Lessons from Shakespeare’s Classroom

<p>This volume explores the relationship between the emphasis on performance in Elizabethan humanist education and the flourishing of literary brilliance around the turn of the sixteenth century. </p><p>This study asks us what lessons we can learn today from Shakespeare’s Latin grammar school. What were the cognitive benefits of an education so deeply rooted in what Demosthenes and Quintilian called "actio"—acting? Because of the vast difference between educational practice then and now, we have not often followed one essential thread: the focus on performance. This study examines the connections relevant to the education offered in schools today. </p><p>This book will be of great interest to teachers, scholars, and administrators in performing arts and education.</p> <p><em>Timeline</em></p><p><em>Cast of Characters</em></p><p><em>Acknowledgements</em></p><p><strong>Introduction</strong></p><p>Chapter 1. Time Travel: Setting the scene</p><p>Chapter 2. Engagement before Information: Instruction in both colloquial and rhetorical language in Elizabethan schools</p><p>Chapter 3. Angels and Eaglets: Schoolboy actors set the scene</p><p>Chapter 4. Good Behavior and Audacity: The training up of Elizabethan schoolboys</p><p>Chapter 5. The Lego Snap of Learning: Research in arts education and neuroscience </p><p>Chapter 6. Context: The Hatch and Brood of Time: A brief history of the English Reformation</p><p>Chapter 7. Erasmus’ Egg: His life and his works in support of performing arts in education</p><p>Chapter 8. The Delightful Mulcaster: Playmaking schoolmasters in Tudor England</p><p>Chapter 9. Per Quam Figuram? Rhetoric in Shakespeare’s classroom</p><p>Chapter 10. Erasmus Writes Colloquies: Classroom training in Latin conversation</p><p>Chapter 11. The Little Eyases: Professional boy actors in the 16th century</p><p><strong>Chapter 12.</strong> Conclusion</p><p><strong>Bibliography</strong></p><p>Appendix I: Performing the Colloquies</p><p>Examples of Erasmus’ Colloquies in Latin and English</p><ul> <ul> <p> </p> <li>Proci and puellae (Courtship)</li> <p> </p> <li>Naufragium (The Shipwreck)</li> <p> </p> <li>Uxor (Marriage)</li> <p> </p> <li>Abattis et eruditae (The Abbot and the Learned Woman)</li> <p> </p> <li>Herilia (A Master’s Commands)</li> </ul> </ul><p>Appendix II: Selection of Educational Drama Resources for Teachers </p><p>Index</p>