Tom Marshall
tommarshall-writer.bsky.social
Tom Marshall
@tommarshall-writer.bsky.social
Teaching & learning guy, card-carrying journo, proud husband & dad, weekend novelist, poet in training, travel writer. International educator in Europe, Middle East, and Asia. My math: inspirational people + great storytelling = better world.
Pinned
And here’s one I wrote for the #NYT which has aged well: helping kids to make good choices in these challenging times. #ethics #k12 #SocialStudies

archive.nytimes.com/learning.blo...
Do The Right Thing: Making Ethical Decisions in Everyday Life
In this lesson, we explore ethical dilemmas that face normal people around the world, in all walks of life. Each example features individuals who followed the guidance of their own moral code, often r...
archive.nytimes.com
Reposted by Tom Marshall
Write Out is a free two-week celebration that will run today through the 26th. The goal is to be inspired by the world around us and to connect and learn through place-based writing and sharing. You can do #writeout for an hour, a day, or all week long! Learn more at writeout.nwp.org #writeout
October 12, 2025 at 6:00 AM
Mark this moment: another example of #history being erased before our very eyes. 😳 #HandsOff #Smithsonian #Edusky #sschat #teachable #Orwell #dystopia
This should be required reading in every historical methods and social studies classroom. Something very important is being lost. 🗃️🗺️
Marian Wilson Kimber: It’s painful to realize the people in charge of Iowa’s history apparently have no idea how history works. If they did, they'd know there is no way to predict what parts of the collection will be of interest 5, 20, or 100 years from now. www.bleedingheartland.com/2025/10/10/t...
October 11, 2025 at 4:52 AM
This is so powerful, worth sharing with students! It’s a powerful example of self-control in the service of a greater good. #Sschat #EduSky #teachable #nonviolence
Bryan Stevenson is the closest thing to a living saint that @hls.harvard.edu has ever produced. #sschat
So exhausting..
October 11, 2025 at 2:16 AM
How can we make real #history
come alive in the #AI age? The answer — take kids out into the world to see and feel and imagine it for themselves — lies in this lovely #NPR story about the
#TenementMuseum in #NYC. Please pass it on! #EduSky #SSChat #teachable

www.npr.org/2025/10/10/n...
This museum immerses students in U.S. history: 'You can smell it, touch it, see it'
At New York City's Tenement Museum, high schoolers explore the American experience through the eyes of one 1860s-era Black family.
www.npr.org
October 11, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Thank you for sharing this! What a radical idea: “Peace is the most courageous, the most practical, the most necessary pursuit of all.” Please pass it on! #EduSky #Sschat #peace #education
September 24, 2025 at 11:42 PM
Amen! Like a voice from the last century. Remember these things? 🙄
If you enjoy…

Weekends
Safe working conditions
Retirement benefits
Paid vacations
Breaks at work
Sick leave
Paid holidays

… then you’re part of the labor movement. Happy Labor Day.
September 1, 2025 at 11:56 PM
Reposted by Tom Marshall
If you believe that:
1) Reading is critical to our democracy.
2) Books help us understand complex issues.
3) Parents shouldn’t make decisions for other parents’ children.
4) Youth deserve to see themselves in books.

Join the campaign to #UniteAgainstBookBans: uniteagainstbookbans.org/take-action/
Join the movement.
We should trust individuals to make their own decisions. Raise your voice for everyone's freedom to read. #UniteAgainstBookBans
uniteagainstbookbans.org
August 14, 2025 at 1:12 AM
Lol, yes! I believe the poets in Washington, D.C., could use a bit of love, tea & biscuits, and a steady supply of pens at this point! 🫖 🍪 ✍️ ❤️
'When poems stop talking about the moon and begin to mention poverty, trade unions, color, color lines and colonies, somebody tells the police.'

