... 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?

@iamthere123 I can assure you that when I teach Macbeth, we go large on the Porter scene & the dick jokes!

It's a fascinating scene anyway - Shakespeare's nod to the mediaeval morality plays & their stock characters - & yes it's v rude (so guaranteed to entertain teenagers) but also very dark.

Not just funny ha ha bawdiness for the groundlings - it's full of references to hell, & an uneasy sort of humour because we know the murder is minutes from being discovered...creepy stuff.

I can't understand why anyone can deny the sheer importance of Shakespeare. Any of his plays can be taught to any level, to the poster who suggested it was an easy ride for teachers, you clearly have no idea the energy and research it takes to teach any of his work.

It is Not difficult and originally accessed by illiterate people who went to 'hear; his plays. Theres not one single other writer in English who advanced language ( though Milton equally coined a lot of our sayings and words )or used such inventive ways to express universalities. There is a reason why he has lasted and is in continual production for400 years.

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

Yes!! English teachers acted like every single detail in a piece of literature had some deeper philosophical or political meaning... "The blue curtains symbolise the protagonist's yearning for freedom and her battle with depression."

Well, maybe the author just imagined blue curtains...

People who say that they like Shakespeare only say it to sound intellectual.

There are plenty of other texts available.

This above is one of the worse generalisations I have ever heard. You are not studying 'texts, you are studying English including a wide range and the history of genre and language. Lots of people get pleasure form delving into language analysis and allusions and enjoy the intellectual element. I see Shakespeare as a guide book for life, I cannot think of one situation I have ever been in which he has not explored, politically, emotionally etc. Some things take effort.

I tell you what put me off English at school - Jane sodding Eyre. Pages and pages of her tramping across some moor whinging. And our school was in Keighley (very near Haworth) so we should have been very engaged in it all the moor tramping.

Shakespeare was bliss compared to this.

believes that schools should balance life skills with academics

It does already?

Is it true? My sister was arguing that there are kids leaving school unable to read, feed themselves with healthy food, manage a household budget... so why are we bothering them with English literature or algebra? Maybe that is the brutal truth but I guess maybe I am more idealistic and believe that the vast majority can get something out of the more academic aspects of education. Once she'd finished accusing me of being an intellectual snob, she then moved on to accusing me of being a fantasist.

English teachers acted like every single detail in a piece of literature had some deeper philosophical or political meaning

But if you don’t learn that sometimes the details in literature do have a deeper meaning then you are going to miss out on an awful lot of things in life. Any film you watch, book you read, song you listen to, you’ll miss the references, the chance for things to resonate, the points the author is trying to make.

Look at the new Childish Gambino video currently taking over the internet. Look at the amount of analysis going on of the points it makes about gun violence in America. Where do those analysis skills come from?

Which plays have you read/seen Illustrious - and what didn't you like about them?

Crikey, most of them over the years I think. Some of the modern adaptations are OK, but we're talking about it being "taught in schools".

I find it amazing that my kids learnt the same books/plays as I did and my parents before me - there are so many other books out there, but you'd never know that from looking at the curriculum from the past 50 years...

@noblegiraffe

I do understand that. I received an A* for English Lit & Lang at GCSE. I'm certainly able to use those skills (did not go on to study past AS level though). It just seemed like overkill sometimes, you know?

I could imagine if I were to write a book, and there was a scene with two children talking through a hedge at the bottom of the garden, someone would theorise that it implies a societal barrier or an isolation or something to that effect, when really I just like the idea when I picture it in my head iyswim?

My sister was arguing that there are kids leaving school unable to read, feed themselves with healthy food, manage a household budget... so why are we bothering them with English literature or algebra?

If they leave school unable to feed themselves with healthy food then they have closed their ears in an awful lot of of PSHE lessons, food tech lessons, assemblies.
Unable to read - well that’s unacceptable but schools do actually try to teach kids to read.
Manage a household budget - hard to do as an entirely theoretical exercise but they are taught some aspects of personal finance in PSHE.

For students that really struggle, there are courses like ASDAN that try to fill the gaps.

However there are plenty of parents out there who are willing and able to take on their parenting responsibilities so I don’t think the entire enterprise should be outsourced to schools just in case.

"The hedge is a motif which demonstrates the themes of..."

Hold your horses, it's just a hedge. It was a completely random choice.

Uyulala There’s the argument that the author’s interpretation of their own work is simply one opinion!

