ARTLESS

EVERY SPRING, Sally Ritzdorf, a second-and third-grade teacher at Howells Community Catholic School in Howells, Nebraska, loads 25 students onto a school bus bound for Omaha. It’s a 90-minute ride, so the kids pass many miles ignoring the John Deere tractors pulling planters across freshly tilled fields in favor of watching videos on their phones or playing on their handheld game systems. But when they reach the edge of the city, the devices get put away, and the students grow wide-eyed. “If you could hear them when they’re just riding on the bus,” Ritzdorf says with a laugh. “Oohing and ahhing at the traffic and the large buildings.” For some