A California English teacher has taken political correctness so far she’s refusing to teach her students some of the greatest works of English literature.
Because William Shakespeare was white.
That’s according to a Washington Post column Saturday that reported English teacher Dana Dubiber has no use for the Bard’s works, even though Shakespeare is “a requirement in the Common Core English Language Arts standards.”
Dusbiber, who is white, is described as “a veteran teacher at Luther Burbank High School,” which “is the largest inner-city school in Sacramento, California, with all students coming from low-income homes and a majority of them minorities,” the column reported.
And therein lies the rub.
“I am sad that so many of my colleagues teach a canon that some white people decided upon so long ago and do it without question,” she wrote for the Post’s “Answer Sheet” column.
“What I worry about is that as long as we continue to cling to ONE (white) MAN’S view of life as he lived it so long ago,” she continued.
So it all comes down to race? Because most of her students are minorities, she wants to dumb down the curriculum? By doing that, she’s depriving her students of the education that local taxpayers paid for.
More than that, she’s depriving her students of experiencing the power and richness of the English language.
She has what she believes is a better idea.
So I ask, why not teach the oral tradition out of Africa, which includes an equally relevant commentary on human behavior? Why not teach translations of early writings or oral storytelling from Latin America or Southeast Asia other parts of the world? Many, many of our students come from these languages and traditions. Why do our students not deserve to study these “other” literatures with equal time and value? And if time is the issue in our classrooms, perhaps we no longer have the time to study the Western canon that so many of us know and hold dear.
She goes on to give contradictory arguments for teaching literature other than Shakespeare to minority versus white students.
“If we only teach students of color, as I have been fortunate to do my entire career, then it is far past the time for us to dispense with our Eurocentric presentation of the literary world,” she writes.
“Conversely, if we only teach white students, it is our imperative duty to open them up to a world of diversity through literature that they may never encounter anywhere else in their lives.”
So minority students should only be exposed to literature that originated with people who shared their skin color, while white students need to spread their wings and experience literature from other cultures?
Social media users blasted her arguments.
“@DailyCaller: Teacher: I Don’t Teach Shakespeare Because He’s White http://t.co/Y54AstmKID”what a poor reason not to teach Shakespeare
— CW (@CW315) June 14, 2015
@DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/BtOPNsDNrI
— Isaac Collins (@dallasbrink27) June 14, 2015
@DailyCaller Some say he had a few insights into the human condition. But it was just white humans. And black. And Jewish. Bigot!
— Abu Nudnik (@AbuNudnik) June 14, 2015
@washingtonpost @valeriestrauss my young daughter asked me who was more important: Einstein or Shakespeare? Without doubt, it is The Bard
— Nadine SalkeldBarkai (@NadineBarkai) June 13, 2015
@washingtonpost all of these arguments are the faults of the teacher, not the apparent fact that the Bard is boring or irrelevant
— Kyle Czarcinski (@Kyleczarcinski) June 13, 2015
@DailyCaller And Shakespeare didn’t learn Homer because he was blind. And certainly did not ignore the “otherness” of Shylock or Othello.
— John Hasley (@PonsSublicius) June 14, 2015
Although she describes herself as a voracious reader, Dusbiber admits to a “personal disinterest in reading stories written in an early form of the English language that I cannot always easily navigate.”
Perhaps that’s because Shakespeare isn’t meant to be read — it’s meant to be recited, or acted on a stage It’s meant to be whispered during some passages, and shouted from the rooftops in others.
Just ask acclaimed actor James Earl Jones. Here he is reading a passage from Shakespeare’s “Othello” at the White House.
H/T: The Daily Caller
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