Teacher Advisory Council

Pat Marshall

Pat Marshall has been teaching since 1987, when she left a retail management job after having realized she wasn’t very good at it. In the almost three decades she’s been a teacher, Pat has taught a variety of English classes, French, journalism, speech, and reading. She hopes to be teaching history soon, but needs to find time to take the certification test. She is an avid reader and writer, as all English teachers should be, but she’s also a Renaissance musician, a motorcycle rider, a powerlifter (though with knees that don’t let her lift as much as she used to), and happily owned by several dogs, cats, horses, and goats. Her research interests include protest literature, colonial America, Richard Wright, and the intersections of science and literature. Pat has committed to life as a perpetual student, having attended several colleges and universities, either as a degree seeking student or to take classes that pique her interest.

“I applied for the Council because I’ve been in education long enough to know the importance of excellent professional development and high-quality teaching resources. Too many times, teachers suffer through ‘one-size-fits-all’ training offered by groups and individuals with dubious credentials and teaching resources of questionable quality. Having worked on a teacher toolbox with the National Humanities Center and attended numerous webinars, I fully appreciate the excellence of the Center’s programs and very much wanted to work with a group that held itself to such high standards. I hope to become a better prepared teacher, help other teachers access and use the resources the NHC provides, and expand my network of like-minded educators. I hope to help the Center in its continuing quest to offer the best possible programs to educators by being a critical consumer of their material and make suggestions that will help their materials be increasingly valuable for the widest possible audience.”