Ah, yes. This is indeed true.

There goes my goal of being the most elitist.

Everyone needs goals.

so he's teaching them to speak old english rather than drink it?

Weeeeellllll, I'm the Space Goblin and i'm here to say that stayin' in school is A-OK!

i just heard a bit of this on NPR and...
it was actually pretty good.

nothiin i'd bump in teh whip, but if it's intent is to expose it to a wider audience, it does it well.
at the time this was originally published, much of the population would have been illiterate, so it would've been orated anyway.

it's not as if the content has been changed.
it's just delivered differently.

Having worked in the non-profit performing arts/education sector for over 12 years has given me a very strong opinion on this matter. topaz is absolutley correct with the analysis of Shakespeare. W.S. drew most of the plotlines from existing myths, legends, or actual history, and re-contextualized them into a very modern version (for his day and age). He was considered a revolutionary and avant-garde artist in his day, and many of his works were initially blasted with criticism for being "irreverent".
This story is not about "dumbing the work down" so that kids don't ever have to read the original text. It is also not about "replacing" classic works with short and modernized versions. The point is to bring art and literature and creative expression into the schools, and to get kids excited, at an early age, about the arts. Anyone who has worked in the public school system in the last 10 years knows how much the arts have suffered. Funding has been slashed, and the arts budgets are always the first to go. In the USA, completely ludicrous rules and regulations, like "open court"and "no child left behind", have crippled the abilities of school teachers to implement even the most rudimentally effective curriculae.
Minds are like parachutes--they only work when they are open. Programs such as this one are vital to opening up the minds of children to the creative possibilites that surround them. It is impossibly rare for a child, in today's public school system, to go out on their own and pick up a copy of The Canterbury Tales, or The Divine Comedy, or The Odyssey. However, through unique programs that make the arts accessible to children at all grade levels, you dramatically increase the odds that a child will go out and pick up that book, or play, or poem.
Any good teacher will tell you that you have to find "the key" to opening up the mind of a child. There are many, many types of keys, and arts-enrichment programs are often some of the most potent keys available.
In addition, all of the most effective arts programs that are based on "classic" material will go to great length to credit and source the original text/score/script etc.. Extensive study guides, with follow-up questions and in-classroom tasks, are often required by school districts in order for a visiting artist to even perform at a given school. Again, the goal here is not to find cheap, dumb, low-brow replacements---not at all. The goal is to open the minds of our youth, to broaden their experience, to inspire them to the point of discovery and creation.
In today's world, with MTV, i-pods, movies, x-box, etc..., if you can get one child to go out and read Chaucer, or even get them to discuss it with a teacher or classmate, then you have made a difference. And that is exactly what these types of programs aim to accomplish.

So before you look down your nose from that high pedastal, I encourage you to READ the entire posted article again (or, for the first time), without any pre-conceived judgement, and I think you will find a very noble cause.

Thanks for listening.

*steps off soapbox and heads off to tattoo parlor*

werd.

Those people are wankers. So what?

So long as they don't just teach just the "rap" version in classes (using it as an additional resource not the source for educating children) it's okay. But don't let kids confuse it with Chaucer. It's like reading just cliff's notes in lieu of the book and thinking you've read the book.

Bravo!

That's likely the same sentiment kids have about teachers who make them read Chaucer.

Wow. Just...

Wow.

I admit that Chaucer is much easier to read when translated into modern english, but that is done because it was written in middle english which is almost incomprehensible to people who speak modern english.

Shakespeare, on the other hank, it totally understandable to people who can understand modern english, so it shouldn't be re written.

Instead modern authors can and have written new works inspired by Shakespeare.

Shakespeare should be read in the original language in school because that will give the students unique insight into modern english. Also, I consider Shakespeare to also be poetry and by re-writing it, you distroy much of the poetic and dramatic elements.

Shakespeare is important as a total work of art. To alter it diminishes it.

People need to taught to appreciate Shakespeare, not be spoon fed a "dumbed down" version of it.
How would you feel if someone said that math was too hard to understand so they were going to re-write the math books to eliminate all of the difficult equasions.

Learning is like everything in life, you need to work at it. If it is made too easy, it's useless.