AIBU to think that it isn't necessary to teach Shakespeare like this?

[Cortina]

Shakespeare

I think most children are capable of understanding Shakespeare and deserve a teacher who can bring the plays to life in an intelligent, lively and enthusiastic manner. Even if a teacher personally believes children aren't smart enough to grasp the ideas, message and the subject matter is too far removed from their lives to be relevant they should give it a go and see if the children surprise them. Even if a teacher despises Shakespeare and thinks him dull and irrelevant this shouldn't influence their teaching surely?

I can see it might be fun to re-write the words as an exercise afterwards and do a spot of filming but not with the mindset that this is because most are incapable of grasping it otherwise.

Still cringing at the girl that wants to 'change it into modern'.

Seems a bit of a shame - do you know how old the children are that it's aimed at?

GCSE students I think. I was saddened that so many said it was boring before they changed it. It feels like the teacher agrees it's dull and irrelevant, has given up trying to convince anyone it's interesting or privately believes it's beyond most of them.

I obviously watched the clip with a slightly different mindset! This is a very common approach to Shakespeare in secondary schools and is regarded as a method of bringing "the plays to life in an intelligent, lively and enthusiastic manner"! The whole point of being able to recreate the play with more 'modern' settings and language is that it requires pupils to engage with the play and develope a good understanding of it, which otherwise they might not (it's unfortunate but many people have a very closed-minded, 'it's boring and out of date' view of Shakespeare which is passed on to children).

This won't be the only approach that a GCSE English teacher will use but it is probably the one which will most engage the majority of pupils and allow them to access Shakespeare - the first step with so many teenagers is getting them past the mental block (it's too hard; it's boring; it's not relevant to my life) which is preventing them from believing they can learn!

Speaking as a secondary school teacher (although not of English!), I'm pretty certain that any teacher who makes the effort to look for new ways to engage and excite their pupils does not do so because they agree "it's dull and irrelevant, has given up trying to convince anyone it's interesting or privately believes it's beyond most of them" as if this was the case they wouldn't bother to plan this type of activity for their pupils - what would be the point if the pupils really weren't capable?

It could be a nice way into the text for them, too. We watched all the remakes of Romeo and Juliet and I still think the Baz Lurhman one where they have guns branded 'Sword' and 'Longsword' is a really funny take on it.

It sounds as if, in the process of re-writing they'd have to look at the original anyway, so it's not as if they're doing some kind of 'Shakespeare in translation' work.

It doesn't sound too bad to me.

Yabu.

I am an English teacher and wrote my (first class) dissertation on the position of Shakespeare in the canon. I think the methods shown in the clip are excellent ways of initially introducing students to a play and engaging them. Close textual analysis can then come later. In terms of modernizing the setting, I have seen plenty of rsc productions which have done just that.

Also, I think it is important to remember that shakespeare's plays were written as working documents for actors, to be performed, not to be studied as words on a page....the notion of the singular author in an ivory tower did not energy until much later in history.

Sorry for typos, one handed mnetting whilst bf!

I don't think it's fair to expect children to understand Shakespeare, certainly not at GCSE level. Let's be blunt most adults don't understand Shakespeare and it's not because the adults are daft (although who can say), it's because the work is difficult. It's not the language alone, but the emotional range and life experience required to understand the motivations and actions of the characters - and then add the dificulties of working with Shakespearean English - never going to be easy. I question the appropriateness of Shakespeare at any level below, at least, A level. One wouldn't expect a child to engage (with any deep understanding) with Martin Amis, Philip Larkin or Graham Greene but are we really saying that Shakespeare is working (intellectually) at a lower level than them? Are we teaching it solely for the maintenance of heritage or tradition or perhaps, the hope that opening the door when they are young sustains an interest into adulthood?
Of course, modernising the narratives, or contextualising them - like Neighbours or Eastenders, can help improve understanding but does it risk dismissing great literature as old soap? I loved Branagh's screen adaptations (very faithful to originals) which didn't modernise but did adapt for modern audiences (slower speech and so on) and also Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet.

YABU and unfair. Nowadays there are GCSE classes with many students who read and write basic English at the same level as a 10 year old (and in some cases that is being generous). This is a great way to reach students across the board, especially students like these.

I can see where you are coming from and I don't entirely disagree. I can see that re-writing the play and transposing various elements would help consolidate understanding and make things fun. I don't agree this should be the main approach and imagine that it wouldn't be in most schools.

I think the students should be taken to see the play first and foremost, plays should be seen. I saw Romeo and Juliet at the Barbican (years ago) it was set in modern times, I understood it fairly easily, and they hadn't dumbed it down updated the language. When I was at school the teachers were brimming over with passion about Shakespeare, they told us with glee that he described his mistress as having 'black wires' growing out of her head and eyes 'nothing like the sun', when they spoke they painted a picture of his life and career and told us with delight about other plays. They suggested we went to Stratford Upon Avon, they made us curious, inspired and eager to learn without any fear the language would be too complex or settings too geographically distant or ambiguous to be grasped.

