By Jake Ha

SAN JOSE, CALIF.— Paul Marsh just recently started his Silver Creek Journey on Aug. 28, expanding his already eventful teaching profession and leaving an impression on the school.

Although his English 1 and 2 classes in E-8 look modest, his story goes far back. 

With a keen interest in traveling to see other cultures, Marsh’s first experience with teaching came from work as an English Assistant Language Teacher in Japan for the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme from 1999 to 2001.

Quitting his original hated corporate job, a strong nerdiness in Literature drove Marsh to get a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from the University of California Los Angeles, while a desire to share that passion (while being paid) allowed him to get a Master’s Degree in Education at the Claremont Graduate University in 2010. 

Marsh started teaching in Carson, a city near Los Angeles(L.A.), for two years. It was followed by teaching for three years in a charter school in Central L.A. In 2018, he moved to San Jose to educate at San Jose Unified for two years. 

With the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, he took a break from teaching and wondered if this was an opportunity to change course. Unafraid to question his entire life’s dedication to education, he dug even deeper into his desires, being a substitute across various schools in 2021 and 2022 to see if he still enjoyed the profession. 

In this time period, he rediscovered his passion for education. To Marsh, teaching was more than a way to share his love of Literature. Seeing students improve as they have an “aha!” moment for figuring out a complex message is magical to him. These moments brought Marsh back into the teaching scene full-time at Silver Creek. 

Shaped by his experiences, he said that “School should be a safe place for asking questions, so my advice would be to never be afraid to ask questions about anything.”

In his classes, his freshmen are reading “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck, while his sophomores have “Fahrenheit 451,” authored by Ray Bradbury. Both books were chosen by a class vote. Marsh is excited to share these stories because they relate to the lives of the students. “Of Mice and Men” shows true friendships to the freshmen in their new high school world, and “Fahrenheit 451” reflects the oncoming reality of banning books in certain states. 

Outside of Literature, his nerdiness continues in coffee obsession and in certain video games like Halo and Fallout. He enjoys building LEGOs and running tabletop Dungeons and Dragons games. 

Already, Marsh has brought unique experiences to Silver Creek. Questions in his own life brought him to continue his main passion, and he hopes that such questioning will change students’ lives for the better as well.