... to think that Shakespeare should be taught in schools?

[LorelaiVictoriaGilmore]

Just that really. I had a massive argument with my sister this afternoon about a number of things to do with the education system in the UK but this is one of the key points we disagreed on. I think it is good that Shakespeare is taught in schools because there lots of kids who do get something out of it and there are kids who may go on to university to study drama or English literature and it would be a shame if they got to 18 and had never been taught Shakespeare. My sister thinks it shouldn't be taught in schools because lots of kids will never 'get' it and never use it. She thinks that those kids who do want to go to uni to read English literature or drama will discover it on their own. I can sort of see what she's saying, especially given the number of kids who leave school without good literacy skills... but I still think I'm right! AIBU?

My year read Julius Caesar. The school took us to see Hamlet!

My DP found it useful because he can answer questions on Shakespeare when he watches tv quiz shows like Pointless.

YANBU

But like anything it’s they way it’s taught.

One year I had a year 9 class that we’re so badly behaved I did what thought was most sensible and did the hardest thing in teaching - put on a version of Romeo and Juliet to their parents. T’was amazing and changed that class and some of those students experience of school.

Shakespeare School’s Festival offers chances for primary and secondary schools the opportunity to perform abridged plays In theatres. I worked in a special needs school for a few years and we put on an adapted version of Midsummer Nights Dream and it was beyond magical- one of the best things I have ever done in my career.

It’s all about making it accessible because all Children of all abilities need challenge but it does need to be carefully constructed and supportive challenge.

One of the hardest things in drama teaching - a play with a difficult class that you see once a week.
( Not the hardest thing in teaching)

gobsmacked that people don’t like Macbeth. It was Breaking Bad before B.B. was even dreamed of! It needs to be watched not read. And then studied in a very particular way, ie not read out in class. Shakespeare was watched by the masses in his time and it’s not difficult to understand at all, but needs an engaged teacher to bring to life properly.

Gobsmacked that you are gobsmacked papa

You are forgetting that Shakespeare used language of his time. Therefore the people of that time would find it less difficult to understand than people nowadays.

Macbeth is a good story, but the flowery language renders it almost incomprehensible and dull to many people, myself included.

that’s why you need to watch not read it because then you’ll be in no doubt as to what’s going on!

Eng Lit has to cover Poetry, Novels and Plays and unfortunately Shakespeare is our only recognised world class playwright so we have to do him. The Americans have a bunch of 20th century stuff and the Scandinavians have late 19th but I assume that French Literature teachers tear their hair out at the prospect of getting 14 year olds to engage with Molière as well.

Ah, there is the rub TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross. Rather than address the mysogonist and racist elements of Shakespeare, you run with "but these clever and important people love it" (ergo I must too or else appear dim witted), and so the intellectual myth perpetuates.

Remove the defunct language and honestly tell me that you find Shakespeare's storylines either plausible or entertaining. Remember, these are plays written for performance to the uneducated Elizabethan masses, there's a reason the stories are basic, and they were performed alongside cock fighting and bear baiting.

And the language, as well as being defunct is largely misquoted. For example, "the lady doth protest too much" is understood to be a expression of perceived disingenity, however, in Elizabethan English a protest is an avowal or promise so Shakespeare's original meaning is lost. Keeping with Elizabethan times, do you really believe that the history play Richard III is an accurate portrayal of the battle of Bosworth or do you suppose it may possibly be biased towards the Tudor granddaughter on the throne? Hence we have the last Plantagenet king portrayed as a disabled evil child murdering villian.

Actually address the work yourself rather than mindlessly following the clever folks, who are following the other clever folks, who in turn are following the other clever folks, and all those clever folks before them who just love Shakespeare.

Actually I think that’s a more serious problem with the UK education system: only the tiny number who do A level MFL or GCSE/A Level Drama get to have a crack at Molière, Ibsen or Brecht - likewise Lorca or the Russian novelists. Literature in translation is a huge blank spot.

Did you ever use Shakespeare after school?

It is so seminal in the literary canon that I think it's essential for anyone who wants to appreciate other work. Brave New World, A Thousand Acres, Dogs of War - all draw on Shakespearean themes and plots. And so much of Shakespeare's language is used in every day sayings and expressions, it's been a big influence on the evolution of our language (I read somewhere that only the Bible has contributed more).

