Is the #DisruptTexts movement needed? - Vicki Robinson
#DisruptTexts emerged in 2018 as an online movement with the aim of challenging the traditional Western literary canon. A crowdsourced effort by teachers for teachers, it was founded in America and has four core principles: interrogating biases; centring black, indigenous and voices of colour; applying a critical literacy lens to teaching practices; working in communities with other antiracist educators.
In some ways this is surprising. Throughout the 20th century, Western literature greatly expanded its outlook to include a more diverse range of voices, particularly those from former colonies. In the 1960s, postcolonial studies gained recognition as an academic discipline.
How much this has influenced school education is a moot point. In the UK, at least, it is difficult to obtain clear data on what has been taught. Sathnam Sanghera, journalist and the author of Empireland, recently stated that he studied very few non-white writers at school. My experience was very different.
It is important that students are introduced to a broad range of voices. But how effective is #DisruptTexts’ approach? The movement is gaining influence in the US and could find momentum here in the UK. It, therefore, needs examining.
One example is its approach to Shakespeare:
“We believe that Shakespeare, like any other playwright, no more and no less, has literary merit. He is not ‘universal’ in a way that other authors are not ... We believe he was a man of his time and that his plays harbour problematic depictions and characterisations … if you must teach him due to school policies … the only responsible way to do so is by disrupting his plays.”
As well as judging the past by the moral standards of today, this takes the classic postmodern approach of assuming that all writers are of equal literary merit. No person’s opinion can be more valuable than another’s, therefore, no work of art can be better than another. It is flawed thinking. Shakespeare is a huge figure, venerated globally for his exploration of the human psyche and innovative use of language.
It must be said that the British Empire played a big part in this. His plays were performed in colonial India in the 1700s. But by the mid-1800s, Mumbai’s Parsi theatres were transforming them into exuberant melodramas and Bengali scholars were translating them. Later, in South Africa, six plays were translated into Setswana by Solomon Plaatje, a human-rights activist and founding secretary-general of what became the ANC.
Surely, it is better to explore this complexity with students? Excluding him does not change history. It simply leaves students ignorant of a globally important writer.
And it is not just Shakespeare being ‘disrupted’, #DisruptTexts teachers are posting on social media that they have successfully removed classic texts from syllabuses, including important works such as Homer’s Odyssey.
In their place, #DisruptTexts has collaborated with Penguin Random House to create learning guides for eight individual texts. These texts have a narrow focus and several of them explore the theme of ethnic minority teenagers struggling with their identity. One is Ibram X Kendi’s Antiracist Baby.
To promote Kendi and discourage Shakespeare is strange. It is also political. Furthermore, it is deeply concerning that an online movement has teamed up with a major publisher to change education with no debate with the wider public.
Fortunately, there are alternatives. In the UK, award-winning rapper and educator Akala founded The Hip-hop Shakespeare Company in 2009. A musical theatre production company, it explores the cultural, social and linguistic parallels between Shakespeare and hip-hop artists today.
Cleverly, he takes Shakespeare off the cultural pedestal, showing his work as something vibrant and alive for people of all backgrounds to engage with and gain creative inspiration from. This is surely a healthier approach.
All cultures have defining foundational stories and all students, whatever their background, have the right to access them. This does not preclude teaching classics from other parts of the world, a necessity in our increasingly diverse Western society. After all, stories are the key not just to our own culture but to others. They are a way to enter different mindsets. Engaging with a broad range of texts is the best way to positively disrupt one’s thinking.
Vicki Robinson
@storiesopinions