From our school diary...

I’ve just finished reading Marion Berry's I Buy a School, and it inspired me to do something I had been thinking of doing for a long time.

Yesterday we had a Shakespeare day!

Regular lessons were put to one side, and we spent our school time learning about William Shakespeare (even the 3-year-old joined in this, and was thrilled because he not only saw a picture of Shakespeare, but also of the bed he was born in – courtesy of the Ladybird book, Discovering Shakespeare Country)! After that, I read aloud Edith Nesbit's story version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and then we started on the play. All this while Mendelssohn's music was playing in the background. I had originally planned to read the first scene together, and then go on to something else (probably maths lessons, or something equally exciting!) but at the end of the scene there was a general clamour for more; and the same thing happened at the end of the first act. All of the children, from Iain (16) down to Keith (5) had reading parts (Keith had to be helped with his), and they were all equally enthusiastic. James (7) would happily have read half a dozen parts, and even Keith declined to go and play outside when offered the opportunity to do so (Duncan, age 3, gave up after about an hour and a half, and went out to play with his tricycle). If it wasn't that we had to stop for dinner, they would all have liked to finish the play. We parcelled out the parts at the beginning of each scene, so it didn't necessarily follow that the same person would be the same character for two scenes in a row. It seemed to make it fairer this way.

One interesting thing: we have spent very little time together on Shakespeare (we read Lamb's Tales 4 or 5 years ago, and a couple of years ago read/acted out the first scene from Julius Caesar); but the children have had pretty much free range of the bookcases (lots of books!!!) Anyway, to get to the point... When we sat down together yesterday, somebody asked, "Mummy, which is your favourite play?" I ummed and ahhed for a moment, and then said that I couldn't remember the name of it, but I thought it might be the one with Beatrix and Benedick in it. There was an immediate chorus of "That's Much Ado About Nothing", followed by a heated discussion over whether this particular play was any good, or whether it was "boring"! Does this class as "masterly inactivity" or something? Or is it just further proof that Shakespeare really is for everyone?

Postscript from the following morning:

James sat at the breakfast table reading chunks of somebody's version of Shakespeare's tales to anyone who would listen. When I arrived, he announced, "Yesterday was fun! Can we do it again today?"

Copyright © Ruth Marshall 2001

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