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

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 adventure of learning?

To play by David’s rules you have to be desperate. You have to be so badthat you have no choice

We spend a lot of time thinking about the ways that prestige and resources and belonging to elite institutions make us better off. We don’t spend enough time thinking about the ways in which those kinds of material advantages limit our options

conventions are made to be challenged

You have to be so badthat you have no choice.

The whole Redwood City philosophy was based on a willingness to try harder than anyone else.

whose assets [are] movement, endurance, individual intelligence…courage

Why do we automatically assume that someone who is smaller or poorer or less skilled is necessarily at a disadvantage?

“It was really random,” Anjali Ranadivé said. “I mean, my father had never played basketball before.”

David fought Goliath not with inferior but (on the contrary) with superior weaponry; and his greatness consisted not in his being willing to go out into battle against someone far stronger than he was. But in his knowing how to exploit a weapon by which a feeble person could seize the advantage and become stronger.