Charlie Thomson
Charlie Thomson, AKA The Educator, has spent the past 20 years teaching at a number of high schools and youth training facilities around Australia. His hip-hop crew, The Winnie Coopers, have supported the Beastie Boys, Jurassic 5 and De La Soul and have won various national music awards.
The Educator, who was a key presenter at the World Shakespeare Congress in Brisbane and the Hip Hop Education Think tank in New York, is passionate about engaging young people in hip-hop education and the works of Shakespeare through his project The Shakespeare Sessions.
Charlie has also written and illustrated In the Deep End - published in by the State Library of Qld as part of the First Five Forever - Stories For Little Queenslanders series. Charlie is looking forward to facilitating more arts-based workshops and encouraging young people to discover their own individual creativity. See a reading of In the Deep End below.
Testimonials
It was great to have Charlie presenting at our Junior High event. Students were captivated by his presentations incorporating hip hop and Shakespeare. What a dynamic way to show students why studying Shakespeare is still important and to highlight Shakespeare’s themes, language, rhyme, and rhythm. Thanks for also tying it into the student’s current reading of Susan Coopers novel King of Shadows. It was a memorable and exciting day.
St. Peter's Lutheran College - August 2023Charlie’s upbeat and charismatic engagement with our boys was an absolute hit with all of our students. He presented to our Year 11 and 12 boys and had them eating out of his hand, teaching them about Shakespeare and the power of poetic devices to convey meaning and fully engage an audience. He had boys beat-boxing, rapping to hip hop beats and effectively using rhythm and rhyme. The boys enjoyed every moment of his presentations and workshops. A must for any school looking to engage students with poetry in a fun and relatable way. Highly recommended!
Ambrose Treacy College - April 2022“Insane in ye brain” – Charlie’s performance “The Shakespeare Session” was in a word, fantastic. The students and staff of Pacific Pines SHS enjoyed every minute of the engaging, informative and highly entertaining performance that explored the central themes of Shakespeare’s most famous and memorable works. With his catchy hip hop beats, raps about the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet and the exploration of Macbeth – affectionately referred to during the show as ‘Macdaddy’ – the audience was still talking about the show long after its conclusion. I definitely recommend The Educator to any school who enjoys Shakespeare, music, performance, and laughter!
Charlie Thomson - Pacific Pines SHS, July, 2013.Thanks so much for all the authors. They were all wonderful. It was a wonderful day just terrific. Charlie was so great – what energy – he had Shakespeare rapping in the new PAC theatrette. It was really memorable I will be emailing them separately with a great big .thank you.
Charlie Thomson - St. Peters Lutheran College, Book Week, 2013.Charlie’s visit exceeded our expectations – he was great and the kids loved him! He was also a pleasure to work with, was always accommodating and always communicated with us promptly on email. He was outstanding!
Charlie Thomson - St. Pauls School, June, 2013.
In the Deep End
Queensland
Speaker type
- Poet
- Storyteller / Performer
- Educational consultant