Where do you think work ethic is taught? While there should be classes on “being an adult” somewhere, it’s not the universities fault for not having it. A lot of that was taught in High School when I was that age, before the focus shifted to math and science for the standardized tests. With the conservative take over of lots of school boards that’s probably for the best, can you imagine the Civics text books coming out of Texas? Do you think there is enough young people who are smart enough to realize the value of such a course? If so, there’s your million dollar idea.
You had shitty teachers. Granted, getting kids excited about theatre careers is pretty close to child abuse, but the world needs wait staff too… Or did in the before times.
they seemed fine when they weren’t assigning dumb plays from the 14th century written in an impenetrable ancient dialect of English.
High school is the perfect time to start reading Shakespeare. But it could be taught a lot better, way too much emphasis on plot. It would almost be better not to teach a whole play and just teach a few major speeches from it.
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Chaucer isn’t Shakespeare.
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If they were any good they would have taught how stupid it was to make statements starting with “no high school student…”
Every kid should read The Miller’s Tale.
How many of you would have considered yourselves typical students?
No bro they taught me how to hyperbole
LMAO, you know you get no leeway when you say stupid shit on the literalnet. Yeah, we get it, you didn’t like Shakespeare, if High School only focused on what students liked it would be about junk food, gossip, and masturbation.
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Obviously we were all above average, like everyone else.
I liked Chaucer, although I’m guessing we weren’t reading it in the original Middle English.
What are the cool kids using now?
Around here that’s likely true, but I’d expect above average intellects to appreciate that their personal experiences with classic literature may not apply very well to the general population.
Only focus on what students like? lol? Obviously I’m not saying that, but the stuff that is assigned should at least be somewhat accessible and enjoyable to many of the students. The important thing is to get students reading and writing about what they read. But you go to an 11th grade literature class and there will be more works assigned from 300+ years ago than from the last 20 years. Madness.
No, it is more important to teach children that reading is a tedious chore with lessons they will struggle to apply to their own lives.
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Maybe lit textbooks are cheaper if they mainly contain works in the public domain.
I’m enjoying this derail, but maybe it should be broken off into a new thread?
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I think the optimal solution is having both available. You can teach the more accessible stuff to most of the kids and have classes with Chaucer and such for the more intelligent and motivated ones who have an interest in it.
Which kind of invites the question, why do they need to read the screenplay? Shakespeare is actually two problems: the archaic language and setting, and the fact that it’s a play, not meant to be read like it’s a novel.
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