Brian Schultz worked as a teacher at Richard E. Byrd Community Academy in Chicago, where in 2004 he led a predominantly African American class in an experiment in educational innovation. Using Project Citizen, his fifth-grade students took on the deplorable conditions of their school as an issue of public policy. Brian has recently written a book about his experience at Byrd Academy titled Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way: Lessons from an Urban Classroom. In this interview, Brian explains how his students took charge of their education, how they learned, and how he learned from them. Brian Schultz is currently an assistant professor of education and honors faculty at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago.

Center for Civic Education