Shall I prepare thee for a summer Shakespeare project?

“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows.” 

Okay, Ludwig, I’m going to give your book, “How to Teach your Children Shakespeare” a try. 

Let me explain. As an overachieving mom (overachieving when it comes to her son, anyway), I often spend part of my summer with my son learning about something. It becomes an all-encompassing task—filled with trips to the library, specialty food shops, and hours (even days) on the computer finding activities to make learning fun for my son. Last year we immersed ourselves in the Middle Ages. I’ll not go into details, but it was a lot of fun, but a lot of work. 

This year, I’ve been trying to think about what to do this summer with my son to keep him off of the couch watching television and playing video games at the same time all summer (my favorite is when he uses his WiiU to watch Netflix while he plays on his 3DS) and since my husband has limited the number of camps I can enroll my son in. Hence, the summer project was born. 

My son is a bit of a ham, loves acting and fencing—I was thinking about what we could do that would incorporate both, when I remembered a colleague had given me a copy of Ludwig’s book (which comes out in June). 

Now, before I begin, I would just like to comment on my own relationship with the Bard; I’m not a huge fan of Shakespeare. One of my favorite lines from Terry Eagleton is “It is … quite possible that, given a deep enough transformation of our history, we may in the future produce a society which is unable to get anything at all out of Shakespeare.” But, I cannot deny his staying power (he is the only author, as far as I can tell, that’s named 3 times in the new Common Core State Standards). And, as a teacher educator for students who want to become certified to teach English, I make them create a unit on Macbeth each year. I’ve had student teachers get stage fright at the thought of having to teach one of his plays.

As a former English teacher, myself, I taught Julius Caesar, have seen plenty of movies and plays and parodies. And, in 2009, I wrote an article on how his works get taught in school films “One size does not fit all: Cinematic approaches to the teaching of Shakespeare.” And I can still recall lines from his plays and sonnets that I memorized in high school. 

So, the thought of approaching Shakespeare Ludwig’s way (which he used with his own children--you can learn more about his story at his facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/How-To-Teach-Your-Children-Shakespeare/509086042457564) makes me hopeful that I might renew (or even begin) a healthy relationship with Will—one without the groans of 25-30 adolescents. 

Emery’s comment: education!!!!!!!!!! I must study for my future working with Nintendo! And making Nintendo land (a theme park) and I watch tv with peripheral vision!!!