Being Queen & Bringing History to Life
Today was another forceful reminder of just how astonishingly blessed I have been in my life, in my upbringing, and in my education.
I spent part of this morning at a charter school near LAX, speaking to a group of ninth graders as Queen Elizabeth about the English Renaissance, alliances in Europe, and the influence of theatre on public opinion in the period. They are studying "Romeo and Juliet," and their teacher is a young lady we met at faire last year. (Keeping this intentionally vague; not sure what repercussions posting specifics might incur.) She asked the Guild of Saint Olaf if anyone would be willing to come up and give an in-costume talk to the class, so Mom brought the boys, who learned a scene from the play + a bit of swordplay (wooden swords.) They wore their Gothics (1450s,) and I dressed out as QE.
The charter school is attached to a larger, regional high school. It's clearly low-income. We were told, afterward, that the students were nearly perfect angels for us, which surprised the bejeebers out of both teachers. The demographic is low-income, inner-city, minority students with NO cultural connection to the stuff we were talking about... In short, it was a little heartbreaking. And then I learned that most of these kids don't even know what Europe looks like, have never learned world geography or history, and one even asked the teacher a few days ago if Shakespeare was still alive. (BTW, they've never heard of the Holocaust.)
The presentation went really well, and the students seemed pretty well engaged, for the most part. They picked up quickly on things like 'what happened to traitors,' as I went through my routine on Henry VIII and his six wives and the succession that brought Elizabeth to the throne. At one point, Mom and I sang a madrigal, and one of the boys was goofing around, 'conducting.' Later, when we needed volunteers to read in a couple of lines for the boys' scene, I prodded our 'conductor' to be one of them. In explaining how Elizabethan theatre had the power to sway public opinion, I was able to liken it to entertainment, media, and political advertising today.
It felt a bit scattered to me, but that's because I was expecting the teachers to talk a little bit to the students about what they'd been working on, and then Mom and I would take turns talking about the Italian Renaissance and its stretch to England, the history, and our characters... As soon as the kids were in their seats and settled down, the teacher introduced us and set us loose. So some of what we did was 'regular' for us, but some wound up being very free-form, mainly because we were in-the-round, and I was doing my best to keep eye-contact and gauge the interest level so we wouldn't 'lose' them. Honestly, had we had more time, I had a basketful of props we could have shown them, and activities we could have taught, but the lead teacher had a time limit.
I hope it made a positive impact. It seems that, nowadays, Humanities are something you don't really get a lot of until you make it to college. History is given passing attention; literature is going the way of the arts. I'd been seeing the term "STEM" teaching popping up a lot, and finally looked it up the other day: Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics. STEM is the current focus, and if you want federal funding, you'd better be a STEM school...
When I was in 9th grade, I had World History, Biology, Health, English, Geometry, Latin, and Chorus. I had already learned Geography in elementary school, and could find most countries on a globe or a world map. And I had been given carte blanche at home to sate my reading rapacity on the likes of Tolkien, McCaffrey, Heinlein, Clarke, L'Engle, Shakespeare, etc. (My bedroom library was about half the size of the 12-foot long, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the living room.) And my parents always welcomed my questions. So did my teachers. (Visiting priests were less tolerant, but that's another story.)
I count myself blessed.
And I ache for these children, these young almost-adults, who have no such grounding in knowledge, imagination, creativity, and practical application.
Dressing up as and talking about an historical figure I have come to love and respect is a pleasure and an honor, and if someone asks me to do so as an educational effort to reach out to young people, I welcome the opportunity. Truly, if you are a teacher, or know one whose students might find such a presentation interesting, or who need that sort of fresh perspective that a 'living history' class can engender, ask me. If your school has a budget for an honorarium, great; if not, it's not an obstacle; gas money is always appreciated! I have been given the gift of the knowledge and the means to bring it to life, and I want to share that.
I spent part of this morning at a charter school near LAX, speaking to a group of ninth graders as Queen Elizabeth about the English Renaissance, alliances in Europe, and the influence of theatre on public opinion in the period. They are studying "Romeo and Juliet," and their teacher is a young lady we met at faire last year. (Keeping this intentionally vague; not sure what repercussions posting specifics might incur.) She asked the Guild of Saint Olaf if anyone would be willing to come up and give an in-costume talk to the class, so Mom brought the boys, who learned a scene from the play + a bit of swordplay (wooden swords.) They wore their Gothics (1450s,) and I dressed out as QE.
The charter school is attached to a larger, regional high school. It's clearly low-income. We were told, afterward, that the students were nearly perfect angels for us, which surprised the bejeebers out of both teachers. The demographic is low-income, inner-city, minority students with NO cultural connection to the stuff we were talking about... In short, it was a little heartbreaking. And then I learned that most of these kids don't even know what Europe looks like, have never learned world geography or history, and one even asked the teacher a few days ago if Shakespeare was still alive. (BTW, they've never heard of the Holocaust.)
The presentation went really well, and the students seemed pretty well engaged, for the most part. They picked up quickly on things like 'what happened to traitors,' as I went through my routine on Henry VIII and his six wives and the succession that brought Elizabeth to the throne. At one point, Mom and I sang a madrigal, and one of the boys was goofing around, 'conducting.' Later, when we needed volunteers to read in a couple of lines for the boys' scene, I prodded our 'conductor' to be one of them. In explaining how Elizabethan theatre had the power to sway public opinion, I was able to liken it to entertainment, media, and political advertising today.
It felt a bit scattered to me, but that's because I was expecting the teachers to talk a little bit to the students about what they'd been working on, and then Mom and I would take turns talking about the Italian Renaissance and its stretch to England, the history, and our characters... As soon as the kids were in their seats and settled down, the teacher introduced us and set us loose. So some of what we did was 'regular' for us, but some wound up being very free-form, mainly because we were in-the-round, and I was doing my best to keep eye-contact and gauge the interest level so we wouldn't 'lose' them. Honestly, had we had more time, I had a basketful of props we could have shown them, and activities we could have taught, but the lead teacher had a time limit.
I hope it made a positive impact. It seems that, nowadays, Humanities are something you don't really get a lot of until you make it to college. History is given passing attention; literature is going the way of the arts. I'd been seeing the term "STEM" teaching popping up a lot, and finally looked it up the other day: Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics. STEM is the current focus, and if you want federal funding, you'd better be a STEM school...
When I was in 9th grade, I had World History, Biology, Health, English, Geometry, Latin, and Chorus. I had already learned Geography in elementary school, and could find most countries on a globe or a world map. And I had been given carte blanche at home to sate my reading rapacity on the likes of Tolkien, McCaffrey, Heinlein, Clarke, L'Engle, Shakespeare, etc. (My bedroom library was about half the size of the 12-foot long, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the living room.) And my parents always welcomed my questions. So did my teachers. (Visiting priests were less tolerant, but that's another story.)
I count myself blessed.
And I ache for these children, these young almost-adults, who have no such grounding in knowledge, imagination, creativity, and practical application.
Dressing up as and talking about an historical figure I have come to love and respect is a pleasure and an honor, and if someone asks me to do so as an educational effort to reach out to young people, I welcome the opportunity. Truly, if you are a teacher, or know one whose students might find such a presentation interesting, or who need that sort of fresh perspective that a 'living history' class can engender, ask me. If your school has a budget for an honorarium, great; if not, it's not an obstacle; gas money is always appreciated! I have been given the gift of the knowledge and the means to bring it to life, and I want to share that.