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Honored by LACHSA

My LACHSA Moment

Saturday night my brother John Lithgow and I were joint honorees at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA). It was a siblings event! John was being honored for his PBS film Art Happens Here, in which he participates as an equal with students in art classes in vocal ensemble, ceramics, silk screen, and dance. My favorite quote from the film is, “I just think JOY has got to be a part of education,” a sentiment with which I heartily agree! It’s a delightful film. If you haven’t seen it you can link to it here.

John’s wonderful acceptance speech had to be piped into to the event from Amsterdam, where he is currently on location, but you can link to it here:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ild8e8jya4tdrw4oaclws/JL-Lachsa-Acceptance-Speech.mp4?rlkey=656t2958b0m0ydc14yfbvfnh0&st=s5r0bou9&dl=0

John Lithgow, my Brother and Fellow Honoree

I was present to receive the award. It was given for my role as one of the original architects of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Elementary Arts Program, which sends teachers of dance, music, theatre, and visual arts into all 535 elementary schools, and for my book, “Lessons From Shakespeare’s Classroom: Empowering Learning Through Drama and Rhetoric.”

I was thrilled to get the award, but, as I said in my acceptance speech, it is one that should be shared by arts educators everywhere. If the world can be saved in these dangerous times, they will be the ones to save it.

I’m so grateful to my brother-in-law, Joel Rudnick, for having the presence of mind to film my speech on his phone! I didn’t think of that, but I’m so glad he did. I have it here to share:

My hope, which John echoes in his own words, has always been that my book will inspire educators to include the arts in all aspects of education, for all ages. If you agree and would like ammunition to present to educational policy-makers, you can order my book from Routledge> and share it with your peers.

https://www.routledge.com/Lessons-from-Shakespeares-Classroom-Empowering-Learning-Through-Drama-and-Rhetoric/Lithgow/p/book/9781032384078

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An Enthusiastic Reader

Kate Zoeger is loving my book! Here’s what she has to say:

“Reads beautifully…Love your thinking…

And love how your work has inspired and transformed the lives of thousands upon thousands, from 5-year-olds on up!

Mine included! Thank you, incomparable Robin Lithgow.”

 

Kate—actress, puppeteer, educator, inspiration—was one of the dozens of fabulous theatre teachers I hired into the Elementary Theatre Program in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She had a frenetic and razor-focused energy that drew kids in and kept them active for their entire lessons. She was able to spark the creative spirit in every one of her students. 

She is now retired and living in Michigan, near her daughters and grandchildren.

 

You can use this link to buy my book at a 20% discount:

Lessons from Shakespeare’s Classroom: Empowering Learning Through Drama and Rhetoric 

 

 

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“Proci et Puellae”: A Lover and His Lass

Desiderius Erasmus was a really funny guy. History seems to have forgotten just how funny he was! Sadly, his brilliant, hugely influential and engaging light was all but obliterated by his conflict with the firebrand that was Luther. As I explain in my book, “Lessons from Shakespeare’s Classroom,” he was not a fighter, he was by his own admission a bit of a coward; and at the end of his life, as the bloody Reformation embroiled Europe, he retreated from the politic world  and devoted himself to writing colloquies to teach schoolboys conversational Latin.

I’ve shared some of his hilarious colloquies in previous posts, but Proci et Puellae is one that those of you familiar with Shakespeare’s comedies will recognize immediately as a source. Think of all his sparring couples: Beatrice and Benedict (Much Ado About Nothing), Viola and Olivia (Twelfth Night), Rosalind and Orlando (As You Like It), Silvius and Phebe (Also As You Like It), and, of course, Kate and Petruchio (The Taming of the Shrew). (You’ll also see his wit in full display in In Praise of Folly, which he wrote as a homage to his dear friend Thomas More). Thanks to my friend Janet Borrus, we have this video of a totally unrehearsed Proci et Puellae, or A Lover and His Lass, performed by Susan Angelo and Dov Rudnick.

(This recording was done with a cell phone and I’m an amateur and can’t seem to get it to fit, so Susan, unfortunately, gets cut off for part of her luminous portrayal. Sorry about that! If I can find someone to fix it I’ll post it again.)

Remember that Will Shakespeare only ever encountered this colloquy in LATIN!! He would have performed it as a schoolboy learning conversation Latin, the lingua franca for aspiring travelers to Europe, probably at the age of 10 or 11, and they were not published in translate in his lifetime. That’s the reason they have been largely ignored by so many scholars documenting his sources.

Currently you can purchase my book at a 20% discount, with this and  four other of the colloquies in Latin and English at:
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Joy: “For the Benefit of the Commonwealth”

My grand and ambitious purpose in writing this book was to change the focus of education from “for the benefit of test scores” to “for the benefit of the commonwealth,” and to make it stick by promoting joy.

