She doesn’t know it yet, but the cubby space Hanna shares with 6-year-old Chris is a lesson that will follow her through life. For now though, it’s nothing more than a place where she stores her ...

We sit at a tiny desk in small, blue-plastic molded chairs, and she tells me what she’s learned in first grade. Lesson Number One: First grade is hard. Harder than expected. At night, when she would ...

The children huddle over their individual green chalkboards, their desks pushed together in groups of four or five. Each child wears a little white sport sock over one hand and holds a piece of chalk ...