Last year I wrote a piece titled "A Shared Journey of Discovery" about how an email from one of my freshman Latin students brought about some international, cross-temporal connections involving the music of ancient Rome. That journey continued recently with a most amazing Zoom between England and Noblesville, Indiana.
Zooming Across The World
Those of us who are, as they say, digital immigrants, will never cease to be amazed by the connections that technology can enable us to have. On a Wednesday afternoon in January of 2023, students, faculty, and members of our community were able to sit in the media center of St. Theodore Guerin Catholic High School and have a conversation with someone nearly 4,000 miles away. There she was, displayed as sharply on screens as if she were in the room with us and with sound that made her voice as clear as if she were sitting on the other side of the table. And what was the purpose of this high-tech conversation? It is was to hear from Mary Ann Tedstone Glover about her work to understand, reproduce, and record the music of the ancient world.
It's All About The Questions
Mary Ann, about whom you can read more on her website, whom you can follow on Twitter, and whose work is available on Spotify and for purchase at Bandcamp, is a composer, a TV and film consultant, and is just weeks away from finishing her Ph.D. The project that has everyone so excited, however, is her album The Music of Ancient Rome, and she spent nearly an hour with us talking about it and taking questions from the audience.
She shared with us how x-ray imaging of artifacts revealed details to help in the re-creation of ancient musical instruments and talked about the long, involved process of writing music based on ancient modes, selecting lyrics from Latin authors, and putting it all together with professional musicians in the studio.
Mary Ann screenshares some of her research
What struck me most, however, were the fantastic questions our students asked, and apparently it struck her, too, for as we messaged after the event, she said, "The questions were really good. They are a great bunch!"
Mosaic Education
One of the distinctive art forms of the ancient world is the mosaic, little pieces of color that combine to make a delightful whole. Mary Ann's work draws upon Latin, music theory, music composition, music production, archaeology, technology, marketing, fundraising, communication, social media, and more. She has combined all of these to bring to life music not heard for two thousand years, and this is what true education is all about, the kind that can be found at our high school and many others that are committed not to the slavish worship of test scores, but to helping students discover and develop their gifts as they explore the world around them, stretching as it does across time and space. On a Tuesday afternoon in January, the students of Guerin Catholic High School saw many colorful pieces joining in a delightful whole. This is the essence of true education, captured best in a poem written for a different reason by Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot John Gillespie Magee, Jr., in 1941.
The idea of robots and artificial intelligence goes back at least to the 8th century B.C. with Homer's description of women made of gold who assisted the god Hephaestus in his blacksmithing work.
Translation of Iliad 18.416ff by Alexander Pope
While suspicion of technology goes back much further than the 20th century, the supposed creepiness of A.I. is classically portrayed by the sentient computer HAL in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Now, here we are in 2023, and the brouhaha about A.I., especially regarding its role in education, continues.
All About That Bot, 'Bout That Bot
ChatGPT is all the rage. Don't believe me? Just do a quick search. I won't even include links to the articles about it because they are ubiquitous and seem to flood my news feeds. In short, ChatGPT is an Artificial Intelligence that will produce any type of you writing you want on any subject, and it is becoming the hot topic among educators. After we discussed it at a recent department meeting at my school, I spent about a half hour or so playing with it. Based on my requests, it was able to write a poem in rhyming iambic pentameter couplets extolling the virtues of the Roman poet Vergil over the Greek poet Homer, translate the first seven lines of Vergil's Aeneid from Latin into English iambic pentameter verse, write an essay based on a topic one of my International Baccalaureate students had explored for one of her own papers, compose a short essay with footnotes about the U.S. Constitution and contemporary politics, write a letter of recommendation for someone applying to college, produce two short essays based on the topics of two of my own published articles, and create a prayer in the style of St. Bonaventure. You may see all the fruits of this A.I. labor at the end of this piece. Needless to say, this raises some questions.
Questions From the Chinese Room
Nearly ten years ago I wrote a piece that talked about A.I. and made reference to philosopher John Searle's famous Chinese Room Argument, and nearly twenty years ago Searle's work featured prominently in my article for Classical Outlook, "The Depth and Charm of Latin Translation." It basically runs like this. Imagine a room in which a person who knows no Chinese at all sits with a book that contains all the rules for the Chinese language. Every character, every word, and every variation of grammar are included. A fluent speaker stands outside the room and slips under the door a piece of paper on which is written a question in Chinese. The person in the room uses the book and composes an answer that makes sense in grammatically correct Chinese and slips it back under the door. Surely the person outside would conclude that he was communicating with a fluent Chinese speaker.
