Shakespeare in Schools: Outdated or Simply Mistaught?

Mia Daniele // Blog Writer

At this point, it is no secret that William Shakespeare was the master of lowbrow comedy but, for reasons beyond every high school student, is exalted as the master of everything not comedy. In class, teenagers suffer through decrypting lessons for text too old to understand on its own, groaning when the teacher insists that Romeo and Juliet is undoubtedly the greatest romance to ever be unfolded on page. “There’s dick jokes right on the first page,” the students shout. “Why aren’t we talking about that?”

Admittedly, there is something fundamentally wrong about the way the education system tries to tackle those old plays. Most teachers cling to Romeo and Juliet as the go-to piece to study. Most of the times, this is because teachers unwittingly believe that teenage protagonists will make the play more interesting to the students they have to teach. Most students end up walking away with an unwarranted contempt towards a playwright they believe wrote nothing but outdated nonsense. Most of the time, they never come to appreciate the reasons why Shakespeare has lasted this long and why his works are required material for most literature classes.

Behind imagery patterns and cryptic iambic meters are stories which are perhaps more complex than much of the material that is produced today. True, most of his stories were not original ideas. They were adaptations of histories or standard storylines peasants exchanged over dinner. His characters are where he shines: complex, detailed creations whose personalities can never be fully encompassed in a single lecture. Anyone can tell a story about a prince whose father was murdered, but only Shakespeare will color him with depths capable of invoking countless scholarly essays well into the twenty-first century.

The stories of these characters are there on the text, yet despite the Elizabethan-to- English translation charts and No Fear Shakespeare, students often fail to grasp them. Teachers often blame it on the general disinterest of the reader. Theatre begs to differ.

Any actor in any Shakespearean show spends hours poring over every line, finding the right syllables to stress, the right motions to convey a point. It is said that Shakespeare can be understood by any audience member if the words are merely said in the right way. You might not walk away being able to quote it word for word, but you can understand the characters and their motivations in a way you wouldn’t be able to otherwise.

This is what the education system is missing—the performance in Shakespeare. If Shakespeare was taught less like a text and more like a performance piece, students would be a little more sympathetic with old Willy’s works. They could at least recite what the plot is and what the characters want. They don’t need the ages of the characters to make them relatable. They need the subtle timbre of voices, the gesticulations of a monologue.

Take the work to the stage where it belongs before wondering why no one understands why Shakespeare’s works are still living among the bookshelves of the local Barnes and Noble.