When our kids study history they’ll no doubt hear about great works of art throughout the centuries – the Mona Lisa, the Sistine Chapel, the statue of David. It’s a fairly safe bet that most students, regardless of what they are studying, will be exposed to these works are part of their general education, yes?
At what point do we start quizzing them on the kind of brush strokes that were used, and why? Or the political and economic climate at the time they were created?
If you’re a student of art history, then sure. if you’re destined to become an artist yourself, then absolutely. But for the most part, isn’t it important to understand that these great pieces exist, have a little bit of an idea about who created them and how and why they came into existence? Do we really need to analyze them into the ground from the moment we expose our kids to them?
You see where I’m going with this, right? How come we make them dissect Shakespeare until they hate it, then? A great deal of their education in this arena goes strictly to the items I mentioned, no doubt – understanding its existence and some concept of why it is important and how it came to be. Fair enough. But I monitor homework question sites. Most of the questions are of the “Compare and contrast the themes that Shakespeare expresses through specific use of anaphora in the following scenes and cite examples…..” blah blah blah.
Am I making a mountain out of a molehill on this one? I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Shakespeare as a lesson in history, rather than in literature, and this is the idea that struck me this morning. Should we teach Shakespeare as part of history class?

[Argh, I hate this client, it eats my posts and I never know until somebody tells me.]
I think everybody remembers that dreaded day this summer when Sarah Palin didn’t know how to spell repudiate, and the world exploded. Trust me, I remember it well, I was on vacation and woke up to about 10,000 messages telling me that Palin had compared herself to Shakespeare. A book even came out of all the ShakesPalinisms that were spawned.
I would happily forget the whole thing. Except that the New Oxford American Dictionary has made her nonsense word the Word Of The Year, thus continuing to demonstrate the uselessness of dictionaries. I’ll leave it to Saturday Night Live’s Seth Meyers to eviscerate her, and them, the right way.

I don’t know what Prezi is, exactly, but I like the idea behind this presentation on Shakespeare’s Biography. It’s as if someone laid out a whole bunch of index cards on a big screen, some text, some graphics, and then played connect the dots with them. The player/browser walks you through the cards in the intended sequence, but be sure to click the X inside a circle (next to the Play button) which will bring up the entire map at once and yet you jump around.
I’m not linking this for the quality of the Shakespeare info. It’s ok, and even covers some info that’s often overlooked (like the deer-poaching story, or the fact that when people speak of Shakespeare “inventing” words, that doesn’t really mean what you think it means). But it’s also pretty light on everything else, and never really mentions any plays at all, just timeline stuff.
What’s interesting to me is the potential for something like this. Play with it first, so we can discuss it. Got it? Ok, good.
Imagine this thing on an iPad. You’re using your fingers, getting in there and driving your way around Shakespeare’s life. Now like I said, this particular sample is pretty shallow – but imagine a really deep one that went into all the plays? Or even better something that had a certain amount of wiki to it, where people could continually comment and add ideas? It’s easy to write one sentence that says “Shakespeare had twins Judith and Hamnet, and Hamnet died at 11.” But think about all the different places throughout Shakespeare’s work where you could link possible examples of how his son’s death impacted his work.
Imagine it interactive! This was apparently created by a teacher, for his class. So why not have something in there were students could post questions back to the teacher? Or have homework where they have to create their own branches?
I love stuff like this that’s got obvious educational potential.

Even though it constantly gets in the way of my Twitter streams :), I don’t mention Shakespeare’s Pizza (Columbia, MO) that much. There are two reasons for that. First, I don’t know exactly what it has to do with our Shakespeare. I mean, I don’t talk about the music group Shakespeare’s Sister much, either.

Second, I’m totally jealous that people in Missouri get to actually say stuff like, “Hey, I’m going over to Shakespeare’s to get a beer,” and I don’t. 🙁 A we have in Boston is stinkin’ Cheers, and that’s been off the air for ages. 😉

But, seriously, Shakespeare’s just won Good Morning America’s Best Bites : College Edition competition. So not only do they have the best name, like, ever, but they’ve got a dedicated following and pretty killer food to boot.

Congratulations!