Coming to the end of a very hectic half term week where my ‘to-do’ list is appearing strangely complete. As part of my resolution to try new things this year I decided to visit London and see the musical Hairspray. Most of the children I’ve spoken to think it’s brilliant – nearly as good as High School Musical, so I decided to give it a go.
I thoroughly enjoyed it – what an amazing show it was and the cast were fantastic at what they do. Above is a video of probably the most famous song from the show – although it doesn’t look half as good as seeing it live.
The show is very light-hearted but actually tackles some very serious issues; mainly racial predjudice and segregation in the 1960s America. This reminded me of some of the work I read by Barbara Comber about critical literacy and how texts can be used as a means to open discussions of controversial issues in a frank and open manner. The children in the audience were clearly understanding why such prejudice is wrong.
Would you class a theatre production as a’text’? If so then Margeret Meek’s immortal ‘texts teach what readers learn’ mantra is clearly evident here. I really think this could have a place in the classroom. Probably unsuitable for the year group I teach but something to consider for the future. Then I thought about what texts I could use to address such issues and one particular set of stories told by a character called Uncle Remus…
I will reveal more later.