Share:

Reframe Podcast: Episode 44

How Fifth-Grade Students Became Inspired Citizen Activists

How Fifth-Grade Students Became Inspired Citizen Activists

Dr. Brian Schultz

Back when Brian Schultz was a 5th-grade teacher in a struggling urban school, he asked his students to name a social issue that could inform a class project. But when the students decided what they really needed was a whole new school building, no one could have predicted what came next.

Their efforts soon attracted national attention. The project was featured on the popular public radio program This American Life. And it eventually inspired a book called Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way, which received widespread praise from acclaimed authors, academics, activists, and journalists.

Newly published in a second edition, the book is an exploration of what is possible for teachers and student to achieve. Today, Brian Schultz is a Miami University professor of teacher education, and he recently spoke about this incredible experience, its lasting impact on students, and more.

Read the transcript

James Loy:

This is Reframe, The podcast from the College of Education, Health and Society on the campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Back when Brian Schultz was an 5th grade teacher in a struggling urban school, he asked his students to name some issues they could address through a class project. But when his students decided that they really needed was a whole new school building, no one could have predicted how the project would have unfolded from there. But their efforts soon attracted national media attention and, eventually, even inspired a book called Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way, which now in its 2nd edition.

Brian Schultz is now a Miami University professor of teacher education, and today he’s here to talk about this incredible project, the new edition of his book, the lasting impact it’s had on some of this students, and more.

(MUSIC FADE)

So Dr. Schultz, thank you for being here. This is a really amazing story. It covers civic engagement, social justice, activism, student empowerment. I mean, it covers a lot of different dimensions. So can you give us some background on the project, background on the book, and how the project with your 5th grade students came about? I’m wondering, how did it evolve.

Brian Schultz:

Sure, well, so the book is a story about my teaching and learning with students in a school that served a housing project community in downtown Chicago. I was a fifth grade teacher and essentially the stories that come out of the book are when I look to the students to name what was worthwhile to them as the curriculum. So what's worth knowing, and doing, and being, and becoming, and thinking about, and pondering, and wondering. And then that became the nexus for asking them questions about problems that they wanted to solve in the community.

And within an hour's time, when I prompted that question, along with another teacher who was pushing into my classroom, the students came up with almost 100 different topics. Everything from litter in the park, to wanting a kid president, to other social issues. But when we looked at the list, it actually had 89 different problems on it, about half of the issues had to do with the shameful state, that dreadful in adequacy of their school building. Everything from having no gym, no lunchroom, no auditorium. To bullet holes in the windows, or lights didn't work, or missing drinking fountains, or disgusting bathrooms. And so, quickly, the students decided that that was the problem that they wanted to focus on. And from that point on, it became the curriculum. Working to put pressure on the city of Chicago and the school board to make good on an erstwhile promise of a new school building for the housing project community in which the school was located. And so, that's the Nexus of that, of the story, or at least the starting point of the students naming an issue that was important to them and then working to solve it.

So reading and writing in math and science all became integrated and integral to solving the problem of getting a new school building for the community.

The book itself chronicles my learning alongside the students so rather than it being just a story of a powerful classroom experience, it's also about my introspection and reflection and contemplation and angst about engaging in this kind of work and this kind of curriculum that looks to the students as experts in their own lives to be the springboard for what we did in the classroom and beyond it.

James Loy:

I think you touched on a lot of things that I wanted to talk about. I imagine since the second edition has come out now, a lot of this stuff, even though this project was a few years ago, a lot of these issues are still probably relevant for teachers who are now teaching in or dealing with students in elementary schools, especially in urban communities. So when you asked these fifth graders to name the problems in their community, and a lot of it did come back to as you said to a lot of issues with the school building itself. And then, when they decided that what they needed was a new building, did you ever think that that’s what they would come up with, that it would be such a lofty goal? And then, did you think, well, how am I actually going to do this? How are we going to accomplish this? And was there pushback from administrators who maybe thought well that’s impossible, that could never happen?

Brian Schultz:

Right. I think this is a really great question, because what …I had gone to a professional development seminar on civic education program called Project Citizen. The Center for Civic Education had sponsored this program and locally in Chicago. It was a brought to us as teachers by the constitutional rights foundation in Chicago, and when I went through this seminar, the person leading the event really cautioned the teachers of the room to start small, start something local. Because then you can bound it and be in more control of where the curriculum heads and focuses on. The Center for Civic Education and the Constitutional Fights Foundation in Chicago were really focused on public policy issues.

And so, when I brought it to my students, I didn't think… I didn't know what to expect. I knew that it was an inspiring professional development seminar for me. Because it reflected on some of the curriculum studies literature that I was exposed to in my own doctoral studies, and saying, “Oh, wow, this is how I can spark the interest and motivate my students to do something as an emergent curriculum that centers on the concerns and the interests the questions that they have.” And be a springboard for that. But I didn't know where it would go. And initially, and what I write about in the book, is like I thought they would have picked something like wanting fruit punch at lunch, or recess every day.

And so, when they started naming things that were much bigger and broader social issues, I was super excited, but I was also in unchartered territory for myself, of where this would go and who would support us or who would push back on us.

