The Value of Doing Romeo and Juliet the Mr. Provenzano way
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. However, no one takes this statement to heart. Everybody is convinced that their way is the right way. Opinions make up who people are, and they are applied to every aspect of life. Many parents have strong opinions about what their kids are exposed to in school. They want to make sure that their kids are learning and will be prepared for the future. However, they believe that high school minds are too young and impressionable. They do not want them exposed to unconventional subjects in unconventional ways. Such is the case of learning “Romeo and Juliet”. In Mr. Provenzano’s classes, instead of reading, analyzing, and taking multiple choice tests, students had to read, analyze, and make a movie, based off the script written by Shakespeare. This different way of teaching has proved to very valuable as part of Mr. Provenzano’s students’ curriculums.
One of the benefits that were bestowed upon his students was that Mr. Provenzano’s methods of teaching allowed the children to be more involved in their unit of the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Everyone was enveloped in the project by having the liberty and responsibility of their own jobs. They took on a single part of the project, and were pressured to succeed. If they failed to do their part, everyone else would do the same. With the pressure of being out casted, the kids really understood the themes, emotions, and ideas that Shakespeare incorporated and wove together that created Romeo and Juliet. Even Mr. Diver expressed pleasure after visiting one of the classes. After witnessing them discuss Romeo and Juliet, he understood that the kids in Mr. Provenzano’s classes thoroughly comprehended the subject. I the students were to learn in the conventional way of testing, there may have been a chance that some would fake their ways through the unit. Taking multiple choice tests still allow kids who don’t understand to have a one in four chance of getting a question right, and having an unjustifiable grade. Is education not about how well someone understands the topic being taught, rather than having a superb letter grade? If the lack of work is disconcerting, know that the children's knowledge was still tested, but in the form of discussion questions. The involvement of the students in their own individual ways was not the only aspect of making it a memorable learning process, so was the process of filming itself.
Most of Mr. Provenzano’s freshman students experienced new experiences while filming. They grasped how it was to be part of a production, how it was to be director, or an actor etc. That’s what made it memorable. Since the kids did all of the work other than editing the finished product, they had to work together to get their job done. This put them in situations where groups limited to no one had to meet outside of school. Grosse Pointe South is a particularly cliquey school. However, those filming dates allowed people from all different groups to interact with each other. I felt like history was being made as people from different groups started befriending each other. Those memories will be the ones that remain for years to come. The kids didn’t take mundane tests; they actually learned and had fun. The friendships are only a part of the memories. Also memorable are the ways that information was shared.
America is entering the age of information. People are looking for the new and easiest ways to communicate digitally each day. I t would only make sense to teach children this new aspect. In the project of Romeo and Juliet, a total of eight major websites were used for the students benefit. Wikispaces was used to show both Grosse Pointe South and Van Meter high school information of the utmost importance, such as filming schedules and job lists. Blogger and Turnitin were used weekly to keep track of student’s personal progress, and their level of comprehension. Kidblog was used daily to keep track of what was done in class. Skype was used as communication between the two schools to clarify ideas. Mr. Provenzano tweeted his freshman followers to remind them about upcoming due dates or events. The filming process was put on an online chat room for the world to have a taste of a revolutionary project. People who chose advertising as a job used sites such as Glogster, TUMBLR, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter to promote the project. The point is, these websites are the future. It is a favor to students to be teaching them how to leave their footprint in the digital media age. Not only is it a favor to teach students ways that businesses will be conducted in the future, but also the skills that will be needed.
The most beneficial part of filming Romeo and Juliet are the aspects that will prepare the participants for the future. From the beginning to the very end, there were many aspects that all pertained to the future. The project started out with the students picking their jobs. Choices were given, and students chose based on the jobs that they were interested in. This was the first taste of their real life experience. After that, their preparation for the future existed based on their jobs. Overall, the project tested qualities of leadership (including delegating), responsibility, trustworthiness, group work, problem solving skills, and the exchanging of ideas. All of these are skills that will be needed for a successful career. That is what schooling is all about; to prepare for the future when the children are released to live a life of their own.
In taking the non conventional way of learning, the freshman taught by Mr. Provenzano learned many valuable skills. They had a refresher course of how to work with others. They learned how to be responsible for their own actions. But most importantly, this way of teaching did nothing to subtract from its educational value. The children will have a lasting memory of Romeo and Juliet. In fact, it added to it. With all the benefits from filming a production of Romeo and Juliet, there’s no reason why this approach of teaching should be argued with.
