Dana Dusbiber states that she does no longer want to teach Shakespeare in her high school classes. She teaches in the biggest inner city school in Sacramento California, which majorily consists of minority students. She believes that reading a dead white man will not connect well with her students.
¨So I ask, why not teach the oral tradition out of Africa, which includes an equally relevant commentary on human behavior? Why not teach translations of early writings or oral storytelling from Latin America or Southeast Asia other parts of the world? Many, many of our students come from these languages and traditions. Why do our students not deserve to study these ¨other" literatures with equal time and value?¨
Dana does have a good argument, but not every case is exactly like hers. Matthew Truesdale wrote a response to the article that was published by the same person on the Washington Post. Matthew teachers middle and high school students in a rural, mostly white town in South Carolina. Matthew disagrees with Dana and thinks that we should still teach Shakespeare in schools because he can teach about the ¨modern human condition¨.
¨Where does it say that we can´t teach Shakespeare AND oral African tradition? In fact , why not work to draw links between the two? And should we only read authors that look like us and have experiences like us? Or for that matter, does a commonality in skin color mean a commonality in experience?¨
I completely agree with Matthew Truesdale´s article, and as a high school student I certainly would not mind reading both Shakespeare and oral African stories, and making the connections between the two. Another article I found published on the American Theater website by J. Holtham is similar to Matthew's article and responds to the article written by Dana. The article states ¨Bringing them (the other culture´s oral traditions) into the classroom would be a great idea. But keeping Shakespeare is essential, too¨.
¨Shakespeare teaches us about love, honor, duty. About parents and children. About ambition and greed. These are things that all of us face, the things that makes us human."
From the perspective of a high school student Shakespeare teaches important life lessons that any person of race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. could connect to in some way. I like the idea of reading both Shakespeare and stories from other cultures to provide everyone with something to connect to, and broadening our cultural and literature. This year is the first year that I have appreciated Shakespeare, and want to read him more.
