The Shakespearean era has lost its charm in Florida with the schools of the district censoring the works of William Shakespeare. Bard of Avon remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted, however, Florida thinks otherwise.
Students of the Florida school district will only be reading the excerpts of Shakespeare rather than the entire plays resulting in the new guidelines regarding sexual content in the curriculum being brought in. The new book-challenge law, HB 1069, has spawned an uptick in book bans and increased scrutiny surrounding schools’ education materials.
The New Law Has Increased Scrutiny Surrounding Education in Florida
Schools in Florida are facing concerns over sexual content in their educational materials leading them to remove the works of William Shakespeare from the current curriculum. In 2020, the Benmarks for Excellent Student Thinking standards were adopted which recommended a reading list that included renowned literary works. The list said “top-of-the-line literary works with world-renowned titles”. Among the authors on the high school list was William Shakespeare.
However, three years later, several Florida school districts are censoring the works of Shakespeare along with many other classics due to the new state laws restricting materials containing sexual content. As reported by the Tampa Bay Times, Hillsborough County is the latest district to make this move, mandating teachers to allocate excerpts from plays like ‘Romeo and Juliet‘ instead of the full text.
A teacher at Gaither High School, Joseph Cool criticized this move stating, “Taking Shakespeare in its entirety out because the relationship between Romeo and Juliet is somehow exploiting minors is just absurd”. Cool further added, “I think the rest of the nation — no, the world, is laughing at us.”
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Governor Of Florida Ron De Santis Receives Backlash From Public
Last year, ‘The Don’t Say Gay’ law was signed by Ron DeSantis and originally banned discussion of LGBTQ+ identities from kindergarten to third grade. When DeSantis signed the bill, he claimed anyone opposing it supported “injecting woke gender ideology into second-grade classrooms [and] sexualizing students in kindergarten.”
HB 1069 requires Florida schools to remove any media containing the state’s definition of “sexual conduct”, a category that also includes required materials for the College Board’s Advanced Placement Literature exam, per the outlet. Over the span of two years, the governor of Florida passed various bills that caused the citizens to go against him.
The first was passed last year and prohibited classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in lower grades. The second law passed this year extended the prohibition on gender and sexual orientation discussion to other grades. It also prevents students and teachers from being required to use preferred pronouns that don’t correspond to biological sex and strengthens the system by which people can lodge challenges against school books. Republicans at that time said that the bill was intended to shield children from sexualized content.
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