Paulette Colantone

What are you looking forward to in retirement?

“I measure success when I see a student learn from the simplest thing that I taught them, like a technique in composition. Or when students email me saying that they would never have started their photography business if it weren’t for me, which I would have never expected from all of this.”

How long have you been teaching?

“I started teaching woodworking one and two, I am a shop teacher, industrial arts. I taught graphic arts, photography 1, drafting for three years, engineering 1 year, and I printed for the school district, so I had five different classes I taught, including photography.”

Are there any people who have really helped you in teaching?

“Well, I would say with starting, Ron Sable. He was the other tech ed teacher at the time. My dad taught me how to do everything in woodshop. He came in for two years straight and would change the blades for me and help me with everything I needed to build. And now, I think the whole art department has helped me put art into the photography. Also, the coaching staff and players that I have coached, from Mrs. Harris to Mrs. Rorabaugh. They have really helped me with growing as a teacher.”

What are you going to miss from teaching?

“I will miss the one-on-one teaching with a student, showing them the parts of a camera and showing them what they can do to achieve. I’ll miss that closeness that I have when I can just be myself and I can help them with whatever problems they have.”

How has RHS changed in your 32 years of teaching?

“I think what I’ve really seen change is the acceptance of all types of people. We have improved on how we deal with bullying, but we have become more open to change about helping everyone. I think that stems from the principal, he looks and says, ‘let us fix these things’.”

What do you plan to do in retirement?

“The one thing I’m looking forward to is getting up when I want to get up, starting any kind of project I want to start. As far as fun things, kayaking is something I picked up three years ago . . . and walking [while] taking photos. I started a little Paulette’s Prints business and I want to make money at my leisure.”

Do you have a farewell message for Revere?

“Keep being kind to people. I still think we need to work on it. Kids are still bullying each other on social media, I know it’s cliche but treat people the way you want to be treated. Just keep being kind is the best message I could give.”

Phil Mogus

How did you initially decide to go into teaching?

“I got into [biology] and really enjoyed working with all of the kids when I was in college, and we had to go around to various places, not just student teaching, but field experience, where I was in different schools with different age groups, and I enjoyed it. It was kind of like an adventure honestly. I was down in Florida after [teaching at Buchtel], because I thought, ‘I’ll teach in Florida because they have all this stuff down there, all the marine environment, and I could continue with that, but they ended up calling me here at Revere. So I came back up here and started here and have been here ever since.”

How has education changed through your career?

“It is stuff that surrounds the classroom and it is not necessarily in the classroom itself [that education has changed], because what I do in this classroom is certainly very similar to what I was doing twenty years ago in the classroom.”

Do you have any plans for you retirement?

“Certainly, I am in the process right now of getting my FAA license as a parachute rigger, which [involves] working with all kinds of stuff in the parachute field. It is still a very small field, and a lot of things are all handmade. It is a really nice thing. I started skydiving when I was sixteen years old. You could do that back then. I went in the Army and was a paratrooper and took quite a bit of time off, and I have been back doing it for several years, jumping now. I will work a little bit doing that. I still officiate track and field. I would not mind doing another mission trip. I have had some opportunities that I might be over to teach overseas a couple of places. I might be able to teach in Colombia. I can go down there to a school in a couple of little cool towns that I know of, that I can set up for a while, and there are a couple of other places that I have looked into too.”

Do you have a farewell message for Revere?

“I would certainly want Revere to stay very, very strong in education. We have always been able to turn out great students. I want people to see the truth in things. There is a lot of false stuff out there. . . . I hope that we as a staff can show them that there is more to it. You have got to learn to look at things, and you have to be able to adjust, and you have to see that there is some truth out there and not everything is all wishy-washy. That not only goes for your personal lives, but it goes for your education, too. I have been very thankful to be a part of a strong science department for so many years and I have had some people before me that have set that path to where I have been able to follow that for the most part, I hope.”