I think it's hard to teach well though, and that our fact- and exam-driven system makes it even harder. Personally, I'd do a story a term from Lamb's Tales through years 3-6, so that the narrative is familiar before kids have to grapple with the language. My love of Shakespeare came from reading a 1930s copy of Lamb's Tales while at home with German measles when I was six.

The assumption that the people who don't enjoy Shakespeare are those who struggle to understand them is quite ignorant.

I got an A in English literature (when A* didn't exist), studied Macbeth and MND, saw both performed as plays and still found them as dull as ditchwater. Put me off English lit completely.

@SleepOhHowIMissYou did you intentionally quote one of Hamlet's soliloquies in your denouncing of Shakespeare's "defunct" language?

It's so important to include as many classics in children or young people's English lessons as possible - my DS has been doing Romeo and Juliet (he's 13); he didn't 'get it', so I bought a second hand copy of a modern translation, and he revelled in it. May I add however that it's about HOW it's taught, not so much about the content. He has two English teachers, one is fantastic and brings things alive, one is less than 'exciting' and just gets them to read aloud. I also did Chaucer at school, thought it was a load of malarkey until we got a teacher who literally leapt on tables and read for us in true 'Old English', acted it out, drew out the hilarity and bawdiness of it all - we were in awe!

There is a time and a place for 'classics' of course, but there are ways of teaching it which could open a new life for many kids. It's just as important to teach the more modern texts, but again, it's HOW it's done. Bring on the films and the plays in conjunction with the texts.

YANBU!!!

It may well be that some of the phrases attributed to Shakespeare predate his plays but would they have survived has he not used them in his plays?
I am happy to say I really like Shakespeare. I don’t think I am pretentious. I like Much Ado About Nothing the most. I also like Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet. I recently very much enjoyed Julius Ceaser which I admit was a surprise to me. I found Anthony and Cleopatra extremely boring and The Two Gentleman of Verona a bit crap. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is great in parts but I always get confused by the plot

gobsmacked that people don’t like Macbeth. It was Breaking Bad before B.B. was even dreamed of! It needs to be watched not read

This!

I'm surprised Macbeth's taught so much in schools, tbh. I think it's hard, although I suppose the witches and gore make it attractive to kids. I'd include Much Ado in the syllabus, because it's my favourite and very funny, and Julius Ceasar, because it's so full of political intrigue. And I suppose a history, just to make the full set, probably Richard III.

I love King Lear, but don't think I really "got" it until I was about 30.

I liked the small bit of Shakespeare at primary school (musical based on A Midsummer Night's Dream, with songs full of the words), but at Secondary I found it so boring, that I'm with Blackadder when he meets Shakespeare in Blackadder Back and Forth.

"That (kick) is for every schoolboy and schoolgirl for the next four hundred years! Have you any idea how much suffering you're going to cause?"

We did several Shakespeare plays at school and I loved them. Had no idea that Breaking Bad is a modern incarnation of Macbeth!

I tend to think it's up to schools to design their own curriculum, based on the teaching and learning needs of the students in front of them. If that means Shakespeare, all good. Or if someone else is more appropriate, so be it.

Actually I think that’s a more serious problem with the UK education system: only the tiny number who do A level MFL or GCSE/A Level Drama get to have a crack at Molière, Ibsen or Brecht - likewise Lorca or the Russian novelists. Literature in translation is a huge blank spot.

We did The Doll's House, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Capek's RUR and the Insect Play, The Crucible and something called Our Town (which I found duller than any Shakespeare), plus some Shaw and Wilde. We also did Crime and Punishment and a wonderful French book called Le Grand Meaulnes, which I still give as a gift to bookish friends who haven't read it.

But my secondary education started in 1966, and it was O-levels, not GCSEs, and I was lucky enough to go to a school that had fantastic facilities for drama. And I'm still benefiting from that, it gave me a love of good writing that still gives me great pleasure nearly 50 years later.

Teaching it as a drama subject and teaching it in English are two completely different things. I stand by my assertion that Shakespeare is dull and its not the way it as taught as i had 4 or 5 different teachers over various plays up to a level and the plays were all boring whereas the teachers were generally pretty good. We probably studied two "modern" plays in all that time and one of those was early 1900s so not exactly modern.

Macbeth, midsummer night's dream, romeo and juliet, a winters tale, hamlet, and Othello i believe. The only one vaguely interesting was winters tale and that's just because someone gets chased by a bear.

