5 ms·

In addition, I think it's absurd for your first exposure to any of the plays to be reading it; so much of the dialog only makes sense when being spoken. The hom

In addition, I think it's absurd for your first exposure to any of the plays to be reading it; so much of the dialog only makes sense when being spoken. The homework assignments should never be "read Act I", it should be "watch the first 45 minutes of movie version <blah>". Even a disengaged viewer will get more out of watching it than having their first experience be reading it.

pishpash 8y ago
This is carried over from a pre-AV time when books were the only media you had. The curriculum just needs to be updated (and probably has been, in many places).
pavel_lishin 8y ago
I don't think we ever had reading homework of Shakespeare; I suspect our teachers knew it would never happen. Instead, we read aloud in class, sometimes rotating roles in class to make sure everyone got a turn to speak. (Naturally, this didn't do any favors for anyone, except when someone got to exclaim "BRING ME MY LONG SWORD, HOE!" in class.)
- khedoros1 8y ago
  I remember that exact moment in class. Ms. Zank smirked just a bit because she knew how the student was going to read that line. Then we had a nice class discussion about how it was more similar to a cry of "land ho!" or some such.
a-priori 8y ago
When I was in school we were never assigned reading Shakespeare as homework, it was always done by reading it out loud in class, rotating parts every several lines, with the teacher interjecting whenever something needed to be explained.
- sametmax 8y ago
  Hearing a kid struggling to read Shakespeare is even worst that reading it in your head. Acting is hard. But most kids can't even read out loud a newspaper add decently.
  - tropo 8y ago
    This is a reason to read it out loud. Reading difficulties are going undiagnosed because teachers seldom hear students read, especially past the first couple years. Even in the more advanced tracks (ability levels), many students are unable to smoothly read with proper phrasing. It really is torture to listen to some people read.
    - sametmax 8y ago
      That's my point: don't use Shakespeare for that. Use something simple and agreeable, even if you read it in a terrible way. Read video game news, celebrity gossip, science development, sport results, etc.
    - pavel_lishin 8y ago
      I never thought about reading out loud as a diagnostic method. Dang.
  - petecox 8y ago
    Ben notes in the (second) extended video that perhaps 80% of Elizabethans were illiterate and that plays are to be performed, not read. He'd prefer that Shakespeare be introduced first by the drama department in early secondary school so that kids as young as 13 or 15 could perform Romeo and Juliet at their intended character ages - thus bringing the work to life. And that only once they've experienced the energy of performance that later in final years of 16-17 should they study it formally in English Literature classes.
    - dmix 8y ago
      Interesting, that sounds like the perfect solution to above problem. This reminds me of reading I needed to learn C++ to make games back in the early 2000s, because that was what all games were made with. I probably missed 3-4yrs of programming exposure because I found C++ so impenetrable from the local library books I got on the subject. Working from appreciation of the subject matter, to a light introduction to the inner workings, to the hairy details of how it was all put together seems to be the ideal approach. Although this analogy may be a bit more niche and involved, the idea of being forced to read Shakespeare at a young age before being able to really appreciate the plays in production, with all of it's subtleties, seems comparable to attempting to pushing their heads into C++ before they appreciate the basic mechanics of game construction.