That thought experiment leads to many thoughts to consider, but one is that something seems off about the whole interaction. Does the person in the room really know Chinese? Most of us would say no, but then again, what is happening in our brains when we process language other than flipping, albeit quite fast, through an internal rule book?
If Searle's thought experiment raised questions, ChatGPT has opened the floodgate. I invite you to consider the following and to offer your thoughts and raise others in the comments.
How does a teacher prevent cheating when this program can generate an essay with footnotes?
Is there any legitimate use for this program in a classroom at any level, and if so, what is that use?
Is it ethically right, wrong, or neutral to ask this program to write a letter of recommendation for someone to which you attach your name? Explain.
Would you be offended if someone gave you a love poem composed by ChatGPT? How is that different from receiving a purchased greeting card? Does it make a difference whether the person tells you it was composed by a bot or not?
These questions range from the typical kinds of things educators talk about regarding classroom practices to the more abstract and philosophical, but there was one bot-generated piece in my half hour of A.I. play that has the potential to generate much serious, theological discussion. One of the teachers in my department meeting had told of how a friend of his had used ChatGPT to craft a prayer for a certain men's activity at church, and at once the question was asked whether such crafting had room for the Holy Spirit's guidance. Whether or not you are a Christian, stay with this for a moment. It leads to something fascinating.
Spirit-Inspired, Bot-Created
Christians believe that the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity and therefore fully God along with the Father and the Son, Jesus, inspires us and leads us and guides us. Christians also believe that God has causal power over inanimate things and animals, e.g. causing water to divide and causing a donkey to speak. A question for theologians to explore in our age of A.I. is whether a Holy Spirit-inspired, bot created prayer or other religious text could exist.
Bot Bits
What follows are the responses I received from ChatGPT on Wednesday, January 18th, 2023, to various questions and prompts. You be the judge of how well the bot replied and be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments below.
1. Write a prayer in the style of St. Bonaventure praising Jesus Christ.
O Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man,
We praise and adore you for your great plan
To come to earth and save us from our sin,
With love and mercy deep within.
We thank you for the sacrifice you made,
Upon the cross, for our eternal aid,
For giving us the grace to rise above
The trials and the struggles of this world.
We ask that you would guide us in your way,
And help us to be more like you each day,
To love and serve and follow in your steps,
And to be filled with your Spirit, without regrets.
2. This was a questions based on the research topic of one of my International Baccalaureate students. How did Epicurean philosophy influence the letters of St. Paul in the New Testament?
Epicurean philosophy, which emphasized the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, may have influenced the letters of St. Paul in the New Testament in a few ways.
First, Epicureanism emphasized the importance of living a virtuous life in order to achieve pleasure, and this idea may have influenced Paul's emphasis on the importance of living a righteous life.
Second, Epicureanism taught that the soul dies with the body, and that there is no afterlife or punishment for the soul. Paul, on the other hand, emphasized the idea of the resurrection of the dead and the judgement of souls. So, in a way, Paul's letters could be seen as a refutation of Epicurean philosophy on this point.
Third, Epicureanism taught that the gods do not concern themselves with the affairs of human beings, and that they are removed from the world. Paul, on the other hand, teaches that God is actively involved in the world and that He cares for his people.
It's important to note that there's no direct evidence that Paul was familiar with Epicureanism or that he was responding to it in his letters. These are possible similarities and influence that have been pointed out by scholars.
3. Write a love poem in rhyming iambic pentameter couplets about the superiority of the poet Virgil over Homer.
Oh Virgil, your verse is so much more divine
Than Homer's, in beauty and in skill entwined.
Your Aeneid tells a tale of love and fate,
With language sweet, and meter so sedate.
While Homer's tales are grand, and full of might,
Your poetry paints pictures that ignite
The senses, and the heart, with its true art,
A beauty that sets you far above your part.
With every line, you weave a work of art,
That sings of love, of war, and of the heart.
Your words are music, sweet and pure and fine,
And in their beauty, all else doth decline.
So let the world proclaim your worth, my love,
For in the realm of poetry, none above.
Virgil, your verse is like a beacon bright,
That guides us through the darkness of the night.
4. This was the topic of my article "The Anfractuous Path of the Helen Episode in Aeneid 2," published in Classical Outlook, Vol. 89, Number 4, 2016. I can tell you that the bot did address some of the primary issues. Was the Helen episode in Book 2 of the Aeneid actually written by Vergil?
