Schultz, Brian D. (2008) Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way. Review by Peter Appelbaum, Arcadia University

Schultz, Brian D. (2008) Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way. NY: Teachers College Press Pp. 192         ISBN 978-0807748589 Review by Peter Appelbaum Arcadia University September 10, 2008 Brian Schultz has written a book I recommend not just for the story and the message but for the model of teacher reflection and professional growth that is the real story-behind-the-story. Most teacher memoires in my experience retroactively construct a tale of heroic success. It is difficult to avoid this trap, simply because there seems to be no market for stories about trying and not succeeding. (Perhaps an outstanding exception to this is the equally marvelous Wrestling with Change, by Lew Romagnano, 1994.) What would we learn from a good story of all the things that seemed to go wrong? But the art is in the telling, of course: Students in Schultz’s Chicago classroom decided to convince people that they needed a new school. On the surface they failed; no new building ever came. But as they learned in the process, and as the title of the book conveys, “spectacular things happen along the way” when a teacher and students take on important work, whether or not they achieve their initial goals. The real story in this book is how a teacher evolves in his thinking about his students and their curriculum, and for this rare gift readers will be grateful. Rather than a hero-savior story about a young naïve white guy saving ghetto kids’ lives, we are privy to the simple everyday acts of trying a new teaching idea and letting it take hold. In this case, frustrated new-teacher Schultz happened to attend a workshop on “Project Citizen,” a packaged curriculum that enables pupils to develop citizenship skills. Project Citizen (Center for Civic Education, 2008) is a good program; it is worth finding out about it if you are not familiar with it. But of course it is not the magic answer to all long-standing circumstances of student achievement and social inequity. It is how Schultz tries out the new ideas, first in what seems to be the desperation of a new teacher at wits end, and later as a teacher growing to appreciate the possibilities for urban education in the United States, subsequently reflecting on the implications of his work, that is the real contribution that this book makes to our field. The primary thread of this book as I see it is the portrayal of a powerful pedagogical gesture: taking on the impossible. One might imagine teachers all over the world saying, “There is no way I would let my pupils imagine they could convince a large metropolitan bureaucracy to build them a new school.” It seems impossible, and a number of adults in the story this book tells share such concerns with Schultz. As pupils oscillate between elation over the interest of some people, and their inability to connect with others in power, the issue of whether or not the Project Citizen curriculum as enacted in this classroom is an ethical pedagogical approach becomes a major concern. There is a way in which the art of the irrational becomes a game that learners can play, however; reaching for the stars gets them started, only to see what they can learn in thinking big. In the case here, important politicians and national media eventually supported these fifth graders, and their experience continues to impact on their lives years later, as they share their experiences and offer expert advice to others at national and international education conferences, and pursue new dreams for their own lives. Schultz keeps the ethical question foregrounded throughout his work, something he did not and could not have carefully planned in advance, but something from which he and we can nevertheless in retrospect learn. We read about the decisions he needs to make when media and manipulators want to use his class to their own advantage, and see in the end the power of turning the decisions over to the students themselves. The decisions made are not as crucial as the examination of their implications later: teacher and students can learn from any decision how they might make the next one. What is learned is not whether a choice was the correct one or not, but how to work in ways that support each others’ continued learning. Schultz writes, When the classroom is shared and the curriculum is co-constructed, the participants see common threads among and are able to support one another because they have knowledge of others’ strengths and weaknesses as well as likes and dislikes. The ability to support one another in classroom activities is important, and this becomes a life skill that can be transferred outside of the classroom and the school environment. (pp. 152-3) Another important theme is the transparent purpose provided by curricula grounded in taking action in the world. In retrospect Schultz writes, The applications of the curriculum had a purpose that students were able to recognize. They provided the students with tangible experiences through their own curiosity and theorizing that could be transferred to other situations. (p. 153) Ordinarily, there is an ironic “problem of culture” (Mellin-Olsen, 1987) in instructional events, created by the fact that the teacher has specific long-term goals in mind for an activity that is experienced plainly as the task at hand by the students (Appelbaum, 2008). One might say the students simply cannot begin to even fathom