In particular, you asked about like colleagues and administrators and the like, and I had a really supportive administration and great colleagues. But the colleagues weren't engaged in this social justice stance on what curriculum could be. And I think that that's really important to wrestle with. So this… the teachers that I was teaching alongside were doing really powerful work, but they weren't necessarily exemplars of the type of progressive and democratic curriculum I was hoping to develop with my students.

And so, they weren't standing in the way. And, if anything, as the curriculum took off and had legs of its own, most of my colleagues were really rallying around the students and me in a supportive way. The administrators were similar in that way. They were constantly invited into the classroom. So the students’ engagement really is what propelled support well beyond what I might have wanted to do in terms of convincing my principal or assistant principal that this was worthy. The kids did it themselves. Because they were actively engaged in the learning process well beyond what, maybe, outsiders would have thought was the expectation of fifth graders in this particular school, at this particular time.

James Loy:

Can you talk about the learning that was going on, like, how that actually unfolded for the students? What did that look like in the classroom? One of the lines in the book you said that reading and writing and arithmetic and social studies all blended together, and it wasn't just this textbook learning. But how did that unfold for the students? Even on a day to day basis?

Brian Schultz:

Sure. So, like using the questions that the students had about, like, how do we push back on the city to get us a new school was one of these authentic curriculum problems, if you will. So, it's really only in school that we separate subject matter saying, “Oh 10 o'clock. It's time for math. Put away your reading.” In the more authentic world in our daily lives, we're constantly having interaction between those disciplines of knowledge. So math and science and reading and writing are constantly at interplay with one another. And so that became quite apparent. The curriculum studies literature writes a lot about that confluence of students asking about who they are in this world and what's going on in this world. And so, when those two come together, it is a natural fit for being a classroom curriculum. Albeit not in the normal way that we think about, “Oh, it's math time, and we need to do that.” Well, we need to use mathematics to solve the problems of school funding issues, which was laid on our doorstep in terms of the students picking this problem as the one that they wanted to solve.

In terms of on a day to day basis, I think that changes depending on the day, depending on where they were in the project. But oftentimes they were working on different parts of a contingent action plan that they had developed in order to solve the problem. So everything from a letter-writing campaign to petitions to researching material. They also wanted to make a video documentary and they produced a website all centered around the work, kind of out of a campaign headquarters approach, where different students were taking on different tasks in order to solve the problem, or get the job done. And so that varied on a daily basis.

Sometimes we were doing the whole class engagement, for instance, when we were using expository writing to document the problems, we could transition as a whole class and to turning expository writing into persuasive writing and making press releases or persuasive letters to people that we thought could help us solve our problem. As the students articulated, it was people with power that could help them to make the changes they were demanding.

James Loy:

Did you get a sense for how the students were able to absorb this knowledge, or use it after they left your class? Was there any fear that maybe once they got to sixth grade, for example, they would be right back into that traditional classroom setting, that was more textbook based? And would it be jarring to go back into that traditional setting after they had had this amazing experience the year before?

Brian Schultz:

I think on some level. I maintained contact with a with a lot of the students in the beginning, and as time is going on, it's now a handful of students that I've maintained contact with. And I think the most important takeaway that I have is that many of the students walked away with their eyes wider open to issues of justice and equity that play a part in our society. And I think, as I still engage with some of the students, they reflect back on their fifth grade year with this nostalgia, if you will, about the power of them being able to focus on the things that they found most important. And at that time, it was the school building and it wasn't necessarily just for them, but it was for their family, and it was for the other people in the community who would be coming after them. And I think that that, for them, was a really big point in why this was powerful.

In terms of like actually like having to navigate subsequent teachers or classrooms, I think there was always . . . or, there always is a push and pull with that. This happens no matter what, in any classroom as you matriculate on to the next grade you learn that the norms of that classroom. I think the experience the students had -- I know the experiences that I had -- caused me profound reflection on what it is that I think teaching and learning is all about. And so, and I think there's some of that that the students contemplate as well. 

In the immediate years after we were together in that fifth grade classroom, several of the students and I wrote some book chapters or journal articles about how kids’ perspectives about teaching and learning should be really focused on the notions of their interests, and their choices. That really got them excited.

So they were still contemplating the experience beyond the classroom. Yet, it might not have been in another person's classroom, another teacher’s classroom. But we were engaged in that and that worked together for some time.

James Loy:

So it sounds like even if it wasn't . . . I mean, you probably wouldn't’t expect it to be a direct continuation from your class to the next classroom. But it sounds like it at least provided this pretty wonderful foundation that allowed them to build upon, and reflect upon, and see it as a powerful experience that they've carried with them.

Brian Schultz:

I think so. I mean, I think that that's a really good point, and I think that that's what some of the material …the new material in the book resonates with, is that I thread through narratives of some of the former fifth graders who are now in their mid-20's, and how they're contemplating what they did as 11-year-olds. And then, how they're thinking about it now. 

