The Hamlet Project

I’m going to teach this line to all the kids I work with
Who inevitably endure more than their fair share of teasing.
I’m going to get them to memorize it and say it in multiple tones
With gravity and with fun.
They’ll try it with pomposity and irreverence.
Then, their assignment,
Their real homework,
Will be to say it, full out
When the painful words start flying.
I wish I’d had it on hand when I was ten
Sitting in the back of the bus
Getting called “Fatty Fatso”
While my friend was taunted with “granny granny glasses.” Or at that slumber party
When that straight haired girl called me a cow.
I’ve tried counseling children in tears
When someone has called them
“hairy arms” or “big head”
or whatever other uncreative slurs that children invent.
I try to explain how the taunts work
How it has nothing to do with
Hairy arms or a big head
But I know that no matter what I say that that child will likely be
Self-conscious about her forearms from that point on.
I don’t know what would happen if a ten year old
Suddenly quoted a Hamlet to a taunting bully
But I suspect it might shock an unsuspecting teaser.
If nothing else, he’d be likely to laugh and switch his taunting
to that crazy thing you just said
which won’t be your fault
it’ll be mine for teaching you such a funny phrase.