- Langston Hughes

#poetry
#truth
August 12, 2025 at 4:12 AM
Looking for a useful way to #resist? Don’t just support your blue-state #PublicRadio station. Find one in a red state that’s struggling and shoot a few dollars their way. Helping these isolated voices of reason to survive could make all the difference! Please repost. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Where Congress’s Cuts Threaten Access to PBS and NPR (Gift Article)
The loss of federal funding threatens scores of public TV and radio stations across the United States.
www.nytimes.com
July 26, 2025 at 2:15 PM
I love this poem: so many worlds in so few words.
"The calculus of poverty
is its own rigged lottery,
but his eyes would glisten
when he talked about the mess
at Long Binh:
the math of feeding all those mouths,
the giant bags of flour, the powdered eggs."
Lessons in Mathematics by Amy Dougher-Solórzano - Rattle: Poetry
My father taught me everything except geometry. (He’d never seen it.) Once we got beyond arithmetic, he couldn’t help with homework.
rattle.com
July 24, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Tom Marshall
Damn. This is why I love @rattlepoetry.bsky.social. Where #poetry butts heads every day with this cruel, crazy, beautiful world we see in the #news on our phones. Finding beauty even in pure ugliness. rattle.com/full-moon-on... #Egypt #HumanRights
Full Moon on Suicide Watch by Salma Amrou - Rattle: Poetry
I am trying to write a poem about fifteen Egyptian detainees who attempted suicide in the last two weeks alone.
rattle.com
July 20, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Love this! It takes a tired #backtoschool trope and brings it back to life in a way that will crack up jaded teens and help them make connections. #SEL
“When your students are introducing themselves, ask them to share one ‘boring’ fact about themselves. This takes the pressure off of trying to think of an interesting one.” —Phillip Done, Teacher

#BackToSchool #EduSky
July 20, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Damn. This is why I love @rattlepoetry.bsky.social. Where #poetry butts heads every day with this cruel, crazy, beautiful world we see in the #news on our phones. Finding beauty even in pure ugliness. rattle.com/full-moon-on... #Egypt #HumanRights
Full Moon on Suicide Watch by Salma Amrou - Rattle: Poetry
I am trying to write a poem about fifteen Egyptian detainees who attempted suicide in the last two weeks alone.
rattle.com
July 20, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Reposted by Tom Marshall
Here's Colbert on July 14 making fun of Paramount for paying Trump $16 million. It's hard not to see CBS canceling his show through this lens.

"I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It's big fat bribe."
July 17, 2025 at 11:39 PM
Reposted by Tom Marshall
"Five months into its unprecedented dismantling of foreign-aid programs, the Trump administration has given the order to incinerate food instead of sending it to people who need it"
@hana-kiros.bsky.social, on spending $130,000 to burn food worth $800,000
www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...
The Trump Administration Is About to Incinerate 500 Tons of Emergency Food
Federal workers warned for months that the high-energy biscuits would go to waste.
www.theatlantic.com
July 15, 2025 at 5:31 AM
Inspiring story about one public library’s struggles to survive in a very overheated (at least Fahrenheit 451 degrees) political climate. #HandsOff #Writing #Edusky #writing #censorship

lithub.com/a-virginia-p...
July 11, 2025 at 5:04 AM
Reposted by Tom Marshall
Really love this Alison Davis #poem @rattlepoetry.bsky.social. It captures something lovely about being a parent, working with kids, and the importance of staying positive in these dark times. Please pass it on! rattle.com/chit-chat-by... #poetry #writing #edusky #k12
Chit Chat by Alison Davis - Rattle: Poetry
My daughter wants to know if she can touch the bones of the deer carcass on the shoulder of the busy road. Yes, I say, and we touch them together.
rattle.com
July 9, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Really love this Alison Davis #poem @rattlepoetry.bsky.social. It captures something lovely about being a parent, working with kids, and the importance of staying positive in these dark times. Please pass it on! rattle.com/chit-chat-by... #poetry #writing #edusky #k12
Chit Chat by Alison Davis - Rattle: Poetry
My daughter wants to know if she can touch the bones of the deer carcass on the shoulder of the busy road. Yes, I say, and we touch them together.
rattle.com
July 9, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Reposted by Tom Marshall
People in wheelchairs are getting arrested right now in the Russell Senate Office Building in DC. They showed up to tell Congress not to cut their Medicaid, because they cant afford health care without it. If you look closely you can see the zip ties on their hands. #WeWontGetOverLosingMedicaid
June 25, 2025 at 6:26 PM