To quote from the conclusion:

My plea to everyone concerned about the physical and emotional health of young people in this post-pandemic, digital age (and I hope that is everyone) is to make room for joy in our schools. Not just joy in play: joy in learning. My greatest hope as an educator is that the era of drill, kill, test, and repeat will end.  If you think “kill” is too strong a word in the context of educating children, consider that one can kill enthusiasm. One can kill exploration, motivation, and joy. The testing industry has made a fortune off or our innocent kids. It’s time for a re-examination of the purposes and parameters of standardized testing, opting instead for authentic assessment that is supportive of growth.

The jabs of my small spear in this effort are just barely beginning to be felt by the policy makers, but you, my readers, can help by spreading the word.

Last week Susan Cambigue Tracey, of the Music Center’s Education Division, generously hosted my first reading, and we had great fun featuring performances of some of Erasmus’ hilarious colloquies. Colloquies were short scripted playlets used in schools to teach the important art of conversational (as opposed to classical) Latin. Both classical and conversational (colloquial) were taught intentionally in the Latin grammar schools that Shakespeare and thousands of his peers attended. Latin was the lingua franca of businessmen, clergymen, lawyers, ambassadors, and other travelers on the continent In the 16th century. Travelers had to be able to chat, joke, and negotiate with their peers all over Europe. Classical Latin was for the university. Colloquial Latin was for business.

And colloquial Latin was very much in Erasmus’ realm. Talk about joy in learning! Erasmus invented it!

If you think about your school years, all of the most memorable learning moments were probably accompanied by either pain or joy. My aim is to diminish the power of pain in learning and elevate the power of laugher and joy. I stand with Erasmus on that.

 

 

 

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It’s Here!

My book is finally coming out and can be pre-ordered as of December 9. I’m so pleased and excited! The release date will be after December 30, so not quite in time for the holidays, but it will be a great gift for the new year. It’s a fun and informative read for educators and parents who are passionate about empowering learning through the inclusion of the performing arts in every aspect of schooling.

My brother John Lithgow did the art work for the cover and a drawing for each chapter. The project was a family affair.

I couldn’t be more pleased with the Routledge Publishing. The whole process has been a joy, from the enthusiasm of their first readers to the support from their editors all along the way. Every first time author should be so lucky!

This book will contribute to the vibrant conversation among educators about renewing arts-rich curriculum in our schools. Follow the link here to order your own copy and share with others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I’m Interviewed by My Son!

My son has been doing long-form interviews with local politicians and activists, and he asked to interview me about my book. His platform is called “Slow Talk with Dov Rudnick”, and they are indeed slow (we’re both pretty slow talkers) but hopefully interesting. He’s done three of them with me, and this is the first. I’ll post the others in the weeks to come. If you have the time, there’s a lot of information here about “Lessons From Shakespeare’s Classroom: Empowering Learning Through Drama and Rhetoric,” soon to be published by Routledge Press.

Pictured here as scrappy Ohio children in the 50s are myself (pre-braces), my kid brother John (pre-stardom), and my big brother David (pre-many adventures). My pageboy haircut was because this was taken the year that David and I played the hapless royal boys murdered in the tower in Richard III. It was the first year of the Antioch Shakespeare Festival, the year my dad produced eight of the chronicles, from King John to Henry VIII. I turned eight that summer.

I’m in the final stages with Routledge, finishing the editing and ready to embark on the indexing. The publication date will be in 2023. I’m Very excited!

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Contract Signed!

Erasmus plays with legos, drawing by John Lithgow

Great news! My book will be published by Routledge Press in Oxford, England. I’m thrilled. It was my first choice of a publisher from the very beginning. It will be published under the title: “Lessons for Today from Shakespeare’s Classroom: The Cognitive Benefits of Drama and Rhetoric in Schools,” I’ve just signed the contract and will keep my readers informed about the publication date, but that should be within 18 months. In the meantime, I’ll start posting more regularly.

I hope “Lessons for Today….”  will be in the library and bookstore of every college and university in England and the U.S. training teachers in the humanities, Fingers crossed!

For a teaser, here is the Introduction:

My years in education have convinced me that performing arts, storytelling, and creative language should be at the core of education. We need more of them in our schools. A great deal more. Every day. This is not because we need more actors, dancers, musicians, and writers but because we need smarter, more thoughtful citizens. We need nimble thinkers with the mental flexibility to process the daily onslaught of information provided to us in the age of the Internet. We need a population of adults for whom creative and critical thinking comes instinctively. We need to think about the education of children the way Desiderius Erasmus did six hundred years ago, when he was helping to construct the foundations of humanism and design the curriculum enjoyed by William Shakespeare’s entire generation, elements of which still resonate today. For the humanists, the education of children was for the benefit of the commonwealth, and the curriculum they designed was far richer in the arts than has been commonly realized.

In this book we will examine two relatively short spans of time during which unimaginable changes occurred: the Reformation and the dawning of modern English language and literature. What if we could wave a magic wand and make the radical changes I would like to see in public education in the post-pandemic generation, reflecting on what we know now about how education can develop wise and healthy adults? Just as the Renaissance emerged after the Black Plague, there will soon be new cultural models that may give us an opportunity to rethink old norms. One area that is ripe for renewal is the evaluation of educational programs. My fervent hope is that the era of drill-and-kill test preparation is ending, and that the arts will lead in a new look at assessment that is authentic and supportive of life-long learning.