what the objectives might be, since they are the learners, and have not yet learned! “Taking Action” curricula make the purpose of the activity clear to teacher and students alike, while enabling a teacher to use the curriculum to foster the development of particular skills and concepts (Appelbaum, 2007; Gustavson, 2007). Purposes are not generalized accumulations of skills, facts and procedures, but instead the attempt to make a significant impact on the world. Things matter. Fifth-graders in Schultz’s class were told by State Representative Willie Delgado, “The action you have taken, even though you cannot touch and cannot hug it yet, to get our attention, you have done more than most people do in their entire life.” (p.89) As he continued to praise the students, whose heads were held up high in response, and to passionately declare, “shame on the grown-ups for building million-dollar homes and not taking care of a school,” the students were able to hear a legislator’s personal perspective on the gentrification and urban renewal they were witnessing, and to receive his personal promise to raise the issue with the school board. At the same time, these students developed statistical analysis and research skills rarely achieved by fifth graders, composed important business letters in sophisticated language well beyond their supposed reading-levels, and produced professional quality dossiers of evidence, video-documentaries and webpages (Room 405, 2005). One cannot deny the possibility that project-oriented classroom work holds the potential to meet and surpass standardized objectives. I dislike the back bookcover hype that describes a teacher “who resists the pressures of ‘teaching to the test’ and creates a curriculum based on student needs, wants, and desires …” The power of the story told here is not that a teacher ignored or resisted district curriculum objectives, but that he documented for himself throughout the year how his students were indeed learning – to read, write, do mathematics, develop critical skills in literature, social studies, science, through their work on their action project of obtaining a new school building. By keeping track of how students are meeting objectives in their work, a teacher can simultaneously support the project; and the project helps the teacher to document progress on the objectives. Academic skill objectives supported the students in developing the skills of good interviewing, analyzing how the media’s use of their experiences to tell one particular story could help them to achieve their own action objectives, portraying their message in video and internet formats, and rallying community interest in larger social and economic issues. In the words of one student, “this ain’t no schoolwork, this is important.” Yet those words reflect something deeper than an avoidance of school work: they communicate the value of the schoolwork in helping someone achieve something they care about, a lesson far more powerful than how to create a pie-chart from survey data, even as such a pie-chart creation and analysis skill is mastered. “I believed authentic learning – solving an actual problem – could actually meet standards by organically emerging out of the classroom curriculum. This approach would meet the objectives not for their own sake, but because the behaviors and outcomes outlined in the standards were necessary components in solving the problem.” (p.12) Schultz confronts head-on the issues of race and class that cannot and should not be distanced from discussions of pedagogy. He is white, from a privileged background. He does not want to be a savior, and cannot be sure if what he brings to his students is good for them. He worries about whether he is bringing a class- and race-based perspective on teaching for social justice to the African-American youth with whom he works. He shares his early doubts about teachers who conform to perceived best-practices, missing the opportunity to actually get to know and reach their students (p.146), mentioning for example, Lisa Delpit’s (2006) critique of white teachers from the dominant culture who think they know best how to educate students of color. This echoes earlier work of this genre, for example, that of Vivian Gussin Paley (1995; 1997; 2000); in those tales, children tell their teacher years later that she was and remains a wonderful person whose presence in their lives they will never regret, yet whose good motives led to a form of education they wish they had not experienced because of what it kept from them (Paley, 1995). The message is surely complicated. Schultz will not miss the chance to hear about long-term implications, either: he is still in contact with as many of his former students as possible, and continues to travel with them to talk about their work together and its impact on their lives. We can see the future for this researcher: we await the next volume, as people have for years with the UP series of films in Britain (Apted, 2007), the Eight Year Study (Aikin, 1942), and other longitudinal ethnographic projects that trace the life histories of individuals. My strongest dissatisfaction with the book – if it can be called that - grows out of its strength: Spectacular Things is a highly readable and dramatic narrative that captures one’s attention to the end. After the story, the author shares some of his theorizing behind the scenes - the literature and theories that enabled him to do the kinds of reflection and action described in the narrative. All of