The Helen episode in Book 2 of the Aeneid, where Aeneas meets Helen of Troy in the underworld, is a subject of debate among scholars. Some believe that it was actually written by Virgil, while others argue that it was a later addition by a different author.
Those who argue that the episode was written by Virgil point to the fact that the scene is well-integrated into the overall narrative of the poem and that Virgil's style is consistent throughout the scene. Additionally, the episode serves a thematic purpose in the poem, as it highlights Aeneas' role as a Trojan and his connection to the Trojan War.
On the other hand, some scholars argue that the episode is not consistent with Virgil's style, pointing out that the scene is not present in the earliest surviving manuscripts of the Aeneid and that it is not integrated seamlessly into the overall narrative of the poem. They also argue that the episode does not serve a significant thematic purpose and that it has more in common with other, later versions of the Trojan War story.
It is difficult to determine with certainty whether the episode was written by Virgil or not due to the lack of evidence, but the majority of scholars believe that it was not.
5. This was the topic of my article "The Homoousios Doctrine and Non-Reductive Models of Consciousness," published in Quodlibet, Vol. 7, Number 2, 2005. Initially I thought the bot response to be little more than a regurgitation of terms, but the fourth paragraph actually begins to touch on the core issue, which I had addressed in my article. What is the connection between the homoousios doctrine and non-reductive models of consciousness?
The homoousios doctrine, also known as the doctrine of consubstantiality, is a Christian doctrine that states that Jesus Christ is of the same substance as God the Father. This doctrine, which was developed in the 4th century and was a central issue in the Arian controversy, asserts that Jesus is fully God and fully man, and that there is no separation or division between the two natures.
Non-reductive models of consciousness, on the other hand, refer to theories in philosophy of mind and cognitive science that reject the idea that consciousness can be reduced to or explained by physical processes in the brain. These models propose that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality that cannot be reduced to physical processes.
The connection between the homoousios doctrine and non-reductive models of consciousness is that both involve the idea of irreducibility. The homoousios doctrine asserts that Jesus is fully God and fully man and cannot be reduced to one or the other, while non-reductive models of consciousness assert that consciousness cannot be reduced to physical processes. Both concepts thus reject the idea that a complex reality can be reduced to a single component or explanation.
Additionally, both the homoousios doctrine and non-reductive models of consciousness have been used to argue for a duality in the nature of certain things, in the case of the homoousios doctrine is the duality between the divinity and humanity of Jesus and for non-reductive models of consciousness is the duality between the physical and mental aspects of reality.
6. Translate into iambic pentameter verse (the first seven lines of Vergil's Aeneid):
Arma virumque canō, Trōiae quī prīmus ab ōrīs
Ītaliam, fātō profugus, Lāvīniaque vēnit
lītora, multum ille et terrīs iactātus et altō
vī superum saevae memorem Iūnōnis ob īram;
multa quoque et bellō passus, dum conderet urbem,
inferretque deōs Latiō, genus unde Latīnum,
Albānīque patrēs, atque altae moenia Rōmae.
I sing of arms and the man, who first from the shores
Of Troy, by fate's command, an exile fled,
And came to Italy, and Lavinian shores;
Much tossed about by land and sea, and many a woe
Endured, and many a danger, ere he founded
The city, and brought in the gods to Latium,
The source of the Latin race, and the high walls
Of Rome, and the Alban fathers' ancient halls.
7. I had begun to wonder whether the bot would only produce rather general text or whether it would provide citations as well, and this was my next prompt. Write two paragraphs on the importance of the U.S. Constitution in contemporary politics and include footnotes.
The United States Constitution is a fundamental document in American politics, as it serves as the foundation for the country's government and legal system. The Constitution establishes the framework for the separation of powers between the three branches of government - the legislative, executive and judicial - and outlines the rights and responsibilities of both the federal government and the states.
In contemporary politics, the Constitution is of paramount importance as it serves as a check on the power of the government and ensures that individual rights are protected. For example, the First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech, religion, and the press, while the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Additionally, the Constitution's system of checks and balances, which allows each branch of government to limit the power of the others, helps to prevent the concentration of power in any one branch. These features of the Constitution continue to be essential in maintaining a fair and just society.
8. At the end of the school day, one of my former students, Matthias, who is now my colleague and friend dropped by my room to chat. We began discussing ChatGPT, so I decided to see what it would come up with if I fed it some information as if I were writing recommendation for him. Write a letter of recommendation for Matthias, a four-year varsity swimmer and member of the honor roll.
