Bill Calhoun

As I ponder my retirement in 2026, I'll take this opportunity to think back on the 
work I am most proud of as a teacher. Certainly there is my rapport with students, the 
act of creating a "teacher persona" in the words of sociologist David Labaree. 
I'm not sure how that could be represented here.

But I am also proud of the way that I have created and integrated specific types of 
instruction:

1) motion, energy, & field diagrams
2) vocabulary worksheets, completed and read aloud
3) 4-column notes
4) various schema based on specialized vocabulary
5) homework reading and questions
6) quizzes (which I regard as a form of instruction, rather than simply assessment)

A young student needs to see things from different angles if there is to be any hope of 
that student developing any understanding. If the different angles are too different, as 
in the tale of the blind men trying to understand an elephant, or if the angles are 
mostly the same, the student has little to work with. The different angles need to 
support each other, and there can never be too much repetition.