Year 1, Day 21: Shakespeare Institute -- Education.

While I am in class there is a great deal of lecturing on various and sundry topics concerning Shakespeare, so much lecturing in fact that if while I am listening to my professor and I happen to begin to think about what is being said (read: drift off into a "mind tangent"), I'll miss entire sections of his or her lecture.  Whereas some of my classmates take copious notes on facts or dates to remember (from what I have seen thru my sidelong glances), as if they were studying for a test, I write down names of people or books that my professor mentions, and a crap load of questions.  I write so many questions, when I go back and look at my notes I have no idea what the professor was really talking about, but have a great idea of where my train of thought was headed and have a great many questions that I still have about the general topic that was being discussed in class.

I come to my point for today's rumination... Why am I here at the Shakespeare Institute, and what is the point of this educational process?  How can this degree help me become a better teacher?  A better theatrical practitioner?  Where the hell am I going to end up in four years after I've gotten a PhD. in Shakespeare Studies?

John Dewey says that, "Education, therefore, is the process of living and not a preparation for future living."  Education is not just there so that we may recite what our predecessors have discovered back to our predecessors in the form of tests, quizzes and papers.  We are not prepared for anything if all we know is what we can learn by picking up a book.  The process of living that John Dewey is talking about, is the process of learning how to discover for ourselves.  It is a wondrous thing, as a teacher, to see a student have his or her moment of true discovery, not from any assignment that they are trying to achieve or complete, but from a genuine curiosity about a topic and the desire to seek out more information about it.

I liken this impulse to those moments where you absolutely have to find out the name of a song that you heard on the radio, or the name of an actor you just saw in a movie... just because it's in your head.

My fellow classmates, some of whom are very young (read: just out of undergrad) seem to be hellbent on writing down everything our professor has to say.  This is, of course, one way to take notes in a class, if you, in fact, will come back to these notes and see if anything he or she had to say was worthy of investigation or query.  The method of questioning your professor in your notes at the moment of inception (or the moment your professor asks the question to the rest of the class), allows the student to investigate those questions on their own time, come to their own conclusions, and then maybe, just maybe, come around to the way of thinking with their professor through understanding and not just rote memorization.  Even if the student ends up disagreeing with what was said in class, the conversation that ensues afterwards is more intellectually stimulating than the recitation of facts on a test sheet.

The questions I asked before, the "why am I here?" questions, are probably ones that I won't be able to answer until the program is done.  It is altogether possible that the longer I take to answer them, the more interesting and educated answer I can give.  At the moment, I am here at the Shakespeare Institute to learn more about the history and artistic quality of the greatest writer in the Western World.  I plan on using this information to create my own ideas about my art forms (theatre and technical theatre) and broaden my understanding of them using Mr. Shakespeare as a guide (I mean, he found genius here in Stratford-upon-Avon, why can't I?  <-- Another question.)  I don't know if I will become a better teacher, or a better theatrical practitioner, but I'm still early in my training here so I've got to make an effort to utilize these tools during my tenure.  Lastly, I'm currently planning on becoming the Educational Director of the Globe Theater in London... I'll let you know when that becomes final.

A favorite quote of mine seems an appropriate way of ending this post, rather than the typical Shakespearean quote.  If he'd lived so long, I think he'd have been talking about me, and Mr. Shakespeare.  (I think the next post needs some pictures.  I've been talking too much of late.)

Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size. 
-- John of Salisbury, in his book Metalogicon, from the year 1159.

Year 1, Day 21 -- Words Written: 0, Term Paper Topics: 1