To Whom It May Concern,
I am writing to highly recommend Matthias for any academic or athletic opportunity for which he may be applying. I have had the pleasure of knowing Matthias for the past four years as his coach for the varsity swim team and have consistently been impressed with his dedication, work ethic, and overall character.
Matthias has been a dedicated member of the varsity swim team for four years and has been a valuable member of the team, both in and out of the pool. As a team captain, he has demonstrated excellent leadership skills, encouraging and motivating his teammates to achieve their best performances. He is also a skilled and dedicated swimmer, always striving to improve his times and consistently placing well in his events.
In addition to his athletic talents, Matthias is an outstanding student. He is a member of the honor roll and has demonstrated a strong commitment to his academics throughout his high school career. He is well-organized, reliable and always willing to help his classmates.
Matthias is an exceptional young man, who is committed to excellence in all areas of his life. He is respectful, hardworking, and an excellent role model for his peers. I have no doubt that he will continue to achieve great success in his future academic and athletic endeavors. I wholeheartedly recommend Matthias for any opportunity that comes his way.
Not long ago an idea hit me for how I want to be remembered. If I decide this is something that should go on my tombstone, I will need to make sure my family knows how to spell it correctly, for it involves a word you don't hear everyday. I would love to be known as a Peripatetic of Light.
It's Not Just For Aristotelians Anymore
If people are familiar at all with the word "peripatetic," they will most likely associate it with Aristotle. As a term related to him, it comes from the Greek word for the walkways of the Lyceum, the school founded by Aristotle. There is also the thought that the word in this context derives from the fact that Aristotle liked to walk around as he talked. As far as that goes, I am a huge believer in walking while thinking and talking, but that is not what led me to this moniker for myself. The word περιπατητικός (peripatētikos) simply means "related to walking around," and this was what caught my eye while reading a passage from the first letter of John.
Plato and Aristotle in Raphael's The School of Athens, 1509-1511
It Has To Do With Jesus
Not long ago I was reading 1 John 1:6-7, which in the English Standard Version reads as follows.
"If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin."
Language teachers are forever talking about how the nuances of one language cannot be expressed in another, a point I explored in some depth in the post "Words Matter." This is why Christian teachers and preachers will often refer to the Hebrew or Greek text of a biblical passage, and when I was reading 1 John 1:6-7 in Greek, I was struck by something. Those verses run like this.
The highlighted parts are where John talks about walking in darkness and walking in light, and he uses the verb that literally means "we walk around," περιπατῶμεν (peripatōmen). That's what I want to be. I want to be someone who walks around in the light. By focusing on the literal meaning of the Greek verb, I have an image not just of walking but of doing everything in the light, even when there is darkness around me. I can imagine doing the laundry and making my lunch for work and going to the store while enveloped in a cloud of light. I can see myself in the stygian blackness of the pains that assail us all, yet going through such fearsome darkness cloaked in light. After all, as David says to God in Psalm 139:8 (138:8), "If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there." (KJV)
Years ago I taught with Jeannie McNew, who taught English and Theory of Knowledge at our school while also sponsoring Philosophy Club. She was certainly a peripatetic in the Aristotelian sense of the word and shared her great interest in science and philosophy with her students, but she was also what I would call a Peripatetic of Light. As a passionate Catholic, she played flute at her church, and she and her friends recorded an album of worship music, one of the songs of which captures what I'm talking about.
So, there it is. I want to be a Peripatetic of Light because I want to have fellowship with Jesus, and if He is in the light, then that is where I want to be, too.
I love stained glass windows and am certainly no iconoclast, but when it comes to the subject of Fr. Dimitri Sala's book The Stained Glass Curtain, I am all for some ecclesiastical glass shattering. Jesus tells us that no one knows when the end of the age will come, and whether the hour is late, as it seems to many, or is yet far off, the Great Commission still stands to go and make disciples of all nations, and our message of the gospel of Jesus Christ would sound much better coming from a unified voice than from the cacophony of infighting brethren.
When The Church Became Larger
I grew up in an independent Christian church in the midwest, and while I read St. Augustine's Confessions as part of an undergraduate philosophy class at Indiana University, I did not come to grasp that a few things had happened between Acts 2 and the present until I was in graduate school. A pastor friend at the time introduced me to the Church Fathers, a Lutheran friend introduced me to high-church liturgy, and suddenly the church became more gloriously grand than I had known. I discovered the 378 volumes of the Patrologia Latina and Patrologia Graeca of Jacques-Paul Migne, and believe me when I say that upon realizing I could access the works of the Church Fathers in their original languages, I thought I might never leave the library.
