Ask Shakespeare #2
Did You Really Quit School After 8th Grade?
In our time what you call 8th grade was the end of general schooling. It meant you had a command of practical mathematics, the language we spoke and how to read and write it.
All columns · October 2024 newsletter
The Question
Did you really quit school after 8th grade?
Shakespeare Answers
In our time what you call 8th grade was the end of general schooling. It meant you had a command of practical mathematics, the language we spoke and how to read and write it, considerable Latin, and history. If you needed more specific knowledge you apprenticed to a trade or went to live at a school that prepared you for university.
Many people in my time didn’t read at all. Their literacy was oral — trained ears and memory allowed them to hear a play and then quote whole parts of it. Some of our players didn’t read.
Your culture is becoming more literate in oral skills as reading becomes less important. You watch hours of images every day. You write by typing on screens and use many symbols. But compared to any child on the street in my time most of you have poor oral memory skills. Poets, Rappers, Storytellers, and many theatre performers and their audiences have good oral memories.