Readers may remember a high-school English teacher from Sacramento. Last year, she rebelled against Common Core, refusing to teach her students Shakespeare — on grounds that he was “a long-dead, British guy” who had little to say to her “very ethnically-diverse and wonderfully curious modern-day students.”

She added that “Shakespeare lived in a pretty small world.” Of course, virtually no one has ever lived in a bigger world than Shakespeare.

Anyway, I thought of this teacher when I was reading the Wikipedia entry for Robert Nathaniel Dett. I had reason to look up Dett (a reason that need not detain us now). He was a Canadian-born musician who lived from 1882 to 1943. He was a composer, organist, etc. Also, he was black.

According to Wikipedia, he started piano lessons when he was five. In addition, his mother, Charlotte Washington Dett, “encouraged him to memorize passages of Shakespeare, Longfellow and Tennyson.”

Of course she did.

Now, a question: Who should be counted the greater friend to black youth? The Sacramento teacher or Mrs. Dett? Which contribution should be considered the greater to society at large? The Sacramento teacher’s or Mrs. Dett’s?

Easy. And tragic.