tests (even when they've not studied the material) may be that they've been deeply enough engaged in the real world and in real life to recognize a dumb answer when they see it.

That may explain why so many students do best with learning when the hands are engaged in it. The hands have a way of discerning that which is real and true from that which was contrived for educational effect.

That may also explain why students studying science hands-on may have a leg up over those who learn science by lecture, reading and discussion alone. The use of the hands has a very particular way of grasping the full attention of the whole child.

It is worth reading philosopher Karl Popper in this regard, as I described in an earlier post:  https://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com/2009/11/to-what-may-we-aspire.html

Trump's secretary of Education, Betsy Devos is pushing online charter schools, as being the solution for rural kids, even through they have an abysmal success rate. http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/08/education-betsy-devos-online-charter-schools-poor-results-243556/ In Pennsylvania, an early adopter of virtual charter high schools, "Not one virtual charter school meets the state’s “passing” benchmark." Virtual and virtuous do not mean the same thing.

Yesterday in wood shop at the Clear Spring School, I intended that my students make wooden puppets. One girl insisted on making a toy cat instead. All of the design of it came from her ideas. All of the work on it was her own with the exception of drilling a hole for the tail to fit. In addition to the cat, she made the cat's playroom also, including a cat bowl.

Make, fix, create, and extend the understanding that we all learn best lifewise.