I did English Lit at uni. I got little enjoyment from Shakespeare at school and uni and I avoided it as much as possible when choosing uni modules. The only play I really liked for years was As You Like It, which I had to read for LAMDA Bronze Medal Speech and Drama, aged 15 or so I think. I studied it by myself and really enjoyed it.

I had no issue with the language and the speeches, or the concepts of the plays, I just got bored in class at school as it was slow paced and a bit laboured in places. I enjoyed the lectures on the Shakespearean course at uni but disliked the "Shakespeare gets me wet" groupies at who pointedly over analysed every "thee" during seminars. I have always found Shakespeare readable and quotable and very good at capturing the human condition, but we seem to have a simultaneous hype and stigma around him on school syllabi. Just drop the "greatest writer everrrrr" guff and teach it- but only if you can do it well. He'll never appeal to everyone anyway- look at the marmite like response on this thread.

I'm also a Chaucerian so would love to see more of that on the curriculum, too.

Didn't Michael Gove do away with all foreign texts being studied at GCSE? I know that until recently Of Mice and Men was one of the preferred GCSE texts but now it has to be British. They all have to do a Shakespearean play (Macbeth, Julius Ceasar, Much Ado, R&J) a novel (DS did Lord of the Flies), a 19th century novel (Sign of Four) and fifteen plays!

Remove the defunct language and honestly tell me that you find Shakespeare's storylines either plausible or entertaining

Yes, I do find them entertaining. Clearly, you don’t, but fortunately you don’t speak for everyone. Why do I need to find them plausible? Is that a requirement?

Rather than address the mysogonist and racist elements of Shakespeare

Actually, you have no idea how I teach Shakespeare unless you are in one of my classes. In fact, we frequently discuss Shakespeare’s depiction of women and race, as well as exploring the evolution of concepts of racism and misogyny since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One of the requirements of the A Level specification is to explore the contexts in which texts are written and received and the changing critical views of Shakespeare over time. But I accept that that doesn’t suit your argument.

do you really believe that the history play Richard III is an accurate portrayal of the battle of Bosworth or do you suppose it may possibly be biased towards the Tudor granddaughter on the throne?

Er - thanks for pointing out the painfully obvious? Does anyone believe that a work of fiction by Shakespeare is intended to be an accurate portrayal of history? You do know that the fairies he depicts in A Midsummer Night’s Dream don’t exist either?

Actually address the work yourself

Oh thank you so much for the not at all patronising advice. I’m so confused over what I’ve been doing up to now, with an English Literature degree and over twenty years of experience teaching English Literature. Thank goodness I have you to set me straight.

Good grief, your insistence that just because you don’t like Shakespeare, no-one should is tragic.

I do think it's important to see Shakespeare performed. And performed well. I wasn't particularly keen on Henry IV part one which we did for o'level (which seemed to just involve reading it out loud in class). But in the sixth form I went with a friend to see an RSC production of Henry V and my god we were both completely blown away. Nothing on stage or screen has ever made such an impression on me as that performance. I saw the RSC perform whenever I could after that.

My ds who did Macbeth at KS3, gcse and a level wasn't particularly into it - until I took him to a production with James McEvoy in the lead. He talked about it lot after that.

I did pass o level English Lit but never really enjoyed Shakespeare.I have just gone through trying to get DS to revise Macbeth, including watching a film version, and I finally get it! I realise now how much Shakespeare added to the English language and how he was so ahead of his time.

Having to work out what is written completely takes the joy out of reading or watching it – for me anyway. That is why I dislike poetry. I just find it too pretentious. Then having to analyse what I have read further removes any pleasure I get from reading
.......having to pull everything to bits. It just turned into a joyless experience. What is wrong with just enjoying a good read at face value? I love reading. I have read trashy novels as well as most of the classics. I love Jane Austen, anything by the Bronte sisters, Wilkie Collins, a good crime drama, all the Game of Thrones series and Tolkein because I become completely absorbed into a good story. I also read a lot of non-fiction, but I still can’t get to grips with Shakespeare in any form

Yes! I've been a voracious reader since before I started school, and will read cereal packets or technical manuals if they're the only things around. The only things I won't read are poetry and Shakespeare. Or reread Watership Down, after having to analyse every paragraph of the most boring story I've ever come across, in the first year of secondary school.

However, there's nothing more guaranteed to kill the enjoyment of being immersed in a story than having to (over) analyse every sentence and nuance to meet some abstract marking criteria. As that's the only experience most people have of Shakespeare, it's no wonder so many are turned off it, myself included.