Volumes from Patrologia Graeca
This kind of reading and discussion led to my becoming acquainted with the writings of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Stanley Hauerwas, Lesslie Newbigin, and others. It also took me to Rose Hill in Aiken, South Carolina, for an ecumenical conference with enough luminaries that electric lights would not have been necessary. Peter Kreeft spoke, along with Fr. Neuhaus. There were Harold O. J. Brown, Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon, Bishop (later Metropolitan) Kallistos Ware, J. I. Packer, and Carl Braaten as plenary speakers and numerous other well-known leaders of breakout sessions. There were Catholics, Orthodox, Evangelicals, and mainline Protestants at this conference, including me, a graduate student in Classics who was savoring just how large the body of Christ truly is. If you were not able to attend that event in 1995, you can read all of the amazing talks in Reclaiming the Great Tradition.
A Radio Station That Made Sense
I used to listen to radio on my drive to school, and in the months leading up to the 2008 presidential election, I found one that gave me the information I wanted. At that time I had been listening a lot to the local K-Love affiliate, a Christian music station with Christian-based talk shows woven in. That station, however, was not talking about any of the issues surrounding the election, although many of the secular stations were, and as I searched for something else, I ran across the local EWTN affiliate that was tackling the issues head on and in a fair, balanced, faithful way. I was soon listening to episodes with Fr. Mitch Pacwa and Mother Angelica. My reading expanded into the writings of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who by then had been elected Pope Benedict XVI, Scott Hahn, Stephen Ray, David Currie, and more. I was delving deeper into St. Aquinas, St. Anselm, and some of the exquisitely beautiful prayers of the faith, such as this one from St. Bonaventure, along with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and one thing became abundantly clear. Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants have much in common.
Evangelicals and Catholics Together
Among the books I read in those years was Evangelicals and Catholics Togetherby Fr. Neuhaus and Charles Colson and Becoming a Contagious Christian by Mark Mittelberg, who has since become one of my dearest friends. The former is based on and is an expansion of a document by the same name, which appeared in the May 1994 issue of First Things. It focuses on the evangelistic mission of those who follow Christ and the many points of shared belief between Evangelicals and Catholics. The latter is a landmark book in personal evangelism, which is to say, it is about understanding the gifts God has given each of us so that we, in our unique ways, can best fulfill the evangelistic mission that has been given to us all, and it is through the author of that book that all these threads start coming together.
The Boring Part of Homer's Iliad?
If you have stayed with me so far, congratulations and thank you. It may have felt a bit like reading the famous Catalogue of Ships in Book 2 of Homer's Iliad, the part a lot of people skip, but there was a reason I mentioned all those books and names. Much of my reading, thinking, and discussion for the past thirty years has prepared me for and led me to Fr. Dimitri Sala's The Stained Glass Curtain.
In the fall of 2022, Mark Mittelberg emailed me to say that he and Fr. Dimitri had been talking about this book and that he had given Fr. Dimitri my email. I quickly visited https://www.thestainedglasscurtain.com/ and couldn't wait to purchase the book. Just a few pages in, and I was emailing Fr. Dimitri myself, beating him to the punch, and soon we were emailing and talking on the phone about the importance of this book, both from a Catholic perspective (his) and from an Evangelical perspective (mine). As I devoured the book, I highlighted passage after passage. In fact, the highlighter pictured below was brand new when I began using it on this book. I drained it dry and began another before I had finished reading.
Consider just a few of the many examples.
"[O]n the level of evangelizing with the message of salvation and the working of the Holy Spirit, official Catholic teaching and the preaching of Evangelicals do not differ." (p. 8, italics original)
"[W]hether coming from a Protestant or Catholic source, the gospel is still part of the common heritage of Christianity we share with all who preach it." (p. 12)
"[O]ur disunity radically lessens what God is able to do through us to transform the world by our witness of the gospel." (p. 14, italics original)
"Since its central figure is identified as a personal being -- and one who love us, no less -- Christianity cannot be viewed as an impersonal set of practices, guidelines, or laws. God's purpose in creating us was not simnply to get us to go through a set of motions we call 'worship' or to follow a set of rules we call 'commandments.' No -- He created us foremost to exist in relationship with Him." (p. 37, italics original)
Why The Enthusiasm?
