Shakespeare

"Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army." -- Edward Everett

I am trying to make some 80-odd tenth graders see the beauty and power of Shakespeare. It's hard to convince kids who have trouble with the slippery subtleties of Standard English that it's worth hacking through the archaic vocabulary to get to the character and plot gems beneath. I honestly can't blame them for their reluctance. For them, it's like studying a foreign language. We're approaching it in that way. I think in another two generations, a total re-evaluation of our high school teaching canon is going to be necessary, or a new way of approaching this material is going to have to be developed. We don't expect regular students to approach Chaucer or the Pearl Poet in their original idiom. I don't know how much longer Shakespeare is going to work that way, either.

I will probably get about a million responses to this attacking me for not taking the "intellectual high road" that maintains the almost holy virtue with which some people try to endow Shakespeare. To stave some of that off, I want to say how much I enjoy his works. I find his puns funny. I love the fact that so much of his humor is earthy and aimed at the common man. I love his flawed heroes and heroines. I love the freshness of his plots, even after 400 years of badly-done performance, adaptation, and reinvention. I love the originality of his images, his comparisons, and his poetry. I think my students should be exposed to him to open their minds and make them consider some of those immortal issues he uses as themes. All that being said, Shakespeare, while inspired, is not divine, and many of my kids really, really hate him.

When there's a language barrier of the magnitude I'm talking about, no comprehension happens. Granted, there needs to be more effort on the part of many of my students. That would help. However, many are trying very hard and are running up against language so complex and incomprehensible that it might as well be Latin or Provencal. It's not just Shakespeare. Other, later works have defeated my kids. Poe was problematic. His syllable heavy prose needed translation for them. I can't imagine trying to get through Hawthorne, yet I know they'll have to meet him next year in eleventh grade. It's not a fault of the work. I refuse to call it a "fault" in my kids. They simply aren't ready for this stuff.

This brings me to the core of my dilemma, and the dilemma all the English teachers I've spoken with lately have also expressed. Do we try to find readings that are on their level, or do we press on, knowing that much of what we do will have to be simplified and stripped down to be comprehensible? When my kids came to me, many of them were reading 3 or more grade levels behind. (Shocked gasp--for shame--bad teachers--poor educational system) Regardless of the whys, which I ABSOLUTELY am not getting into tonight, I have to try to figure out what to do with them where they are. I'm taking the strip it down and do the best we can approach because I believe they can do it with help, but I can't say it's not a hard path.

Is it right to try to give them this stuff when it's so far above some of them? Am I trying to feed a bottle baby solid foods? They're not babies, and they are so conscious of being behind. I want them to keep reaching up and to see that although it might be hard, it's by no means out of their reach. I just have to keep reminding myself that their struggles are going to build proficiency. It's very hard.

Mostly, I want them to have a good experience with the work. One bad experience with literature is enough to turn these fragile new readers away from it for good. I want them to come away with a sense of control and (God help me for using edu-lingo) empowerment. They should never have to be afraid of the printed page. It should always be a source of pleasure and growth. So, we are carefully walking through the streets of ancient Rome hand-in-hand. I am doing the very best I can. I only hope it's going to be enough.