In response to new education standards and Florida’s expanded “Don’t Say Gay” law, which prohibits classroom mentions of human sexuality outside sex ed classes, high school English classes in Hillsborough County schools will only be reading excerpts from Shakespeare plays and other literary works this year, rather than any single play in full, the Tampa Bay Times reports this week.
The changes are designed not only to avoid running afoul of the law, district officials said, but also to expose students to at least parts of more literary works that may be on new standardized tests. So they’ll likely read a few pages from Hamlet, Macbeth, or, as the paper puts it — maybe a bit optimistically — the time-honored teen favorite, Romeo and Juliet.
The district believes that sticking with excerpts will allow teachers to teach about Shakespeare without any of the icky stuff that could get them fired. And to be sure, Shakespeare was happy to go with innuendo and more, like this horny bit from Act I of Romeo and Juliet where Benvolio is trying to get Romeo to stop mooning over his latest crush and party with the boys.
I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh,
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie
Back in prehistoric times (1984 — the year, not the book) when I did my student teaching in an eighth grade class, the textbook had already removed that bit and others, so it’s worth noting that a lot of Shakespeare comes pre-Bowdlerized.
Joseph Cool, who with that name has to be a popular reading teacher at Gaither High School, agreed that “there’s some raunchiness in Shakespeare. […] Because that’s what sold tickets during his time.”
District spokesperson Tanya Arja explained that prior to this year, English classes would read two novels or plays in their entirety, one in the fall and the other in the spring, but to meet the state’s new “Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking,” students will just have to do more fractured thinking:
The new Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking include lists of books that might be included on the state competency exam. To give students a better chance of mastering the material, the district switched to one novel and excerpts from five to seven different books, including plays.
Teaching to the test is “excellence” for sure, and then our head melted. So yeah, this isn’t only a censorship story.
The Times adds that district officials helpfully explained that students can certainly read the full works if they want, by simply getting them from a library or bookstore, or perhaps raiding their friends’ parents’ bedroom stash of Shakespeare, like teens in my day found Fear of Flying.
But teachers are advised, during class lessons, to stay with the approved guidelines, which call for excerpts. If not, in extreme circumstances, they might have to defend themselves against a parent complaint or a disciplinary case at their school.
Well sure, that’s a lot more like 1984 the book. The district later clarified that the full texts will also still be available in classrooms and libraries — presuming they aren’t later purged by the Mad Moms.
On Facebook, school board member Jessica Vaughn wrote that these sudden changes, like the recent unpersoning of AP Psychology in the state, seemed intentional to her,
in order to cause as much chaos in public education as possible, so that the collapse of public education is swift and the agenda of education privatization can move forward with less obstacles
DeSantis administration officials wasted no time before mocking the concerns of the Hillsborough School administrators. Education Department spox Cassie Paleis emailed the Tampa Bay Times to insist that the Department “in no way believes Shakespeare should be removed from Florida classrooms,” noting that eight of his plays are listed in the state standards for language arts, but not addressing whether teachers really can read all of them out loud.
Education Commissioner Manny Diaz got especially cute, adding Romeo and Juliet to his “books of the month” list for August, along with Booker T. Washington’s memoir Up from Slavery, because get it, it was all about how he overcame slavery, maybe even using skills he had learned while enslaved, GET IT? These assholes are such comedians.
In a statement attached to the list, Diaz said, “This month’s book recommendations provide a variety of reading materials that students will find uplifting and will spark a love for literacy.”
Literal Joe Cool, the reading teacher (I bet he insists on being called “Joseph,” and what were his parents thinking?) said he didn’t blame administrators for being careful in the New Florida, but added,
“I think the rest of the nation — no, the world, is laughing us,” he said. “Taking Shakespeare in its entirety out because the relationship between Romeo and Juliet is somehow exploiting minors is just absurd.”
He recalled using Macbeth with his 10th-grade class last year, noting that it “gave them a sense of connection between stuff that happened in the past and things that are not necessarily in the past,” and golly could he possibly have been referring to the awful carnage, literal or metaphorical, that can result from blind political ambition?
The choices that we make, power struggles, delusions of grandeur. It is so rich in content and things that you can have discussions about, academic and scholarly discussions.”
When asked if students could have that caliber of experience through excerpts, he said, “absolutely not.”
Then again, probably best not to suggest that Shakespeare has anything to say to kids today, because what if they read this bit from Measure for Measure and decided not to respect cops or even governors?
But man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d;
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep.
Exeunt all.
[Tampa Bay Times / Tampa Bay Times / Image created using DreamStudio AI and Photoshop.
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You mess with Shakespeare, and you're opening yourself up to some feckin' hyperliterate insults.
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