Touchstones, Curriculum, Storytelling, and Pushing Back: Contemplating Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way After 10 Years

• In Event: 45.094 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Seven - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 45.094-5 - Critical Issues in the Narratives of Curriculum

Abstract

This paper follows up on Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way: Lessons from an Urban Classroom (Author, 2008) ten years after its publication. Using speculative essay and drawing on previous narrative research, I reflect on my writing about how as a teacher alongside my 5th-grade students we co-created a curriculum based on the students’ needs, interests, and questions—namely, replacing their dilapidated school. In this paper reflecting on the new 10th anniversary edition of the book, I highlight how school reform continues to fail students in urban contexts, reflect on my teaching, and problematize my writing from over a decade ago, and offer updates on what became of the school.

Author

• Brian D. Schultz, Miami University