this makes for a good story that is fun to read. And, by shifting from the academic practice of front-loading a book with the usual, tedious literature review, toward a review of the theories that inspired the powerful story, Schultz offers a clever model for academic writers seeking a greater audience for their work, a model that promises to lead a greater number of readers to pursue this literature for themselves. But here is my disappointment: The theoretical connections are too sketchy. One can see that Schultz himself was immersed in the academic discourse of his graduate program as he taught this fifth-grade class, but the actual processes of reading and reflecting, spending the day in school and then attending class at night, and so on, are not part of his story. Emerging professionals will, I fear, remain inspired by his entertaining narrative, but still wonder how to use the curriculum theorists and philosophers of education that Schultz mentions for their own personal growth. Given the power and authenticity of the narrative, I have no doubt numerous readers will be incited to peek into a book by one of the scholars mentioned toward the end; but I am concerned that they will be left asking precisely how this teacher used such material in his daily interactions with his pupils. Of course, the message is that how one does this is individual and personal, and that the effort to do so is part of the fun of being a teacher-as-intellectual. I just wish Schultz could have embedded a few specific tales from the field, in the same way that he shares his journal entries about whether or not a visitor should come to his class, or whether he should ask the students themselves to decide. Was this journal entry surrounded by quotes from Paulo Freire and James Beane? L. Thomas Hopkins, John Dewey and Joseph Schwab? He writes, “The time I spent reading material on social justice-oriented teaching in my doctoral studies, while I was a classroom teacher, reinforced my belief that the most desirable curriculum for children if one that comes from them.” (p. 11) Really? How? Why? I want to ask, ‘How did these materials help you to make sense of what was happening in your classroom?’ This is a mere quibble, provoked by the tantalizing name-dropping that Schultz includes in his theory chapter. Soon to be a major motion picture? One hopes for a more powerful fate! The line between inspiring story and contribution to research is one that this book dances along with grace, and I for one pray that the Room 405 Project Citizen legend is never reduced to another hero saving a small group of needy kids, as is so often the case when research goes Hollywood. Hero stories do not lead to conceptual changes for many in their audience because they characterize the accomplishments of the hero as heroic, and thus out of the ordinary. Indeed, they can be blamed for conservatively preventing social change, because they send the message that great things are possible if only one person makes a heroic effort, rather than advocating for systemic reform. This was the plight of Rosa Parks, who spent most of her post-bus-action life insisting that she was one of many in a large civil rights movement of ordinary people, only to be continually held up as a lone heroine. No matter how many times a heroine declares she is nothing special, the declamations seem to ironically reinforce her heroic status. Schultz, too, claims the role of the ordinary hero, lost in his first teaching job, “frustrated by a hidden curriculum based on social class, … looking for a compromise that would keep my students motivated and engaged in their learning while teaching them the necessary skills to progress in school” (pp.8-9). When he interviewed for his job, innovation was stressed. Soon after accepting the position, he “was alarmed that the real priority appeared to be achieving the goals set by the omnipotent board of education.” (p.14) The Hollywood version would draw a direct connection between this sense of injustice and the crusade to challenge the Board on their undelivered promise of a new school in a Freudian apoplexy against authority, likely ignoring the complex reflection that this teacher practices as he worked with his students in such powerful ways. The hero hype is not helped by the parade of praises from famous celebrities collected on the book cover. Such blurbs apparently sell more books, but the quotes from none other than Carl Grant, Jonathan Kozol, Michael Apple, Jeannie Oakes, and James Beane, celebrate a renewal of belief in authentic narrative, the power of the details in crafting a book that one cannot put down, the confrontation of critical democratic education with a culture of testing and standardization, and inspiring lessons about curriculum and teaching, all wrapped up in an amazing tale of fifth-grade citizen activists. Inside, we find more quotes from Robert Siegel of National Public Radio, The Chicago Tribune, Ralph Nader, William Ayers, Celia Oyer, William Pinar, and William Schubert! I do not disagree with the spirit of these praises, but question the ethics of turning this narrative into such a hot commodity. We apparently do not need this review you are reading! It’s already declared by most of the best minds in education: you should buy this book. Schultz received the 2005 Educator of the Year Award from the Illinois Computing Educators for his work with this class, using computers and video in powerful ways, not for standing up to standardization in the name of critical