PEABODY — The stories linger everywhere in Michalene Hague’s office.

Bookshelves sag under decades of well-thumbed novels, their creased spines evidence of countless rereadings. Medieval knights positioned throughout the room wield weapons to defend their queen. A red apple plate covered in former students’ signatures sits nearby. Above it are photographs of birthday cakes inspired by literary favorites: “King Lear,” “Beowulf,” and “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.”

Together, the artifacts form a literary scrapbook of the books, students, and conversations that have shaped Hague’s life in education.

For nearly six decades in Peabody Public Schools, Hague has helped students navigate stories from around the world while encouraging them to discover something about themselves along the way.

Now, after 58 years as a Peabody Veterans Memorial High School English teacher — including the last 24 as English Department head — Hague will retire from full-time teaching on June 25. She is not leaving entirely, though. Next year, she will return to teach one Advanced Placement English Literature class.

“I want them to know that someone cares,” Hague said of her students. “And that someone wants to get them to see — if they don’t already — that by reading, by thinking, by questioning, these are skills that they can take into anything that they go into — and this is the safe place to do this.”

That philosophy has guided her career.

Raised in Beverly in a Sicilian-Italian and Polish family, Hague grew up surrounded by books, music, art, and multiple languages. Family members read to her in both Italian and Polish, helping spark a lifelong fascination with literature, history, and culture. Family friends also brought Greek and French influences to her life.

After graduating from Beverly High School in ‘64, she initially planned to become a journalist and earned acceptance to Boston University’s journalism program. The cost, however, led her to Salem State University, where she graduated magna cum laude in ‘68, with a bachelor’s degree in English and history, and earned her master’s in ‘72 in British literature.

What began as a temporary plan became a lifelong calling.

“The original plan for all of us who started here was: We’ll teach for five years and then we’ll go do something else,” Hague recalled. “And all of us were here many years later.”

When she arrived in Peabody, she found an immigrant community that felt familiar.

“There was a big Finnish population here in Peabody, so that was a little bit unusual for me,” Hague said with a laugh. “When I came to Peabody, it was like coming home — because Beverly is not like this.”

Whether discussing Shakespeare, Greek tragedies, Japanese novels, or Latin American fiction, Hague encouraged students to consider how a story’s themes intersected with their own experiences.

“Literature, art, music — they’re all ways of expressing what’s inside those of us in our humanity, and we have to be advocates for that,” she said.

That belief shaped her classroom and her broader advocacy for the humanities. While recognizing the importance of science and technology, Hague argued that education loses something essential when the arts are treated as secondary.

“Are we saying that those things aren’t as important as the concrete skill aspects, and that the abstraction that we deal with is somehow lesser?” she asked. “Because maybe it doesn’t lead to a more lucrative job?”

For Hague, literature has always been less about finding answers and more about learning how to question.

“I just want them to have faith in themselves in their own thinking,” Hague said of her students. “And to know that these particular skills apply in plumbing and electrician work as much as they apply in going into a college degree for history or English or foreign language.”

When further considering wisdom to impart on her students, Hague said: “Don’t be afraid to try something new. Don’t be afraid to laugh. And most of all, don’t laugh at other people for your own aggrandizement.”

What kept Hague at PVMHS for so long, she said, were the people.

“Peabody High is kind of a hidden gem in the North Shore,” Hague said, later adding, “That kind of dynamism was here.”

Throughout her career, she encouraged students to view mistakes not as failures but as opportunities to move forward and learn. That outlook will likely guide her next chapter as well.

Retirement remains something of an open-ended chapter. Hague hopes to organize decades of poetry she has written, spend more time at her home in Maine, and perhaps become involved with local historical societies. But after a career defined by curiosity, she isn’t rushing to script what comes next.

In her office, a small sign on her desk read, “Teaching is a work of Heart.”

After 58 years at PVMHS, the sentiment feels less like decoration and more like a summary.