I’ve been in a survey mood lately, so I’m going to ask more questions. I like hearing your responses. :)
A little over a week ago I found the website Ask500People, which gives you the chance to ask a question to whoever happens to stumble across that website, as well as visitors of your own site if you choose to put the poll on it. I asked the question, “Did you have a good experience studying Shakespeare in school?” You can click on that to vote and/or see the results.
As of now, when I am posting this I have 130 responses. 57% of the voters answered yes, 43% answered no. Out of 6 comments, 5 left responses saying they had a negative experience. Most the the responses I got were from North America, but a few from elsewhere.
With only 130 answers, this isn’t a great representation of the average school Shakesperience, but it was interesting to see these numbers. To be honest I was expecting more people to have answered No. Even so, that’s a lot of people who didn’t have fun with Shakespeare in school. With all this talk about Shakespeare in schools, especially with the RSC launching their Stand Up For Shakespeare program, I think it’s good to see where we’ve come from and where we want to be headed with Shakespeare in Education.
And now I invite you to leave a comment here about YOUR Shakespeare experiences in school. When were you first required to read one of his plays? Which play? Did you get to get up and perform at all? Whatever you want to share I’d like to hear. I’ll post my experiences soon, though I’m sure your story is more interesting than mine.