There's one story in particular of one of the students in the classroom, who ends up having an article written about him in a news magazine, and, at the time, he was -- this is just a couple years back -- he was working on the fight for 15 campaign. So he was working at a Walgreens in Chicago, and was seeing that the minimum wage should be increased and safety in terms of his job, like, should be foremost on the minds. And so, he was campaigning with a community-based organization in Chicago about that issue. And in this interview, in this news magazine piece, he actually reflects back on his fifth grade year when he engaged in an organizing effort to get a new school building, about why and how he thinks about this work now, in terms of fairness and equity and safety, about how workers should be treated, in this case, in a retail environment. So I reflect on that because that’s a pretty powerful piece to read about a former student years later, who's not only speaking out for an issue that is important and relevant to his own life at that moment, but that connects it back to the engagement he had 10 years earlier in a fifth grade classroom.

So it was, at some level, it's that sentimental moment that teachers have that…it's like that we all long for. But to me, it's a powerful testament to allowing students that space, that opportunity, and then challenging them with the responsibility to engage in learning that is responsive to their own lives, right? And so, that's not something that ends at the end of a school year. Those are tools that are transferred to other situations in your life. And then you can learn to take action and transfer skills that you had from one experience to the next. 

James Loy:

And in the epilogue of the new book, you talk about how you are very concerned with pushing back against a lot of these dominant narratives that talk about the teacher as the agent of change for these students. Or, like, this Hollywood representation of the teacher as the “hero” or the “savior” of students. And I think . . . there’s a classic example is the . . . I don’t know, it’s like 20 years old now. But the Dangerous Minds movie. That movie and that false Hollywood representation of what teachers . . .

Brian Schultz:

Right, yeah, and then, when Michelle Pfeiffer in that movie . . . she, like, no. That's not, like, it was like she had a really rough go at it. And it was a struggle, and there were rough edges, and a lot of . . . and it wasn't like this rosy picture, right? But, like, you watch that movie and it's like, “Oh, I could do that.” Or, like, wow. And so, you want to push back at . . . Or, I want to push back against those sorts of quintessential . . . that that's what it is. Like, that like the white person can swoop in and . . . yes.

James Loy:

Right. So what is . . . I think a lot of people still have that attitude of teachers playing that role in a lot of way. So what is wrong with that? What is wrong with that “teacher as hero?” Or in think of teachers in that way? Or as having that role?

Brian Schultz:

Yeah, I think the big thing with that is that it devalues the humanity of kids, and the capacity of people, particularly, people who've come up in spaces that are historically marginalized, right? Or that have historical disinvestment. So Chicago is a prime example of that in terms of the schooling practices in the neighborhood segregation, from redlining to like blatant, like, disinvestment in an entire community for resources, or for libraries and things like that. And so, what happens is that when we say that all it takes is one committed person to fix all of these societal ills, we're really playing into the fact that the individuals who find themselves being beaten up by the contextual factors, that the society is set up, is that they could pick themselves up if only they tried harder, or worked harder, or . . .

And so, it's bigger and broader than that. It's not about an individual that is going to, on their own, fix a situation. It’s about being in solidarity with the community in which you're serving. And for me, it was a lot of really trying to work with and learn from and alongside my students and their families. And that wasn't something that I necessarily went in trying to do. But realized quickly that my students had a tremendous amount to teach me, but so did their families and so did the community in a broader sense. And so, how could I learn from them? And so, when that teacher hero piece plays out, it's butts up against that, and I think that it’s problematic. And it also, like, doesn't deal with the systemic issues of structural racism, of white supremacy, that's pervasive in our schools and school systems, or the way that we fund schools.

And so, we need to get into these broader, or bigger issues, that affect how we're deciding to educate some children and not others, or who has access to resources and who doesn't. And I think that's part of the bigger picture when we think about the teacher as hero or white Savior mentality.

James Loy:

Do you think that this book, or this project . . . I guess this is my last question about what you think the lasting impact of this project was? Is this an example of what you think it is possible for teachers accomplish in classrooms? Obviously, you were with dealing with a specific situation, in a specific context. But I imagine that almost all schools will have their particular issues that need to be addressed. So, is this project something teachers can look to and say, “Oh, my students might be capable of doing something similar too?”

Brian Schultz:

Yeah, I'd say so. But it's an example, right? So it's not a model. It's not the recipe for doing in another space, and another time. But what it does show us that it is possible within an environment of this hyper-accountability and high-stakes testing, that looking to students is a practical enterprise, that shows results on all those same outside indicators. But honored the full humanity of the children in the process. And so, I'm really fascinated with other teachers who have… or whole schools, who have tried to honor that full humanity of children by allowing space for them to name what's worthwhile as the starting point, or what are the problems in the community that we like to engage in or solve? Or, what are problems that we have questions about, and what are we curious about, as a starting point or a centerpiece for how we think about what happens in the classroom, or in the school writ large.  

James Loy:

Alright. Fantastic. Well, Dr. Brian Schultz, Congratulations on the 2nd edition of the book. And thank you for talking with me today?

Brian Schultz:

Absolutely thank you for the time.

James Loy:

The second edition of Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way by Dr. Brian Schultz, a Miami University professor of teacher education, is available now. And if you have any questions, or if you would like more information, you can email us at: reframe@miamioh.edu. We'd love to hear from you.