Activities and events

Went for my bicycle ride along Beach Road. Port Phillip Bay was a lovely bright teal blue, a little choppy. The sky was clear azure.

Dreams

A dream from last Saturday (19/10): I am in the backyard with Dad. We look up in the sky to see an F-16 jet tumbling around in an aerial display. Earlier in the dream, I go out in the backyard before sunrise and see 3 rainbows in the dark cloudy sky, lit by the rising sun.

Aspergers obsessions

A post in the r/Aspergers forum asks: Anyone else feel intense boredom when they're not fixating on a special interest? I can emphatically relate to that! If I do not have an interest/obsession to fixate on, I feel unfocused, restless, unhappy. I have endured several periods in my life where an obsession has ended, and the transition period is quite psychologically unpleasant. My interests also serve as a creative outlet. I can define my life by the interests I have had. Some are long-term and permanent though, examples being spaceflight, space generally and some historical eras such as Samurai/Japan, ancient China and Mesoamerica.

Shakespeare too hard?

An article from today’s Herald-Sun about a survey finding that many students do not see Shakespeare’s plays as relevant:

Why schoolkids are rejecting Shakespeare

Charles Miranda, News Corp Australia Network
October 23, 2019 8:00am

To be or not to be – that is the question school teachers may well be asking themselves after a poll found students did not consider learning Shakespeare’s work relevant to today’s society or helpful to get a job.

And almost all respondents said the Bard’s language was too difficult to understand and his works should be contemporised.

But federal Education Minister Dan Tehan said Aussie school kids should not be expecting his “timeless” works to be dropped from the syllabus any time soon.

He may be considered the world’s greatest dramatist and writer of the English language but a survey in his birth nation Britain found more than two fifths of students did not see how studying Shakespeare or his works would help them get a job when they left school.

The survey, commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and digital technology company Adobe, found 29 per cent of respondents said they might learn more if his plays were set to modern day, one in five believed video and animation would help them understand scenes better and 77 per cent found his language simply too challenging to follow.

More than 40 per cent of those 2000 11 to 18-year-old students surveyed concluded studying Shakespeare would not help them get a job when they left school.

Commenting on the British education poll, Australia’s Education Minister said the Bard’s work was very much relevant.

“Every student should study Shakespeare,” Mr Tehan told News Corp yesterday.

“He is one of the most influential writers in English literature and his plays address timeless themes that are still relevant today. Our Government believes that strong literacy skills are an essential element of an education and learning Shakespeare will strengthen those skills.”

The debate about including Shakespeare in the HSC or exam syllabuses arises from time to time with some in the Australian education system believing it was no longer relevant.

The survey was commissioned to mark a new digital art series which reimagines Shakespeare’s best-loved and most studied scenes and characters.

RSC director of education Jacqui O’Hanlon said regardless of the finding, he was studied around the world including by two million students in the UK.

“We know from our extensive research that having access to arts and cultural learning improves empathy, critical and creative thinking in young people as well as developing their social and communication skills,” she said.

“All these qualities and attributes are essential for helping prepare young people to take their place in the world.”

She said however a new partnership with Adobe on the new digital art series reimagined Shakespeare’s best-loved and most studied scenes and characters and they would continue to look at ways to bring his best loved texts to life for contemporary audiences.

A rather dismaying finding, but not surprising, given the declining state of education and subsequent dumbing-down of the curriculum – at least, in Western countries (USA, Britain, Australia). I did study some of the plays when I was in school; my favorite was Macbeth due to all its violence and action :-). My favorite director, Akira Kurosawa, based two of his films on Shakespeare plays: Throne of Blood (Macbeth) and Ran (King Lear). The language is challenging but lovely; it makes one’s brain work! Students should be challenged when learning, not pandered to. That is a reason I detest much of Young Adult and children’s fiction produced now: it is simplistic and dumb.

Weather

Hot today, around 34°C, with a strong northerly wind – the first hot day for the season this year in Melbourne.