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

what you need is to have people around
you asking the same questions, wrestling
with the same issues, and worrying
about the same things as you are, so that
you feel a little less isolated and a little
more normal.
This is the problem with really small
classes, Levin argues. When there are
too few students in a room, the chances
that children are surrounded by a critical
mass of other people like them start to
get really low. Taken too far, Levin
says, class-size reduction “steals away
the peers that struggling students learn
from.”
Can you see why Teresa DeBrito was
so worried about Shepaug Valley? She
is the principal of a middle school,