There were three igniting realizations that set my course as I began this journey. First was learning that two of Shakespeare’s teachers were students of Richard Mulcaster, headmaster of the Merchant Taylors’ School in London, who was influenced by the early humanists and was famous for his use of drama in the classroom. The second was the common practice of students performing colloquies (brief scripted scenes) for practice in Latin. Finally it was learning about the artistry of dramatic language that was nurtured by the centuries-old study of rhetoric, or the “art of speaking well.” Colloquial (conversational) language and rhetorical (elevated) language were partners in Shakespeare’s education. Both involved dramatic presentation, and both contributed to the cognitive brilliance of the age.

If humanist education in Shakespeare’s day in any way produced smarter and more more flexible thinkers, more discerning minds, and more intelligent citizens (and it will be obvious that I believe it did), it is worth our effort to identify what elements of that education could be simulated in schools today, with a particular examination of the arts of performance.

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Collaborative Classroom Hilarity

Schoolboys performing colloquies —drawing by John Lithgow

I know, I know—the “whining school-boy…creeping like snail unwillingly to school” and all that—but I actually think Shakespeare had a lot of fun at Stratford’s Latin Grammar school. Not only that, he shared that fun with his classmates.

For one thing, I am absolutely convinced that the first draft of his The Taming of the Shrew was based on a riotously funny collaboration written and performed by Stratford schoolboys, but I’ll save that for a another post when I can show a reading of Erasmus’s hilarious colloquy “Uxor” (Marriage), starring Xanthippe, the Shrew. (My gut tells me that young Will played that part and relished it!)

But I also think that learning dozens and dozens of rhetorical figures and devices was fun too. Why? Well, when you think about it, they ARE fun in themselves—like intricate word puzzles—and wordplay was a major source of entertainment back then. Either by good pedagogy or by necessity, collaboration was a constant factor in the Elizabethan classroom, and figuring out those devices together must have been totally engaging.

Just to demonstrate: I’ve attached here the full video of a presentation I did recently at the studio of Susan Cambique Tracey in which the participants, many of them colleagues and Music Center teaching artists, engaged in a collaborative activity creating examples of four figures. (I’ve posted segments of the video featuring readings from two colloquies—and hope to have one soon of “Uxor”— but the rhetoric portion of the video is in the first half.)

(Video filmed by Scott Powell at the studio of Paul Susan Cambique Tracey)

I’ve been told that some of my blog posts are “erudite.” I hate hearing that. Honestly, I am no scholar. All the years of research I’ve done on this project have been fueled by pleasure and passion: the same qualities that the performing arts bring to the education of children. I hope the laughter and delight experienced by the participants in this video bolsters my theory that arts education, in addition to developing cognition, is a solution to the doldrums our children are experiencing in the contemporary classroom.

 

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“To Play” vs “The Play”

“To Play” vs “The Play”

Pirates Playing

Pirates Playing

In 1582, in his book Positions, Richard Mulcaster, citing Plato, listed five essential studies for the young student: reading, writing, singing, drawing, and playing. When I first read that I thought that he meant “playing” as in “player,” or “actor,” and was kind of disappointed when I realized that he was referring not to drama but to playing a musical instrument (which, with singing, doubles the number for music!) Still, I was delighted that music and visual arts were up there with the essentials, and if you include rhetoric and the artistry of writing, the arts get four of the five!

But the more I learned about Mulcaster and his daily use of drama in his classroom, the more I realized that theatre was not, at the time, considered an arts discipline in itself, but the product of music, dance, visual arts, and “actio” (physical rhetoric), all of which Mulcaster included in his daily instruction. Through rhetoric, drama is directly connected to writing. (I am personally convinced by my research that the first draft of The Taming of the Shrew was a riotous and “play”ful collaboration of schoolboys at Stratford Grammar School, but I’ll save that for another post).

Playing Around

Playing Around Photo by Mi-Pham via unsplash

Today, outside of the field of child development, “‘play” is too often perceived as a distraction from learning—something in conflict with instruction. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, play is the first—and the most vital—foundational step in literacy; and the more that play can be folded into instruction, the the deeper and more enduring the learning. This is true all through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age (as I am here to testify!)

The following is an excerpt from the final chapter of my book:

“When my four-year-old granddaughter walks in the door, inevitably the first thing she says to me is ‘play with me.’ That primal need for social connection and play will be dominant for at least the next twenty years and, in fact, it will never go away completely. Our minds develop in a social context. Children learn from playing with each other far more than they learn from schooling, which, for better or for worse, opens a wealth of opportunity. Is it any wonder that the most ancient and authentic form of communicating a story is called a ‘play’?”

At any age and IN any age, drama, whether as the verb “play” (e.g. improvisation) or as the noun “play” (e.g. finished performance) engages and entertains as it educates. The education one receives through drama/theatre goes way beyond literacy. It teaches empathy, social skills, time management, collaboration, cooperation, listening, thinking-on-feet, and on and on. Most important, once again, it “frames the mind for learning.” Cognition!

 

 

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