I Know a Male High School Grad -- a Colleague -- That Should Make Louisville Extremely Proud, Especially Those Who Love Shakespeare

I can only begin, if not outline, the spark offered last night at Dr. Shannon Kelley's Tree Becoming: Gender, Race, and Trauma on Shakespeare's Stage talk at Fairfield University. I've seen her teach, and I always knew she was brilliant, but her book talk brought all of it together. It was collegial, educative, humorous, and awe-inspiring -- I couldn't be prouder of a scholar I work with. More importantly, I want to read her publication and possibly bring this knowledge towards ways of teaching Shakespeare in middle and high school. The level of her scholarship, digging deep into archives and art museums, reading botany texts from the 16th century, and knowledge of Shakespeare was out of this world.

The crazy part for me is that she attended Male High School while I was teaching English at Brown High School. She could have been my student many moons ago, and look at her now! I couldn't believe the number of alumni who drove from other states to see Dr. Kelley debut this book. It was an extremely powerful experience to see what I already understood as excellence, far surpassing any expectation I could have for scholarship. Distinguished Exemplar all the way. 

The rest of the day was catching up on grading, recording class for some of Action Research, and cleaning my front porch. I also ran over to Ocean State Job Lot because they had a crazy deal on carpet cleaners. You buy one at XXX, you get a Crazy Bucks Card for XXX. In other words, it's twice the money. I get my cleaner and they pay me back to buy other things throughout the year. It's a total win for me. 

Now, time to pace myself for the long day, as I teach until late tonight. I need to get into high gear before I can allow myself to walk Karal and then head into work. The walk is always a top priority.

I'm still shaking my head with pride as a result of Dr. Shannon Kelley. Just top notch all the way.