Episode 80: Pause to Ponder - Drunk Shakespeare

Welcome to the Counter Narrative Podcast, a show designed to change the way we talk, and think, about education. By sharing stories of successes and triumphs, we aim to challenge the dominant narrative that often negatively portrays our disenfranchised populations.

I’m your host, Charles Williams. An urban educator for more than 15 years, a current school principal in Chicago, an educational consultant, an equity advocate, and the co-host of Inside The Principal’s Office.

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This episode is a pause to ponder segment. These biweekly sessions will allow me to share with you my personal thoughts and reflections on a wide spectrum of topics as they relate to education. It is my hope that you will be able to take something from these segments and apply it in a meaningful way as you continue to do amazing work. Remember, while we all have different roles, we all have a single job, educating our students.

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Have you ever heard of Drunk Shakespeare? It's a hilarious show in which a group of trained actors attempt to recreate a classic Shakespearean play while attempting to keep up with one actor who is intentionally drunk. The spontaneous shifts in direction, altered by inebriated decision-making, forces the actors to not only alter their approach but to cleverly come up with ways of getting the story back on track so that it can progress as intended. My wife treated me to a show a few weeks ago for my birthday and, as a huge fan of the theater, I was delighted, amused, and inspired by what I was witnessing. Making such shifts mid scene is no easy feat and yet these actors were traversing an ever changing landscape with relative ease (or maybe it just appeared that way to the possibly drunken audience). 

As an educator, I of course reflected on the experience and thought about any potential lessons that could be used within my own school. While I momentarily considered the possibility of somehow incorporating alcohol into lesson (for the teachers obviously), the reality of such a scandal quickly sobered me back up. Another thought, however, remained. What if we challenged our students to interact with material that they have mastered in new and meaningful ways? The only way these actors were able to shift so easily was because they had perfected the basic skills and thus could challenge themselves by intentionally creating obstacles for which they must adjust. Imagine the possibility if students had to rewrite a scene (or entire story) from the perspective of someone else. What would happen if there was an element missing from a story problem and students had to develop a way to figure that out before moving forward? How might students respond if they were asked to re-imagine a world in which a world power no longer existed?

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