'Tis the season to kill Romeo

As an English teacher, seasonal movies mean something completely different to me. Because I always end the first semester with Shakespeare, I usually am living, breathing, talking, thinking Shakespeare when Christmas rolls around; so, when everybody else thinks about Charlie Brown's Christmas, I think about Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, or Hamlet. This became really difficult one year when my drama students were performing The Taming of the Shrew while I was teaching three grades, so I was reading The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, and Much Ado About Nothing. Yeah, that was brutal.

What I have learned, though, is how much I can remember from the movies of each of the plays. The soundtrack to the Franco Zeffirelli version of Romeo and Juliet sounds like Christmas carols to me, and the dialogue and the soliloquies get stuck in my head like how other people cannot get "Frosty the Snowman" out of their heads. Today, I showed my drama students soliloquies from different productions of Shakespearean plays, including Zeffirelli's version of The Taming of the Shrew when I realized the guy playing Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet plays a suitor (with blond hair!) in this movie. It was awkward seeing him trying to woo Bianca after I had seen him saying, "Peace, I hate the word as I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee."

Probably the most disturbing side effect of watching these movies way too much is the irresistible urge to give a Mystery Theater commentary through some of the most serious scenes. There is a priceless moment during Juliet's funeral when Friar Lawrence looks down and smiles, then remembers he's at a funeral and looks sad again. I just want to say in a funny voice, "Look! She has a funny hat on! Wait, I'm at a funeral - look sad!" but I can't because the students are trying to learn and I'm the teacher, after all.

Now, the Christmas season is in full swing: we just started the Baz Luhrmann version of Romeo and Juliet today, which is so much fun, and in the Sophomore's class, they are almost done with Julius Caesar. Besides, I never tire of seeing Marlon Brando, even if he is wearing a skirt as Marc Antony no man should ever wear. At least I don't have to hear the comments about the tights during this movie.

Little Kiddies...

It is no secret that I am not an Elementary Ed. I'm not going to pretend, the whole lack of personal space thing freaks me out and I have a strange feeling that I am trying to manage chaos instead of teach anybody anything of substance. I never knew how fortunate I had it teaching Freshmen and Sophomores until I realized that 1st graders don't necessarily know how to read. This week, however, I have 2nd graders. They are a lot more enjoyable, but there are some drawbacks. Today I left my knitting unattended, and by the time I came back to it, I noticed a little boy 'helped out' on the Christmas present I was making. It took me 5 minutes to figure out what he did and fix it.

On a similar note, my dog is not an Elementary Ed.'s dog either. Today we were walking to the office, as usual, and the 3rd graders were outside enjoying the weather eating their snack. She goes up to one of the kids she had never met before, took a bite out of the kid's sandwich, and ran off. The poor kid just looked confused. I felt awful! I went back to my classroom and popped her some pop corn.

Their innocence is a beautiful thing, though. I've got a kid who is thrilled about being a whale this Friday in a class play. I couldn't PAY a freshman to be a whale. (Is it worth switching to Elementary, though?)

(I keep wondering how my mother, sister, sister-in-law, et al do/did it.)

Oedipus, Complexed

This year, I think I finally cracked the code on teaching Oedipus... or just cracked. Either way, my students have finally reported that they enjoyed their reading this year. I'm used to shock, horror, revulsion, and boredom, so I tried to at least eliminate the last thing from the list this year, and I think it worked.

Let me preface this by saying that I had an a-ha moment my first year of teaching with the girl playing Jocasta. She was the most ghetto of them all, in a mother-hen kind of way. I routinely heard her raising one eyebrow, telling a friend "Oh girl," or "Mm-Hum." like she was thirty years older than she actually was, and a light bulb went off. This entire time I had seen Jocasta as a tragic queen - some little lady, lovely, and doting on her husband, but this presented problems with the words she would say, and I never could 'hear' her. With this girl reading the lines, she was more like a cougar, telling her kid husband, "Don't worry 'bout a thing, honey-child. Those prophets don't know nothin' noway." It was perfect.

So this year, I begin teaching Oedipus, and I realize Jocasta's character isn't alone - the prophet's name is Teiresius, and Oedipus' relationship with Creon mainly consists on thug one-up-man-ship and 'yo mama jokes (no pun intended.) I explained that to my students, telling them to reach into the play to see Sophocles' inner thug, and for the first time, their quiz scores went up. When Oedipus and Creon fought in Monday's reading, I described it as, "So Creon's like, 'What 'cho sayin' now?' and Oedipus is like, 'I know you did-ent!' and the kids got it - albeit, a little differently than how Sophocles would have wanted it.

Would Sophocles like the retelling of Oedipus? Probably no more than he likes Freud's interpretation, but I think he would maybe appreciate the dusting off of his work and making it accessible to a new audience I doubt he ever thought would read his play. Besides, most of us don't remember Greek Drama in a positive light, like one of my kids' mothers who sent word through her daughter to tell me that she really enjoyed Oedipus this year.
"But ___, how did your mother read it?"
"Well, I thought it would read better in the ghetto voices, so I gave them funny voices at home and Mom heard me. She heard "murder", so she listened in."

I really wish I could have heard her version of the blinding scene...