I didn't warm to the teacher, I thought he was negative and assumed for most Shakespeare would be difficult and dull unless it was changed and made relevant & fun. I don't see any of the love and enthusiasm mentioned above shining from his eyes, or the other teacher shown. I see he has other 'lessons' on You Tube so will check these out to see if I reverse my judgement.

YABU and I am also an English teacher.

Just to add my school was a comp.

I'm probably
Going to get flamed for this but, I think the position f Shakespeare on the curriculum is overly elevated. He is not the be all and end all. There are plenty of other superb writers that our children could study, and still explore big themes and ideas and understand English literary heritage.

(runs and hides....)

I am 24 and left school in 2002. Children these days are not like when I was at school, they live in a different socio-economic environment with impacts differently on their education and their ability to learn. Alot has changed.

There isnt even enough funding to take children to see plas anymore, the best that can be done is a BBC video. But even then the language is a major issue. 50% of children leave school unable to read or write modern English let alone have the capabilities to understand Shakespearean English.

It is not dumbing down to modernise the language, it is helping to give lesser able students the ability to rleate to the text when they come from an environment so far removed from it.

It is if anyhting an essential starting point to opening up the text to students.

Some 24 year olds think that a lot is one word

And as someone who is studying an Englis lit degree with a whole year of indepth study of Shakespeare under her belt, I concur with Moulesfrites.

I know, I type to quickly on MN make loads of spelling and grammar mistakes. Have to hide them from my DP as he teaches English too!

I don't enjoy all his plays but I don't see why anyone should assume they are too difficult to be understood. Is Chaucer still on the curriculum for GCSE and A'level?

I enjoyed doing excercises that that at school, shakespeare can be hard to understand and translating it yourself and performing is fun.

I do think it is really sad how both the pupils and teachers on that clip keep saying how boring shakespeare is though. Very self defeating.

I totally agree with moules too.

However, I think it is ridiculous to say that students below A Level can't cope with Shakespeare. Shakespeare includes some complicated concepts and complicated language, I know. I don't imagine many 15-year-old know what it's like to be an aging Egyptian queen. So what? It's not as if you have to understand every last little thing. Much of Shakespeare was written to entertain ordinary people and it is really not hard to understand if you can hear it read aloud or on one of the film versions.

I think we make ourselves out to be much thicker than we are as a society.

I'm not suggesting that GCSE students and below can't "cope" with Shakespeare. But surely we should be aiming for something more than "coping" - no? God knows I passed exams on Shakespeare when I was fifteen - but did I undertand what I was studying? Did I have any genuine sympathy for the subject? Did I heck! I don't think knowing what it's like to be an Egyptian queen has much to do with anything though - it's about understanding the constants of human existence - the meaning of tragedy, loss, love, life and death. Why don't you have to try to understand every last thing? It's important!
I think it's nonsense to suggest that Shakespeare is (blatantly) easy to understand if it's heard in performance - that's just ignoring a problem people clearly experience.

Sorry I should have been more obvious in what I meant. I just asked DP who teaches this subject at that level and (after criticising my spelling and grammar) he said I should highlight the fact that irregardless of how the topic is originally broached, come exams, the students must have knowledge of the text in its original format. For this reason teachers may use the modernisation of Shakespeares plays to introduce his work but will revert to the original format at a later point. This creates a good foundation for the students to be able to relate and understand the text before they progress on to understanding it in its original context IYSWIM.

Teaching Shakespeare to lower level groups is very difficult. You are talking about some students who do not know even simple spelling or grammar. Many may not know how to write in structured sentences or paragraphs, let alone to understand what a stanza or verse is. I am talking about students who at 16 do not understand the concept of irony let alone satire, intertextuality or metatheatricality.

Unfortunately that is the state of things nowadays, it is very disheartening.

Twelfth Night is a play an average 15 year old could grasp if they saw it performed. If you go in thinking it's too high brow for me, dull and difficult then you are not going to get much out of it.

Macbeth is an exciting play IMO, All's Well That Ends Well is strange and interesting and The Tempest fab. We were lucky in that we had a passionate introduction very young. I may never have bothered if the teacher hadn't assumed I was intelligent and could cope if I did some leg work on my own.

Cortina I think you have an idea of what the average 15 year old is capable of that is not at all realistic across the board. This is not giving in to the idea that Shakspeare is dull or too high brow, it is about creating an environment for less able students who may find the play interesting (if there is even funding enough to see one) but who will still not grasp the intricate meanings behind the language of Shakespeare and his use of rhetorical devices. Also, you need to understand that there are a lot of students now who have EAL (english as an additional language) difficulties in modern classrooms.