VoodooJuJu 8y ago
Shakespeare is most effectively taught, not just by speaking it, but also with acting - they are plays after all. The poetry suggests action, and I think it really helps to understand a character or scene if you're physically submitting yourself to the emotion of the dialogue.
- sametmax 8y ago
  Yeah but teachers don't have the time to train 30 impatient and still incompetent youngsters to the art of acting in the few hours they get. Without at least a year of practice (and even then...), the results will be atrocious, humiliating even, and the students will be even less convinced. You should not study Shakespeare in school, it needs a lot of things to be appreciated, and hence it's a terrible material given the school constraints.
sandworm101 8y ago
At my highschool we read all of Shakespeare plays. Not one paragraph a class. Not one play a year. We did a play in a week or two. We also had reading lists for summer and Christmas breaks. We were expected to read constantly. Reading is good. Forcing kids to read something they don't like, or perhaps do not fully understand, is good for them. Being able to sit down and read a hundred pages is the more useful thing anyone can get from school. And it is the thing that is least taught in modern schools.
- delecti 8y ago
  If your goal is simply to use the plays as a whip the students self-flagellate with until they can tolerate joyless reading, there are probably other texts better suited for the purpose. If your goal is to teach Shakespeare, the students will likely not develop an appreciation or an understanding of the significance of the plays by simply reading them.
  - sandworm101 8y ago
    The literal "old school" goal was to indoctrinate kids with a standard background in English literature, a common knowledge, to allow them to better communicate amongst peers of similar backgrounds. The start of this is a grounding in words like Shakespeare. In the past it would have also included the bible. Someone can read a play and not understand it. That happens. But to understand a work you first have to at least read it. Watching can be a poor substitute, but good luck finding any modern production that performs an entire Shakespeare piece. Most everything on modern stages is heavily edited for time.
    - pmyteh 8y ago
      It's pretty strongly believed that they were cut in Shakespeare's day too. Something to do with limited legal opening hours and other things that had to go in the programme meaning there simply wouldn't have been time. I have also been told that the reason Macbeth is so short is that it was probably transcribed from the working (cut) copy of the play rather than the original draft.
sametmax 8y ago
Yeah, I remember hating Ruy Blas for the entire year. Then we got forced to see it in a play. It was nice. When you read it, most people follow the lexical rhythm. It makes not sense. You are supposed to speak naturally, with the emotion and speed matching the context. But again, I never had any teachers remotely good enough to realize that and do anything about it. On key problem is that you need to be really good to be a decent teacher, and after sampling 11 schools because of my father's work, probably encountered 2 teachers that had the skills and cared enough.
booleandilemma 8y ago
I had a cool english teacher in high school and he let us watch the movie Romeo + Juliet :) https://imdb.com/title/tt0117509/ https://imdb.com/title/tt0117509/
- crooked-v 8y ago
  Same here. That's still my favorite adaptation of the work, given the amount of work that went into making it stylistically modern while still fitting the original lines.
  - caf 8y ago
    I think I'll always now imagine the Prince as a police commissioner shouting through a megaphone from a helicopter.

