Dr. Peggy O’Brien calls teachers the most precious resource in the world, and she has dedicated her own career to providing resources for those who teach. O’Brien often writes “we’re here for YOU” when addressing teachers, and that warm, all-caps enthusiasm perfectly encapsulates how she approaches her work. O’Brien was the founding director of education at the Folger Shakespeare Library, a role the Folger established for her in 1983 that she held until 1994 and returned to again in 2013. She has spent these past 11 years building and shaping the Folger’s resources and programs for teachers and students while also driving the development of the Folger’s new exhibition experiences, and in between has led an education startup and a nonprofit, overseen education and programming at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and served on the leadership team for DC Public Schools. As O’Brien prepares to retire at the end of July, we asked her to answer some questions about her time at the Folger in commemoration of the incredible impact she has made during her years of service.
What was the Folger like when you first joined the staff in 1981?
O.B. Hardison was the director when I started. He really was responsible for starting so many of the programs that opened the Folger up to the public—Folger Theatre, Folger Consort, and the poetry series. He also started the docent program, which I was hired to manage. But overall, the Folger was quiet. Exhibits were all in the Great Hall. People would come in and lower their voices.
You were hired to manage the Museum Docent program when you started. How did you move from that work to leading K-12 education for the Folger?
I had the benefit of benign neglect. I kept looking at the tours we were giving and the groups in the building and thinking, “why aren’t there more teachers here?” So, I just went ahead and brought in the teachers, and they in turn brought in the kids. We had the kids acting out Shakespeare on our stage. That got attention in the city, and colleagues at the Folger didn’t seem to mind too much.
During that time, I was leading a teacher workshop at Georgetown University on the Folger Method. At the end of the workshop, I was approached by Carolynn Reid-Wallace, who was then Deputy Director of the Education Division at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). She said the NEH was starting up summer programs that put teachers together with humanities scholars. She thought the Folger would be an institution interested in this kind of work—and yes, it was great fit. So, Jeanne Roberts, a wonderful scholar at American University and I put together a faculty, a plan, and a proposal and we got the funds to start the Teaching Shakespeare Institute.
It did not seem right to the Folger that the docent coordinator would be shepherding this program, so I was named the Folger’s first Head of Education.
What is the most memorable part of your first tenure at the Folger?
Two things: Founding the Teaching Shakespeare Institute—it made the Folger aware of the national need for teachers to have access to resources to help them teach Shakespeare effectively. We received hundreds of applications each year we offered TSI. In fact, since we simply could not meet the demand for teachers to come to the Folger and learn in person, we created the Shakespeare Set Free series that published in 1993, 1994, and 1995. The books included short essays by scholars, how-to’s from performance faculty, and a five-week teaching unit on each play that had been tested by real kids in real classrooms. All of this work prompted us to attend the annual NCTE (The National Council of Teachers of English) conferences to build relationships with more teachers.
We also built out our capacity for hosting students with festivals at the Folger. The Secondary School Shakespeare Festival and Children’s Festivals were nascent programs, new and small. It was clear to me that there was lots of learning going on there, so we expanded them significantly.
During your second tenure, you created the Folger Guides to Teaching Shakespeare. How did this book series come to be?
When I came back, I realized we had not published curriculum since 1995. Teachers’ needs have changed since 1995. It was time to rethink our approach. We went back to Simon & Schuster and got to work. The first three guides in the series—for Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth—will publish this November.
In addition to your two stints at the Folger, you worked for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting during two different periods. What are some of the highlights from that part of your career?
Right as I got started there, Congress had appropriated $7 million for an initiative called Ready to Learn. The idea was to better utilize public television to support early childhood learning, so that kids would come to school ready to learn. So, my job was to put together the people, (education specialists, media producers, authors of children’s books, and more), the plan, and the budget that would result in young kids learning. In subsequent years, The US Department of Education designated millions more for CPB to develop high-quality content that would have a measurable impact on teaching pre-K and K children how to read. Between the Lions was one of the programs to come out of Ready to Learn—and research showed that they did teach young kids how to read.
How did Mike Witmore get you to come back to the Folger?
Mike reached out to me for coffee. In that hour we spent together, he talked about how the Folger needs to open up. He said the Folger leans toward the National Mall, but it doesn’t lean toward the neighborhoods through the city and across the river. And he asked, ‘isn’t that the way the world is supposed to work?’ I was wrapping up a stint as Chief of Family and Public Engagement for DC Public Schools, so that interested me a lot. Plus, it was so different for the Folger! We continued our conversation at a follow-up lunch, and ended up finished one another’s thoughts. Then I decided to send him my resume. It is the only job I was not recruited for! And I honestly never in a million years thought I would come back to the Folger.
What was your role in developing the Folger’s new exhibition halls?
Mike decided that Greg [Prickman, the Eric Weinmann Librarian and Director of Collections and Exhibitions] and I would partner on the work. From the beginning, we knew the exhibitions needed to be about the visitors. I drew on the audience research that I had organized for the Folger. People wanted to be able to see themselves at the Folger, and people wanted it to be a place that they could bring their families. Greg was a complete believer in the research. We wrote every object label, and we strove to be conversational and not too academic. We never wanted to dumb anything down, but we also wanted visitors to have a clear sense of what they were looking at.
There were so many details to consider. We had to decide, for example, what page the 1597 quarto of Romeo and Juliet would be open to — part of that decision is conservation-related—what the spine of the book will be able to take— and the other part is what will interest the visitor. Finding the pathway between those things is the job. We looked at every case ahead of time. Conservation mocked them up for us, and they were fabulous collaborators throughout.
I have to add this. Many people have commented on the fantastic algorithm powering the Shake Up Your Shakespeare interactive in the Shakespeare Exhibition Hall. But, it’s not an algorithm, is it?
No, it’s not! I picked all 487 lines from Shakespeare’s works that are included in that interactive. I think I dreamed about it for a while there!
What are your hopes for education work at the Folger moving forward?
We have these lovely spaces in which people can now gather. I want to see groups of people learning around the exhibit spaces, engaging in interactive activities. I know the education team has fantastic ideas for students and school groups. And Farah [Karim-Cooper] knows education so well. Her ideas will shape our next chapter. It’s the right time for me to make an exit.
Final thoughts?
I have been so lucky to do this work. How many people get to do work they are this passionate about? And I did not do any of it alone. So many people had their hands in. It’s been about the collaborations the entire way.