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

And what about the other direction?
Drop down six from the perfect eighteen
bodies and we have the Last Supper.
And that’s the problem. Twelve is small
enough to fit around the holiday dinner
table—too intimate for many high
schoolers to protect their autonomy on
the days they need to, and too easily
dominated by the bombast or bully,
either of whom could be the teacher
herself. By the time we shrink to six
bodies, there is no place to hide at all,
and not enough diversity in thought and
experience to add the richness that can
come from numbers.
The small class is, in other words,
potentially as difficult for a teacher to