pishpash 8y ago

This is carried over from a pre-AV time when books were the only media you had. The curriculum just needs to be updated (and probably has been, in many places).

pavel_lishin 8y ago

I don't think we ever had reading homework of Shakespeare; I suspect our teachers knew it would never happen. Instead, we read aloud in class, sometimes rotating roles in class to make sure everyone got a turn to speak. (Naturally, this didn't do any favors for anyone, except when someone got to exclaim "BRING ME MY LONG SWORD, HOE!" in class.)

khedoros1 8y ago
I remember that exact moment in class. Ms. Zank smirked just a bit because she knew how the student was going to read that line. Then we had a nice class discussion about how it was more similar to a cry of "land ho!" or some such.

a-priori 8y ago

When I was in school we were never assigned reading Shakespeare as homework, it was always done by reading it out loud in class, rotating parts every several lines, with the teacher interjecting whenever something needed to be explained.

sametmax 8y ago
Hearing a kid struggling to read Shakespeare is even worst that reading it in your head. Acting is hard. But most kids can't even read out loud a newspaper add decently.
- tropo 8y ago
  This is a reason to read it out loud. Reading difficulties are going undiagnosed because teachers seldom hear students read, especially past the first couple years. Even in the more advanced tracks (ability levels), many students are unable to smoothly read with proper phrasing. It really is torture to listen to some people read.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    That's my point: don't use Shakespeare for that. Use something simple and agreeable, even if you read it in a terrible way. Read video game news, celebrity gossip, science development, sport results, etc.
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    I never thought about reading out loud as a diagnostic method. Dang.
- petecox 8y ago
  Ben notes in the (second) extended video that perhaps 80% of Elizabethans were illiterate and that plays are to be performed, not read. He'd prefer that Shakespeare be introduced first by the drama department in early secondary school so that kids as young as 13 or 15 could perform Romeo and Juliet at their intended character ages - thus bringing the work to life. And that only once they've experienced the energy of performance that later in final years of 16-17 should they study it formally in English Literature classes.
  - dmix 8y ago
    Interesting, that sounds like the perfect solution to above problem. This reminds me of reading I needed to learn C++ to make games back in the early 2000s, because that was what all games were made with. I probably missed 3-4yrs of programming exposure because I found C++ so impenetrable from the local library books I got on the subject. Working from appreciation of the subject matter, to a light introduction to the inner workings, to the hairy details of how it was all put together seems to be the ideal approach. Although this analogy may be a bit more niche and involved, the idea of being forced to read Shakespeare at a young age before being able to really appreciate the plays in production, with all of it's subtleties, seems comparable to attempting to pushing their heads into C++ before they appreciate the basic mechanics of game construction.

VoodooJuJu 8y ago

Shakespeare is most effectively taught, not just by speaking it, but also with acting - they are plays after all. The poetry suggests action, and I think it really helps to understand a character or scene if you're physically submitting yourself to the emotion of the dialogue.

sametmax 8y ago
Yeah but teachers don't have the time to train 30 impatient and still incompetent youngsters to the art of acting in the few hours they get. Without at least a year of practice (and even then...), the results will be atrocious, humiliating even, and the students will be even less convinced. You should not study Shakespeare in school, it needs a lot of things to be appreciated, and hence it's a terrible material given the school constraints.

sandworm101 8y ago

At my highschool we read all of Shakespeare plays. Not one paragraph a class. Not one play a year. We did a play in a week or two. We also had reading lists for summer and Christmas breaks. We were expected to read constantly. Reading is good. Forcing kids to read something they don't like, or perhaps do not fully understand, is good for them. Being able to sit down and read a hundred pages is the more useful thing anyone can get from school. And it is the thing that is least taught in modern schools.

delecti 8y ago
If your goal is simply to use the plays as a whip the students self-flagellate with until they can tolerate joyless reading, there are probably other texts better suited for the purpose. If your goal is to teach Shakespeare, the students will likely not develop an appreciation or an understanding of the significance of the plays by simply reading them.
- sandworm101 8y ago
  The literal "old school" goal was to indoctrinate kids with a standard background in English literature, a common knowledge, to allow them to better communicate amongst peers of similar backgrounds. The start of this is a grounding in words like Shakespeare. In the past it would have also included the bible. Someone can read a play and not understand it. That happens. But to understand a work you first have to at least read it. Watching can be a poor substitute, but good luck finding any modern production that performs an entire Shakespeare piece. Most everything on modern stages is heavily edited for time.
  - pmyteh 8y ago
    It's pretty strongly believed that they were cut in Shakespeare's day too. Something to do with limited legal opening hours and other things that had to go in the programme meaning there simply wouldn't have been time. I have also been told that the reason Macbeth is so short is that it was probably transcribed from the working (cut) copy of the play rather than the original draft.

sametmax 8y ago

Yeah, I remember hating Ruy Blas for the entire year. Then we got forced to see it in a play. It was nice. When you read it, most people follow the lexical rhythm. It makes not sense. You are supposed to speak naturally, with the emotion and speed matching the context. But again, I never had any teachers remotely good enough to realize that and do anything about it. On key problem is that you need to be really good to be a decent teacher, and after sampling 11 schools because of my father's work, probably encountered 2 teachers that had the skills and cared enough.

booleandilemma 8y ago

I had a cool english teacher in high school and he let us watch the movie Romeo + Juliet :) https://imdb.com/title/tt0117509/ https://imdb.com/title/tt0117509/

crooked-v 8y ago
Same here. That's still my favorite adaptation of the work, given the amount of work that went into making it stylistically modern while still fitting the original lines.
- caf 8y ago
  I think I'll always now imagine the Prince as a police commissioner shouting through a megaphone from a helicopter.