The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Shakespeare, born 457 years ago this month, continues to have a monumental impact on students worldwide. But like MacGregor, Dana Dusbiber, a high school educator, believes all that glitters isn’t gold.
Shakespeare may be the gold standard, but hers is a jaded view: “I do not believe that a long-dead, British guy is the only writer who can teach my students about the human condition.” She prefers “literature written by a wide range of ethnically-diverse writers” rather than clinging to “one (white) man’s view of life as he lived it so long ago.”
Granted, Dusbiber and MacGregor are free to castigate Shakespeare. But their fashionable assassination of classic literature exemplifies what C.S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery”—the unfounded logic that art, science and the thinking of a prior age are inherently flawed, worthless and should be discredited.
By contrast, Matthew Truesdale, a high school English teacher, embraces the teaching of Shakespeare and believes banning him is obscene: “To dismiss Shakespeare on the grounds that life 450 years ago has no relation to life today is to dismiss every religious text, every piece of ancient mythology (Greek, African, Native American, etc.), and for that matter, everything that wasn’t written in whatever time defined as “NOW.”
Not surprisingly, the halls of academe are in a pickle: There are those who mimic the efforts to besmirch Shakespeare. During her employment as a high school teacher, Claire Bruncke banished him from her classroom so she could “stray from centering the narrative of white, cisgender, heterosexual men. Eliminating Shakespeare was a step I could easily take to work toward that.”
Put another way, Out, damned spot!
While the cancel culture wants their pound of flesh, Sachel Bise, who teaches special education, is a champion of Shakespeare. She cites an Ohio State University study which found reading Shakespeare arouses and “improves brain function, test scores and social skills.” She says the critics concerns are overblown, adding, “When Shakespeare programs remain in schools, students gain the best advantages.”
Here’s the zany part of the debate.