David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

three or six—all varying degrees of
intimacy in and of themselves. With
eighteen students, I can always get to
each one of them when I need to.
Twenty-four is my second favorite
number—the extra six bodies make it
even more likely that there will be a
dissident among them, a rebel or two
to challenge the status quo. But the
trade-off with twenty-four is that it
verges on having the energetic mass
of an audience instead of a team. Add
six more of them to hit thirty bodies
and we’ve weakened the energetic
connections so far that even the most
charismatic of teachers can’t maintain
the magic all the time.