Laura Bates 's experience of teaching Shakespeare at Indiana Super Max facilty is developed in the interview she gave to Michel Martin for the National Public Radio in the U.S. Bates talks about the advantages of teaching Shakespeare to inmates. The inmates can feel easily identified with the chararacters in the plays and these can even make their hard lives more meaningful. Bate's experience at prison was so successful that she has published a book : " Shakespeare saved my life: ten years in solitary with the Bard." In this book , Bates narrates the experience of one of the inmates. This inmate got so interested in Shakespeare that he wrote workbooks for other students. Bates, in the interview, puts the focus on this book and the publication of the inmate's workbooks since these are going to teach other teachers about the role and value Shakespeare can have in prison.
Laura Bates offered herself to teach Shakespeare in the maximum security section of a prison in the state of Indiana. What resulted was that the inmates liked the English writer.
Bates decided to share its experience in her book “Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years of Solitary with the Bard. Interviewed by Michael Martin of NRP news, Bates shares the central idea of teaching Shakespeare in a maximum security prison. Bates comments that for many inmates was easy to make sense of some passages of Shakespeare’s works because they had lived something similar or could relate to. Something that scholars found complicated to relate with.
Bates sets the example of “Mcbeth”, in which the prisoners related to the story for the inner struggle of the main character and their personal situations. When prisoners got into Macbeth character, that helped them to got inside their own characters.
