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Should Shakespeare still be taught in school?

Should Shakespeare still be taught in school?

  • Total voters
    42
  • Poll closed .
Anglo-scot said:
I'd agree that at one fell swoop, there has been a sea change in attitudes to Shakespeare. We can no longer expect modern youth to be exceedingly well read. Ultimately, there's no rhyme nor reason why Shakespeare should be taught forever and a day, and it's high time things changed. I say good riddance to Shakespeare.
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Yes. We absolutely can expect our youth to be well read. What exactly does it solve to lower the expectation of our youth? Given the resources available we should expect more of our youths today than past generations.
 
Kreton said:
Yes. We absolutely can expect our youth to be well read. What exactly does it solve to lower the expectation of our youth? Given the resources available we should expect more of our youths today than past generations.
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Forsooth, a late-arriving riposte! The milk of human kindness is flowing in me today so I suggest you read the remainder of the thread and revisit your point here, as you may wish to adopt a different angle.
 
Anglo-scot said:
Forsooth, a late-arriving riposte! The milk of human kindness is flowing in me today so I suggest you read the remainder of the thread and revisit your point here, as you may wish to adopt a different angle.
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No need to adopt a different angle. I like my point as it is.
 
Kreton said:
No need to adopt a different angle. I like my point as it is.
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The point was my posts were all in jest - while seemingly knocking Shakespeare, each of my sentences had a Shakespearean idiom. The others twigged after a while.
 
SlevinKelevra said:
Inspired by this:

Do students really need Shakespeare in 2015?: Red/Blue America | PennLive.com


:roll:
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Yes. Even as some might find the writing challenging, it compels students to learn to understand what is written (a useful skill when dealing with cross-cultural management in today's global economy). Moreover, the depth and development of Shakespeare's characters and plots provides rich and important insight into human nature, human behavior, etc. In short, sometimes the most valuable lessons or most valuable assignments aren't the easiest ones or even superficially relevant ones.
 
If the goal is to get young people to read, write and communicate with clarity, forcing Shakespeare on them may not be the best route.
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exposure to a work by shakespeare would not seem to be an issue
a steady diet of shakespeare would. there are too many wonderfully written books that have appeared since his time to focus on the bard's work while ignoring others
but then, while i loved to read, i hated english class
 
Yes!

He's a bit dry, but a necessary read imo, the guy's one of the greatest writers in the history of the western world, a timeless man. This is a western nation, his legacy is of paramount importance -- everyone in this country should read at least one of his works. This whining about the classics annoys me, though it's not like I didn't do my fair share of it when I had just started my high school years (not that long ago by any means).

I hated Macbeth though.
 
Van Basten said:
Yes!

He's a bit dry, but a necessary read imo, the guy's one of the greatest writers in the history of the western world, a timeless man. This is a western nation, his legacy is of paramount importance -- everyone in this country should read at least one of his works. This whining about the classics annoys me, though it's not like I didn't do my fair share of it when I had just started my high school years (not that long ago by any means).

I hated Macbeth though.
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We gave up Macbeth at school because the teacher lost interest - it was totally her decision! I look back now and wonder how she got away with it.

On the other hand, I loved Julius Caesar, especially seeing it live. Boy's action. Good for 15 year olds.

Midsummer Night's Dream was weird at school and I am not sure I have got over it.

Teachers should grade their teaching material cautiously and use techniques for teaching foreign languages to make appreciation of Shakespeare achievable at a reasonable level for children.
 
I think we should continue with Shakespeare...it invokes thought and it inspires writers. I remember a overnight field trip to Stratford Canada and saw MacBeth and it made me fan of Theater today. It opened a door.
 
Considering in 50-100 years half the country will be speaking some bad version of Spanish or Chinese and the other half will probably be behind a wall with a massive police state, something tells me whether Shakespeare is taught or not is largely irrelevant. Things are on a course now that cannot be stopped in any respect.
 
Ryan5 said:
Considering in 50-100 years half the country will be speaking some bad version of Spanish or Chinese and the other half will probably be behind a wall, something tells me whether Shakespeare is taught or not is largely irrelevant. Things are on a course now that cannot be stopped in any respect.
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Takes on similar stories come all the same as we are forced to read translations of ancient nearly foreign texts (Beowulf, for example).

Hardly irrelevant.
 
Fiddytree said:
Takes on similar stories come all the same as we are forced to read translations of ancient nearly foreign texts (Beowulf, for example).

Hardly irrelevant.
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We're in the land of the Asiatic Amerindian good sir. This is not Europe. And most English racially are merely lost Germanics. Beowulf is not foreign at all to the European American (American is such a futile term racially as it means nothing, European American is more accurate).
 
Ryan5 said:
We're in the land of the Asiatic Amerindian good sir. This is not Europe. And most English racially are merely lost Germanics. Beowulf is not foreign at all to the European American (American is such a futile term racially as it means nothing, European American is more accurate).
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Perhaps it's more productive to look at the issue in terms of culture rather than ethnicity. No-one would dispute that English culture and German culture are significantly different, despite our peoples sharing some common ethnicity.

I've not heard of a substantial movement in the USA to shift its cultural foundation from European culture to native American culture. I'd be interested to know how you get on with that!

The other way to look at it is that, whatever we think of our cultural history, it's ours and it's part of us. In order to be serious about moving on from our history, and shift direction (a slow process), we need to understand where we have come from first.

Whenever we write on this forum in English and discuss common cultural references and ideas, often subconsciously, we are standing on the shoulders of literary giants of history, such as Shakespeare and Twain. My game of throwing in lots of Shakespearean idioms which are still in common usage today was intended to demonstrate that.

