Shakespeare is one of the world's most renowned and celebrated playwrights. Students should have the opportunity to enjoy his well-crafted stories at any age.

Shakespeare is everywhere in our culture. We see and hear references to him and his plays in newspapers, comic strips, magazine articles, books (including titles), songs, and even popular movies refer to Shakespeare. Some examples are "Clueless", "Star Trek 4" and "Ten Things I Hate about You" (based on the Taming of the Shrew). Not to mention the countless references and quotes we hear all the time such as "to be or not to be", "be cruel only to be kind", "Et tu Brute?", "the green-eyed monster", and even "knock-knock, who's there?".

The importance of Shakespeare can also be explained by relating it the founder of Core Knowledge - E.D Hirsch's work on cultural literacy. This approach maintains that for a person to be well-educated, he or she must own certain information or facts about our world, E.g., be "culturally literate". The basic goal of cultural literacy is the transmission of specific information shared by the adults of the group. Our students need to "own" Shakepeare in order to be culturally literate, or share in the information adults possess.

Also, as E.D Hirsch notes, learning builds on learning. Children and adults gain new knowledge only by building on what they already know. It is essential to begin building a solid foundation of knowledge in the early grades when children are most receptive.
By introducing the stories from Shakespeare at an early age (in an age appropriate manner) we're helping to guarantee that the foundations will be there when Shakespeare is revisited in depth in the Upper School. We're also ensuring that students understand the basic story or plot of a play before they are expected to read it in its original form. This should help prevent "Shakespeare anxiety" and should help provide students with a more positive self-image.

Lastly, Shakespeare was meant to be seen not read, so students will always be encouraged to act out scenes as they study the plays. To help make the study of Shakespeare authentic Fieldstone puts on a Shakespearean play every year in the spring. Students also visit Stratford to have a chance to see the Bard's plays acted out live.