Shakespeare: Too sexy for Florida schools!

Teachers in a Florida county are preparing to use only excerpts of works by William Shakespeare, rather than whole plays, as part of an attempt to conform to hardline rightwing legislation on teaching about sex.

“There’s some raunchiness in Shakespeare,” Joseph Cool, a reading teacher at Gaither high school in Hillsborough county, told the Tampa Bay Times. “Because that’s what sold tickets during his time.”

But, the newspaper said: “In staying with excerpts, the schools can teach about Shakespeare while avoiding anything racy or sexual.”

The legislation at issue is the Parental Rights in Education Act, commonly known as the “don’t say gay” law for its clampdown on teaching about LGBTQ+ and gender issues.

The act was signed into law in March 2022 by Ron DeSantis, the hard-right Republican governor who is now running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and expanded in April this year.

The law has fueled widely reported culture-war clashes, including parental pushes for book bans in public school libraries and a legal battle between DeSantis and Disney, a major state employer which opposes the law.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, the Hillsborough county school district has also switched to using excerpts as a way to help students meet state Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking, teachers aiming to give pupils a broad range of knowledge based on one whole novel and excerpts from five to seven novels or plays.

But the Parental Rights in Education Act also says material that is sexual in nature should not be used in classes not concerning sexual health or reproduction.

Prudishness towards Shakespeare’s discussion of sex or use of sexual slang is not new. As the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) notes, “Early editions of Shakespeare’s plays sometimes ignored or censored slang and sexual language.

“But the First Folio [published in 1623] reveals a text full of innuendo and rudeness.”

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/08/florida-schools-shakespeare-sexual-materia

Pathetic.

If Florida kids learn about "country matters", what will they make of "country music"?

"Thou hast undone our mother?"

"Villain, I have DONE thy mother!"

Though in Florida, I'd be surprised if the first speaker hadn't either.

All this "war on woke" shit is to bring about the collapse of public education, because Repugs have hated it since its creation.
They hate paying for it, they hate that it makes people smart enough to not vote for them, and they hate that it raises people up into a middle class, because they hate that there's even a middle class.
They want lords and serfs back, and they want it bad.
But they've wanted their nightmare world for 100+ years, and we've beaten them all this time.
Fuck 'em.

You sure think you have a great aptitude for explaining other people's thoughts for them. Curious you never turn those powers on your own diseased self.

Go to an S&M bar.

We know, champ.

Tell us more about how woke is scarier than insurrections.

I cannot tell you the last time shakespeare was relevant to my life. It just seems like the only reason his works are used is because every high school lit teacher was forced to read it, so it is a common reference that just keeps on going. It is such a performative knowledge. I feel the same about some simp knowing a line from hamlet as I do about some person who knows a bible quote off their head. Neither of them knows or has read the story, and they memorized a quote so that they can pretend they are smart.

One good thing I can say about Mel Gibson is he did get me over that whole hamlet hurdle. Then it was onto somethi9ng that really makes you want to kill yourself, Ordinary fucking People.

You mistake "annoyance" for "scary" because annoyance is the only thing you're capable of, and you desperately want it to be scary.

See? I can offer unsolicited, dime store psychoanalysis, too. You ain't special.

You sure to scream like the dickens when you're annoyed.
What happens when you're angry, your spinal column shoots out your ass?

I think UA and Dickynoo should move to Florida and have a consensual homosexual relationship.

My name is Ron DeSantis, and I approve this message.

Now you've gone and upset Tererun by not including her.

I've had her on ignore since 1976. It improves my Wordforge experience 83%.

1976. I don't think I've done anything consistently since 1976. How do you keep it up?

I am pretty sure they wouldn't need me as a third.

breathing, heartbeat, eating, drinking, listening to music, watching TV, shitting, pissing, moving, masturbating......

Ordinary People was studied in class?

I had to do it twice because I dropped from honors to regular English class mid year due to lazy. Most books I could wade through, but that one just really made me want to clean my room and do chores. It was one of those things where the movie didn't help for me. The only reason I got through it the second half was because I somehow absorbed all the honors kids answers when I was sleeping.

I always thought I hated reading because of some of the crap they made me read. When I like a story you cannot stop me from reading it. I could even read some of shakespeare. I liked Taming of the Shrew and read it without being assigned. Hamlet and Othello just bored me, and I was way above Romeo and Juliette in my mind because teenage romance was stupid.

comprehensive drug plan?

I don't remember to take my drugs, either.

I hear Viagra helps...

You've literally stated on multiple occasions here how you would eliminate public education in Albertopia.

UA is so contradictory we could clone him and have him argue with himself to death.

My heart goes out to everyone in Florida who isn't a Christian fundamentalist.

I swear, so many of us read and watched The Handmaid's Tale and went "how horrifying!" while people like Ron DeSantis nearly creamed his pants from the excitement of seeing his worldview made real.

There are a lot of people around here giving the side eye to pervy Ron's claims and actions.

I am just waiting for the real skeletons to be found in some sort of bunker on one of his properties. I know they will be children. We have really gone right up to the rape considering he is already the creepy guy at teen parties.

Oh, I'd drop $20 on the bet that he's sexually molested children.

In the words of Bill Hicks "anyone that far to the right has the skins of little boys in his basement surrounded by a cloud of horse flies".