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

And that’s the real issue—what can be
done to enliven, enrich, and engage the
child, so they aren’t just being passive.”
Did she want twenty-nine children in
every classroom at Shepaug? Of course
not. DeBrito knew that she was a bit
unusual and that the ideal number for
most teachers was lower than that. Her
point was simply that on the question of
class size, we have become obsessed
with what is good about small
classrooms and oblivious of what can
also be good about large classes. It is a
strange thing, isn’t it, to have an
educational philosophy that thinks of the
other students in the classroom with your
child as competitors for the attention of
the teacher and not allies in the