Teachers across the district are receiving help when it comes to deciphering the soliloquies of Shakespeare.
The California Shakespeare Theater will be leading the third season of its Teachers in Arts program, designed to help high school teachers in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District with their instruction of Shakespeare.
This year the program is expanding to middle school teachers, after it was introduced at Charlotte Wood Middle School successfully last year.
“One of the benefits is that middle school kids can be a little shy and reserved. It’s an awkward age for many kids,” said Gary Marsh, spokesman for Shapell Homes, the program sponsor. “It sort of drew a lot of people out, people who wouldn’t be so expressive.”
The artistic learning program will now be taught to teachers at all five district high schools and seven middle schools, reaching a total of approximately 800 students.
Some administrators were initially reluctant with the idea. They believed the younger students would have difficulty comprehending Shakespeare’s work. However, their concerns were assuaged with the overwhelming success of Charlotte Wood’s trial run.
“I received many e-mails from parents extolling the virtues of the program,” said Charlotte Wood teacher Linda Roshay. “Enthusiastic children returned home from school each day only to share their experiences in the classroom and what they had learned.”
The program is intended to help teachers combine traditional instruction methods with an artistic approach to learning. Twenty-five members of the California Shakespeare Theater, including actors and directors, were on hand Tuesday to run a workshop at the Dougherty Station Community Center.
“The teaching artist will lead the classroom teachers in interactive workshops to show how art’s methodology can be integrated into core curriculum,” said Bronwyn Eisenberg, the California Shakespeare Director of Artistic Learning, before the workshop. “The idea is that the classroom teachers can take what they learned and then apply that to other classes that they teach.”
The training program gave the classroom teachers a chance to interact with the teaching artists. Classroom teachers outlined their goals and objectives for the upcoming school year and had a chance to talk with the artists one on one.
Common techniques used by the theater were also demonstrated.
“Anything from enunciation to hand use to puppetry,” said Marsh.
The teaching artist will continue to work with the classroom teacher throughout the school year, making eight one-hour visits over the course of four to eight weeks. The teaching artist will meet in advance with the classroom teacher, and then observe the class and help with pre-planning based on the classroom teacher’s stated curriculum objective.
The close relationship fostered between the two has led to a large amount of praise among teachers in the district.
“We’ve done the program for two years, and just about everyone gives us a 5 out of 5,” said Eisenberg. “They’re eager to participate again.”
