While on the phone, Andrew and I spoke mostly about the teaching of Shakespeare in primary schools (I think Americans call it primary school too? grade 1-6 is primary school), as that is what he does during the week. He also teaches at a community theatre program for children on Saturdays. My little sister used to go to it a few years ago too.
What I tried to offer to the conversation was my interpretation of how Shakespeare has effected me this semester alone. While the text is often difficult, there are so many resources that help to understand and interpret the meaning of such language. Andrew is a strong believer that even children at the age of 8 can read Shakespeare and it can be just as compelling and understandable as Harry Potter.
I shared with Andrew my experience of reading the Tempest and how it was difficult for me to enjoy reading The Tempest when a lot my classmates enjoyed it more-so over The Winter's Tale. However, after seeing it on stage over the weekend, my mind opened up to the magical elements and the relationship of characters. Seeing it on stage, everything became much clearer and less wordy for me. I mean Shakespeare was meant to be seen and not read right?
Andrew also told me how he once taught The Tempest to a group of 14 year olds in high school. Instead of keeping the names of Miranda, Caliban etc, they changed them all to names from Harry Potter so that they could more easily identify with the characters and 'act' out a couple scenes with Hermione in mind for Miranda and Albus Dumbledore as Prospero.
Haha, that's interesting about putting in Harry Potter character names. I've thought about the relationship between Shakespeare plays and other movies, books, etc., but never literally just replacing the character names and seeing what happens.
ReplyDeleteWhat about the adult themes in Shakespeare's plays? I think that's one thing that prevents it from being taught at a younger age. For Julius Caesar, my individual play, a lot of commentary I read said that Julius Caesar was often read in high schools because there's no sex in it. And if that's for high school, I would imagine for elementary school and middle school there's even stricter criteria.
P.S.: And by the way, I think "primary school" is sorta common here, but much more common is "elementary school."