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

and altogether doing whatever she could
to avoid her teacher. “But one of the
things we find is that this sort of thing is
more often an engagement problem than
a behavioral problem. If the teacher is
actually doing something interesting,
these kids are quite capable of being
engaged. Instead of responding in a ‘let
me control your behavior’ way, the
teacher needs to think, ‘How can I do
something interesting that will prevent
you from misbehaving in the first
place?’”
The next video Pianta and Hamre
played was of a third-grade teacher
giving homework to her students. Each
student was given a copy of the
assignment, and the teacher and the class