I live in Canada, not the UK, but in my province (education is regulated provincially) we do Shakespeare in high school. High school English has two streams, 10-1, 20-1, 30-1 (academic; required for most universities) and 10-2, 20-2, 30-2 (non-academic). When I was in high school, students in the academic stream (including me) studied one Shakespeare play ever year, specifically "The Merchant of Venice", "Macebeth", and "Hamlet". Students in the non-academic stream studied two plays, starting in Grade 11 (20-2), "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Romeo and Juliet". I believe this has been the case for many years. My parents remembered studying Shakespeare in high school. Mom studied the same ones as me (interesting, given that she actually went to high school in a different province) and Dad studied "The Merchant of Venice", "Hamlet", and "King Lear". I was homeschooled, so Mom also had me study "Twelfth Night" in Grade 8.

I don’t like the notion that some kids are a bit thick and so couldn’t possibly have their soul stirred by the best of humanity’s thinkers.

There’s the argument that the author’s interpretation of their own work is simply one opinion!

Tbh, as the creator of the work, I would always view the author's interpretation or intentions to be the "correct" ones. They alone know why they chose a certain name or colour or symbol, why they structured their work a certain way, the meaning behind the metaphors they chose.

All anybody else can do is project their own ideas onto the author's work, but that doesn't mean that's what the author meant.

Lots of stuff (esp in maths) is taught because people going on further in the subject will need it. That is not unique to Eng Lit at all.

I mean for example I did Maths O level 35 a few years ago and I have never had to solve a simultaneous equation since the exam. But I'm sure people who did A level and beyond have.

Shakespeare has to be a bit more rewarding than Frankenstein or Great Expectations though

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit this, but I have never been able to get through a whole Dickens novel. Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Wilkie Collins, George Eliot - bloody love them, but Dickens makes me lose the will to live.

All anybody else can do is project their own ideas onto the author's work, but that doesn't mean that's what the author meant.

I was like this at school - I did GCSE music and I was all ‘maybe Beethoven didn’t change key here to increase tension, maybe he just thought it sounded nice’.
What I didn’t realise at the time was that the best composers, the best authors did put this stuff in deliberately. They didn’t just compose a nice ditty that happened to become world famous, they were technically skilled and employed those skills in order to achieve certain aims.

I read a book by Diana Wynne Jones about the process of writing, and it was eye-opening the amount of thought, care and planning that went into her novels - even children’s books. She was taught by Tolkien and talks a bit about things like the use of water in Lord of the Rings. Now, we, the casual reader may be completely oblivious to the fine detail but emotions are evoked by the imagery and words used regardless.

It could be argued that you, the author, didn’t deliberately place the hedge between the children, but subconsciously, the place that you were in with that bit of the novel meant that the hedge felt right because of the social barrier.

There can also be more than one interpretation of the same piece of text/art, and as long as it can be supported, then why not?

I don’t like the notion that some kids are a bit thick and so couldn’t possibly have their soul stirred by the best of humanity’s thinkers.

I think you may be an out of touch idealist like me, @noblegiraffe.

My dd is studying Romeo and Juliet for GCSE. She's not a genius but found it fine. She said that many in her set found it very hard because they couldn't work out stuff like o'er means over etc. since studying it, she has noticed how often the theme of star-crossed lovers appear in songs and movies and we still use Romeo to describe a certain type of man.

I think there's little point teaching lower sets to read Shakespeare.

There can also be more than one interpretation of the same piece of text/art, and as long as it can be supported, then why not?

Yes, of course. I may look at an abstract piece of art and think see thunderstorms, someone else sees a raging ocean, someone else space. Their interpretation is valid as it evokes those feelings/ideas in them... But, what the artist intended is still what I would call the correct interpretation. Some artists deliberately make their work ambiguous, and want people to out their own interpretations onto it though. But if I have "fireworks" in my mind and I show it to a friend and they say "aeroplane crash" - I would still say that actually that's not what it is.

And I simply disagree that all great artists plan every single detail. I could write a load of crap and students could still find evidence to support a deeper meaning somewhere.

By "fireworks", I mean if I've created a work of art around that idea/concept, or intended for something to be fireworks.

Generally a load of crap doesn’t make it onto the syllabus as it has to get past experts first.

it could be argued that you, the author, didn’t deliberately place the hedge between the children, but subconsciously, the place that you were in with that bit of the novel meant that the hedge felt right because of the social barrier.

It could be argued that way, absolutely. That doesn't make it true. That's the reader's interpretation of why I used a hedge, because they are adamant that it must mean something. Not everything does.