The issue today is that celebrity culture and widespread rejection of authority means that we all too often take our history and culture for granted and disparage it without any serious proposals for what should take its place. A serious radical espousing your views would know Shakespeare very well as part of a (more) credible plan for shifting the USA's cultural focus. If someone did that and gained a mandate from the US people, then more power to their elbow - that's what freedom is there for.
 
Ahh...Shakespeare.

Most people that go to Shakespeare plays for the first time understand about 30-50% of the language. Children will probably understand even less.

It's silly to teach something that most will not even understand.

Especially with the GIGANTIC amounts of social media/internet sources, almost anyone in the West can see just about any Shakespeare play on their phones whenever they wish...what on Earth is the point of teaching it to children? Just go to YouTube and most (if not all) of them are there for free. And the written text is also easy to find...it's called Google.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Shakespere+play

If it's a private school? Knock yourselves out...it's private money so they can teach (within reason) whatever they wish.

But public schools wasting tax dollars to teach children plays that will be only partially understandable when these same students can barely do math or have a clue where most countries are on a map is just that...a waste.

U.S. students improving in math and science, but still lag internationally | Pew Research Center

Make sure students have the basics down pat and to a world standard and then start teaching them non-essentials that they can learn on their own, any time they want and for free (off of the web).
 
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Ryan5 said:
We in America have Australian white women coming to America at 16 years old having dropped out of HS to become and emulate black American rappers and you seriously think "Shakespeare" holds any weight at all in our world today?
MFNt2iT.jpg


Iggy Azalea’s post-racial mess: America’s oldest race tale, remixed - Salon.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iggy_Azalea
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To be fair, the Ozzies are all a bunch of convicts anyway. Maybe it's not so surprising they come to another country and emulate the convicts there.

:D
 
DA60 said:
Ahh...Shakespeare.

Most people that go to Shakespeare plays for the first time understand about 30-50% of the language. Children will probably understand even less.

It's silly to teach something that most will not even understand.

Especially with the GIGANTIC amounts of social media/internet sources, almost anyone in the West can see just about any Shakespeare play on their phones whenever they wish...what on Earth is the point of teaching it to children? Just go to YouTube and most (if not all) of them are there for free. And the written text is also easy to find...it's called Google.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Shakespere+play

If it's a private school? Knock yourselves out...it's private money so they can teach (within reason) whatever they wish.

But public schools wasting tax dollars to teach children plays that will be only partially understandable when these same students can barely do math or have a clue where most countries are on a map is just that...a waste.

U.S. students improving in math and science, but still lag internationally | Pew Research Center

Make sure students have the basics down pat and to a world standard and then start teaching them non-essentials that they can learn on their own, any time they want and for free (off of the web).
Click to expand...

Perhaps instead of assuming children won't be able to understand it, we should perhaps use it to challenge students? I didn't find it all that hard to understand. It really isn't that difficult, especially not for high school, which is usually where we see it taught.
 
DA60 said:
Ahh...Shakespeare.

Most people that go to Shakespeare plays for the first time understand about 30-50% of the language. Children will probably understand even less.

It's silly to teach something that most will not even understand.

Especially with the GIGANTIC amounts of social media/internet sources, almost anyone in the West can see just about any Shakespeare play on their phones whenever they wish...what on Earth is the point of teaching it to children? Just go to YouTube and most (if not all) of them are there for free. And the written text is also easy to find...it's called Google.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Shakespere+play

If it's a private school? Knock yourselves out...it's private money so they can teach (within reason) whatever they wish.

But public schools wasting tax dollars to teach children plays that will be only partially understandable when these same students can barely do math or have a clue where most countries are on a map is just that...a waste.

U.S. students improving in math and science, but still lag internationally | Pew Research Center

Make sure students have the basics down pat and to a world standard and then start teaching them non-essentials that they can learn on their own, any time they want and for free (off of the web).
Click to expand...

The logic of your post is that English teachers are too rubbish to teach Shakespeare. Perhaps some are, but it's not inherently unteachable. You could say similar stuff about foreign languages or physics. If kids come away from lessons having understood little and engoyed it even less, that's a teaching problem.
 
ABSOLUTELY !!
We have yet to do things better than William Shakespeare , and we may never ..
No vote as I did not see any positive options/selections .
 
Goshin said:
Of course. It is part of the heritage of Western Civilization. They should not only read Shakespeare, they should watch first-rank productions of his plays on video, like Kenneth Brannagh's Henry V, Polanski's MacBeth and Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet.

The language may be dated but there is timeless wisdom about the human condition in his plays.

Even some of the modernized versions, like the DeCaprio version of Romeo and Juliet, have virtue as a decendent of that legacy.


Kids need more than Xbox and SpongeBob to be acculturated adults.
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I would have them read ROMEO AND JULIET and then watch WESTSIDE STORY to show them that the themes and characters are timeless.
 
SlevinKelevra said:
Inspired by this:

Do students really need Shakespeare in 2015?: Red/Blue America | PennLive.com


:roll:
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The only reason I put maybe was because I think there are other fantastic Western/English authors that could be rotated in. At my school they substituted Shakespeare for the Junior and Senior classes for two years with Geoffrey Chaucer, Daniel Defoe, Tolkiens translation of Beowulf, and some other more modern authors. It was a cool experiment and was based on the idea that Shakespeare is 'overdone' at the expense of numerous other others and it reduces our literary heritage to one man.
 
haymarket said:
I would have them read ROMEO AND JULIET and then watch WESTSIDE STORY to show them that the themes and characters are timeless.
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Yes! Excellent point.
 
Of course but only as an elective portion of required English.
 
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