Why am I so enthusiastic about this book that I emptied a highlighter in it and have written this lengthy blog post? It's simple. Nothing is more important than evangelism. Nothing. And because this is the case, I want to see nothing hinder its progress and everything done to advance its cause. Misinformation and misunderstanding that lead to divisions within the body of Christ are not only abhorrent to God (see Romans 16:17, 1 Corinthians 1:10, Galatians 5:19-21, Titus 3:10-11, and Jude 19), but also, as Fr. Dimitri wrote, do harm to our witness to the work of Jesus.
There are, of course, differences across the body of Christ, many of which are quite important. These must be approached with prayer, with humility and grace toward those who would take up their meaningful discussion, and with openness as we "rightly handle the word of truth" to which the Holy Spirit leads us. The temptation we must not only avoid but renounce is the one that would have us start with these differences. If Catholics, Orthodox, and Evangelicals believe any of the same things, as Fr. Dimitri suggests they do regarding the salvific nature of Christ's work and the nature of God as one God eternally existing in three persons, we would do well to remember these two teachings of Jesus.
John said to him, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us." But Jesus said, "Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. For the one who is not against us is for us." (Mark 9:38-40, ESV)
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." (Matthew 9:36-38, ESV)
Let's be honest. Shakespeare died more than four hundred years ago. Is there a place for his work, especially his tragic dramas, either in the drama curriculum of a contemporary high school student or in the entertainment options of the contemporary theatre-goer? The answer is yes, and I was recently reminded of why in the most powerful way.
When Words Carry the Freight
Fear and pity may be aroused by spectacular means; but they may also result from the inner structure of the piece, which is the better way, and indicates a superior poet. For the plot ought to be so constructed that, even without the aid of the eye, he who hears the tale told will thrill with horror and melt to pity at what takes place. But to produce this effect by the mere spectacle is a less artistic method, and dependent on extraneous aids. (Aristotle, Poetics, 1453b, Butcher translation)
When it comes to non-musical theatre, Aristotle suggests that the more powerful play will depend on the words and not the aids of fantastic sets, costumes, or special effects, and that is what I saw in a recent high school production of Macbethby students at The Master's Study.
The set was spare, and the costumes, while perfectly made and fitting, were not so extravagant as to distract. Set changes amounted to nothing more than the occasional moving of a platform on which actors stood, a table, and a few chairs. There was a bit of fog and some simple lighting effects that again enhanced but did not distract from what was of most importance, the words.
The actors' diction and enunciation were clear and powerful, and the choreography of the fight scenes and the scenes with the witches was striking in a way not often found in a high school performance. The audience was drawn deeply into the action, and at many points it was possible to lose sight of the fact that one was watching a play.
Stop Aiming Low
Too often adults think that for education to be engaging for students it must connect immediately with their current lives. True education, however, leads us beyond ourselves, past our our present boundaries, and into that which transcends our circumstances so that we can become better, and a tragedy such as Macbeth does that. The story is larger than that of most of our lives, and because of that we can explore huge themes that we would not ordinarily see. Or to put it another way, we can engage with ideas of power, desire, betrayal, greed, honor, right and wrong, spiritual warfare, and more in the safety of the laboratory that is the theatre. To look at just one of those, it is difficult to think meaningfully about betrayal while being betrayed, but in the two hours of a play in which betrayal is being dramatically depicted, we can consider what it means to betray and be betrayed and, hopefully, grow from the experience.
And if you doubt for one moment that teenagers are capable of memorizing long passages marked by unfamiliar words and archaic syntax, let me assure you that they can, and when they have been taught and directed well, they can bring those passages to life in a way that dissolves the strangeness, allowing the audience to enter another story and another world.
The Entertainment and Edification of Theatre
Watching a play is entertaining, and so is going to a concert or a movie, and that is just fine. We need entertainment. We need to disengage from the pressures of life for a while and merely let ourselves be entertained. There can be another feature to theatre, however, and this is edification, a topic I have written about here. As I wrote in that post, "Edification has to do with the building up of a person. It is soul work. It seeks to help others achieve not merely their own dreams, but to become more than they have ever dreamed possible." Borrowing from Aristotle, this is not achieved best in drama through spectacle, but through the power of words, and there is a reason Shakespeare's works are still being performed more than four centuries after his death. His words are among the best in English at meeting the standard set by Aristotle. His plays, while they can indeed be entertaining, also require something from the audience. They require close listening, a bringing to bear on the story all of our own experiences and knowledge, and a willingness to grow, even through things we may not fully understand.
Tragedy and serious drama have their place in the high school curriculum and in the lives of modern theatre-goers. What is truly tragic is when we sell ourselves short by settling for something less.
