Coming home: themes from the Odyssey, Exit West, and even Shakespeare texts like “The Tempest” and “Romeo and Juliet.” Going home, however, has recently become a reality for Upper School English teacher Rex Shannon.
In the first semester of the 2025-2026 school year, Shannon announced that he would be going on paternity leave, and on April 23, Shannon bid his final farewells to his English students. “It was an honor to be your teacher,” Shannon said in a final message to his students, emphasizing their ongoing enthusiasm and love for learning.
Shannon began teaching at Parker at the start of the 2024-2025 school year, taking on freshman English classes titled Reading and Writing Across the Genres, and senior electives like Shakespeare and Comedy in Literature. His departure, just a year and a half after he began at Parker, was accompanied by a sentiment filled card from two students. “Marie [Benson] and Olivia [Marquez] spearheaded the card and the meaningful goodbye,” sophomore Lizette Velazquez said. According to Velazquez, both Benson and Marquez had Shannon as a teacher for their freshman and sophomore years and wanted to give him a parting gift more meaningful than just a verbal goodbye.
According to underclassmen, who spent the most time with Shannon throughout his Parker tenure compared to upperclassmen, Shannon’s impact on their English education went beyond simply reading and annotating.
“I really liked how he ran his class,” freshman Siobhan Tran said. Tran explained the comedic nature of Shannon’s classroom, and even though the environment felt unserious and relaxed at times, “there was always an underlying lesson,” Tran said, that Shannon paired with comedy.
Teachers like Shannon, Tran explained, are what drove them to choose Parker as an incoming upper school student. “He’s very enthusiastic about teaching,” Tran said. Tran explained how engaged teachers were one of the primary aspects of Parker marketed to them, and Shannon’s passion reflected that exact enthusiasm and passion.
Sophomore Olivia Marquez, who spearheaded Shannon’s sentimental farewells, shared a similar sentiment. “It was really positive,” Marquez said, describing her first experience in Shannon’s class, emphasizing Shannon’s genuine passion for literature and teaching. After a year and a half working with Shannon, however, Marquez’s admiration for Shannon and his teaching has only grown.
“I just really appreciated his love for books and writing and teaching,” Marquez said. Marquez described the in-class relationship that she felt Shannon built with students, one that encouraged them to really fall in love with English and reading.
Marquez believes that Shannon’s impact spans beyond the classroom. “I don’t think I’ll look at English the same after having Mr. Shannon for two years,” Marquez said. She said that beyond her years having Shannon as a teacher, she knows that he has made a tangible impact on her as an English student and learner.
“He’s really benefitted the whole English department,” Marquez said, “by setting up a generation of high schoolers to be passionate and engaged English students.”
Freshman Allison Lo agreed. “The way that we tackled books and writing really changed my perspective on English,” Lo said. Lo explained that many of Shannon’s lessons throughout various texts were centered around family, which made stories that were once impersonal feel “applicable to anyone.”
Lo also spoke to Shannon’s journal writing activities, vocabulary lessons, and grammar lessons, which differed from any other English class she had taken previously. Lo mentioned that, because of Shannon’s unique lessons, she has learned facets of English, like personal journaling or traditional grammar, that she would have “never touched otherwise.”
While students and teachers alike regard Shannon’s time at Parker highly and appreciate the time he spent in the Parker community, Shannon himself hopes that the seeds of a love of literature can continue to grow beyond his classroom. “I would tell my students I miss them dearly,” Shannon said. “Wittgenstein was right when he said ‘the limits of my language are the limits of my world.’ Thus, we should read as much as possible to expand the limits of our world, and to be comforted if we are disturbed and disturbed if we are comfortable.”
