The turbulent
time of 2006-07 included losing a child to a miscarriage, expecting another
child a couple of months later, then learning that the new child had a
potentially fatal heart defect. I was in my senior year at college and had too
much going on as it was, yet I had to soldier on. January 2007 saw me in the
classrooms of my youth, student teaching with two of the people who inspired me
to be a teacher in the first place.
When I first
sat down with Greg Park to take over his sophomore English class, he pointed
out the areas that were tied up with his requirements (book reports,
standardized testing, and so on), then gestured to one block of time in the
middle of the quarter. "You can do whatever you want here," he said.
"Writing unit, another book. Whatever you want."
"Do you
have copies of Shakespeare?" I asked with (probably too much) enthusiasm.
"Let's
go look." He didn't sound thrilled, but took me anyway to where the book
closet was, a room set off from the main English hallway. Inside were shelves
stacked with well-worn paperbacks of classroom sets of all types. Steinbeck
flirted with Cather while Hemingway and Wordsworth slummed about with Maya
Angelou. There, stacked in eye-widening pillars, were abundant copies of plays.
Running my eyes down the available quantities, I realized that The Merchant of Venice would be my go-to
piece. Having just watched it a couple of months before in Cedar City, I felt
it within my grasp. While I don't know if Park had misgivings or disdain
(probably the latter), I had his tentative support to go ahead--so I did.
The students
got to know me pretty quickly, and I had them do a number of assignments that I
can't remember now. While scrounging around in the library at Timpanogos High
School, I found an hour-long biography film on Shakespeare. After previewing it
at home, I went ahead and used it to introduce the students to William
Shakespeare. (Funnily enough, I still use that film in my classroom, even
though it's mediocre at best. Then I couldn't know--though now I do--the many
different ways that one can approach a biography of the Bard. There are some
poorly chosen speeches and poems that they share with stuffy bombast, and the
scholars all speak in round, British, academic tones that lack the kind of
passion that I'd want, but it fits nicely into the class period that I have set
aside for it.)
To go along
with the documentary, I asked the students to write down a couple of facts from
each segment that they found interesting, then do a journal write on the best
one. Back then, I actually read what my students wrote, so I happened upon this
treasure (all the spelling and punctuation carried over from the original):
What’s
up with Shakespeare?
I
think he might have been a weird man. I didn’t know he was gay or bi-sexual.
GROWS!!!! He is good at writing and all that because he is known throughout the
world. So he has to be good. I dont really know him that well. But since I have
learned a little bit about him. He seems weird because the first thing I learn
is that he is gay. Not a very good start to learn I just hate gay people I
think there disgusting.
I was a
little disturbed at the homophobia at the time (it bothers me much more now),
but I was flabbergasted at the horrible spelling and punctuation.
Priorities
change, I guess.
Anyway, I
went on going through the same student's journal and found this final thought
on the Shakespeare unit, after we'd gone through the entire play and discussed
some of the nuances of the behavior of the Jews and Christians.
Where
is the line [on treating others poorly]?
Where
is the line? When it comes to people thinking they are all that and nobody can
touch them. Then that can cause some mixed feelings towards others. Acting in
certain ways that will affend someone I think that is crossing the line. Because
your messing with one elses emotions and you can hurt them really bad. Also
people who judge I think are the worst people in this world. Because I think if
you judge your crossing the line.
I can't help
but shiver at the irony. It's rare that we get such patent intellectual dissonance. While the
student hadn't impressed me with his ability to think or express himself much
before, this really surprised me. Perhaps I should look at it as an indication
of growth on the part of the student, that he's slowly opening up his mind to
being non-judgmental. Perhaps I should have some hope that Shakespeare actually
ended up expanding his world view and he became a better person as a result.
After all, that's what makes Shakespeare so powerful in the first place. Maybe
that student has gone on to recognize that the "Hath not a Jew
eyes...?" speech is about everyone
who's marginalized, not just the visible ones.
Maybe.
Perhaps.
I kind of
doubt it.
The class
actually went well. I found an exceedingly poor film version that cut the
(already rather short) play down which I used to illustrate what they'd read
about in the text. I had them illustrate their own characters, so that when we
were discussing one, we'd have a drawing on the board. (That led to some very
bizarre looking iterations, I have to be honest.) I asked them to memorize one
of the two famous speeches from the play ("Hath not a Jew eyes...?"
and "The quality of mercy is not strained"). I talked
enthusiastically about my own experience in Cedar City the year before, how
great Shakespeare was as a writer and his inexhaustible ability to weave wonder
out of words. I strutted and fretted over the little unit, answering questions
as best I could (still kicking myself that I couldn't answer what "halter
gratis" meant from the trial scene of the play) and generally giving the
most positive experience I could muster for those students.
I have no
idea if I was successful.
Soon after
the term ended, my time as a student-teacher did as well, and, despite doing my
best to make a positive impression on the department and administration, I was
not offered the job opening that the school had for the next year.
Like a candle
snuffed, my career seemed extinguished.
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