democracy. Yes, he used technology to make it possible for his students’ own questions and activities to be the medium of self-transformation. As a celebration of the children who declare that the Emperor has no clothes, the book throws an important additional layer of shame on the United States for allowing the forms of educational apartheid that currently exist. But hidden by the commodification of this book is a weaving of theory and practice we sorely need more of. His tale is about backing off and letting children learn, rather than about a hero doing great things. Please, when you read the book, think about Brian’s theorizing throughout his Project Citizen Year. Citizenship, in fact, seems to have re-emerged in our field as an organizing principle of meaningful and successful curricula. In New York City’s International High Schools (Fine et al., on-line), for example, extensive quantitative and qualitative documentation correlates the very high graduation rates of incoming students and their subsequent continued, post-secondary education, with a number of civic outcomes: “On the bridge between home and here, self and other, high school and college, International students develop a sense of self, other and a new “we.” And they prepare for the borders that await them in the more chilling “real world”.” Similar to the environment that nurtured Brian Schultz, one finds that these International Schools also value and develop among students and faculty the skills of autonomy and responsibility, speaking out, and dissent. Through a curriculum designed to raise awareness of social issues and civic engagement, the International students, many of whom are recent immigrants just beginning to learn English, receive an education dedicated to critical participation in modern American society and, often, in their home countries as well. Whether packaged as democratic education (Apple & Beane, 2007) or Anti-oppressive education (Kumashiro, 2004), citizenship has taken hold as a way to enact the kinds of pedagogy that forefront taking on the impossible while providing a transparent purpose. When Brian Schultz asked his students to list problems in their community, what surfaced was a strong consensus that they needed a new school building. A building promised by a sign down the road, but which had never materialized. By the end of the school year, they find out that, if anything, they have sped up the process of shutting down their own school, instead of provoking the groundbreaking ceremony of the sorely-needed new building. In the process they grow to understand that it is their own questions and the accomplishments they have witnessed along the way that matter more than the building, not because the building does not matter, but because they have learned so much, pulled together their community toward an important cause, and discovered skills of leadership and academic understanding that they will take with them into new personal and community projects. The virtues of public service are found in their potential to educate rather than prepare for tests. We await the sequel, anticipating the interesting lives of these children and their teacher(s). New problems, new skills, new adventures. New stories. References Aikin, Wilford. (1942). The story of the eight-year study. NY: Harper & Brothers. Accessed June 13, 2008 Appelbaum, Peter. (2007). Children’s books for grown-up teachers: Reading and writing curriculum theory. NY: Routledge. Appelbaum, Peter. (2008). Embracingmathematics: On becoming a teacher and changing with mathematics. NY: Routledge. Apple, Michael, and James Beane (eds.). (2007). Democratic schools, second edition: Lessons in powerful education. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Apted, Michael. (2007). The up series. NY: First Run Features. Center for Civic Education. (2008). Project Citizen. http://www.civiced.org/index.php?page=introduction. Accessed June 13, 2008. Delpit, Lisa. (2006). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. NY: New Press. Fine, Michelle, et al. (on-line). On swimming: Oxygen, resistance, and possibility for youth under siege. http://web.gc.cuny.edu/Psychology/socpersonality/Mfine/swimming.pdf. Accessed May 27, 2008. Gustavson, Leif. (2007). Youth learning on their own terms: Creative practices and classroom teaching. NY: Routledge. Kumashiro, Kevin. (2004). Againstcommon sense: teaching and learning toward social justice. NY: Routledge. Mellin-Olsen, Stieg. (1987). The politics of mathematics education. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel. Paley, Vivian Gussin. (1995). Kwanzaa and me. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Paley, Vivian Gussin. (1997). The girl with the brown crayon: How children use stories to change their lives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Paley, Vivian Gussin. (2000). White teacher. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Romagnano, Lew. (1994). Wrestling with change: The dilemmas of teaching real mathematics. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Room 405. (2005). Project Citizen: Byrd Academy-Room 405 Website. http://www.projectcitizen405.com/ Accessed June 13, 2008. About the Reviewer Peter Appelbaum is Professor of Education and Director-at-Large of General Education at Arcadia University, Philadelphia, USA. His recent books include Children’s Books for Grown-Up Teachers: Reading and Writing Curriculum Theory, and Embracing Mathematics; On Becoming a Teacher and Changing with Mathematics.