Most of the national nightly news programs now end with a positive segment. For instance, CBS has “The American Spirit,” ABC “Person of the Week,” and NBC “Making a Difference.”  They do this, I’m guessing, to soften the blow of the 20 minutes of horrendous headlines that they have just offered up.

Last night’s Nightly News with Brian Williams (NBC) was no different. Williams introduced a story about CPS Shakepeare, an ensemble of Chicago teachers and students who perform 60-minute adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays.  But before handing over the story to fellow correspondent Kevin Tibbles, Williams informs the viewer that CPS stands for Chicago Public Schools, “maybe not the first place you think of when Shakespeare in mentioned.” Moreover, the anchor adds, “And while [Shakespeare] has been gone for over 400 years, I bet you didn’t know he’s still teaching every day in Chicago.”

The entire segment, which you can view below, features students reciting their favorite lines and telling us that Shakespeare at first seems “crazy, like what is he saying?” But now, after spending time studying the Bard and his “foreign” language, the students get it. They love it. Similarly, teachers describe the teens’ various socioeconomic backgrounds, the “intimate connections” the group has formed through this process, and how Shakespeare is relevant to their lives (e.g., as expected, teen lovers Romeo and Juliet are cited here). We are also privy to stage rehearsals, makeup applications, and shots of the plush theatre in which the high schoolers will eventually perform this year’s rendition of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Chicago’s lovely Shakespeare Theatre, featured below).

All of this is fine and inspiring, touching even. Of course it’s wonderful when a student–from any walk of life–locates something in art, in literature, in cinema, in Shakespeare to which she can relate. As well, it’s certainly satisfying for the student (as well as the teacher) when he realizes that Shakespeare’s early modern English is neither foreign nor irrelevant to his life. But something about this story does rub me the wrong way: the words Brian Williams uses to introduce it. To recap:

• First, the American public school system (represented here by the city of Chicago) is probably not “the first place you think of when Shakespeare in mentioned.”
• Second, even though the playwright has been dead for four centuries, Williams “bets you didn’t know he’s still teaching every day in Chicago.”

I am aware that some secondary schools around this country do not (cannot?) introduce their students to Shakespeare’s works, and I know that several inner-city schools in America are considered sub par. But in many, many states, cities, and towns in the U.S., Shakespeare “is still teaching every day,” and of course, much of that teaching takes place in public (and private) high schools. After all, the Bard is the go-to guy for nearly every level of high school (e.g., Julius Caesar for freshmen, Romeo and Juliet for sophomores, Hamlet or Macbeth for juniors and seniors).

It’s not as a Shakespeare professor that I take issue with these claims; it’s as a high school student. Let me elaborate: I was a senior in high school when I first made the connection with Shakespeare (and British literature in general). The class was fourth-period English lit, the teacher Mrs. Hill, the play Macbeth. Like the kids featured in NBC’s story, I attended a public school with students from various races, classes, and socioeconomic levels. Granted, my high school was located in a small town in north Louisiana and not in the metropolis of Chicago; however, the school was still public, teachers were still underpaid, and teenagers were still teenagers.

So when I see the national news run stories suggesting that Shakespeare as well as what his plays can teach us carries little weight in the American public school system and that students must seek elsewhere (like CPS Shakespeare) for an intimate connection with, an understanding of the works, I do cringe a bit. But then I think back fondly to fourth period at Ouachita Parish High School. While many of my classmates were giggling at Macbeth‘s line “Who’s there? what, ho!” (2.2), I was reveling in the language, the characters, and the themes of Shakespeare. Yep, Shakespeare: the playwright with whom I’d eventually spend most of my waking days, the playwright whom I discovered not on a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon but within four white walls of a public high school in America.