His Story
“Prior to 1991, I never thought of myself as a teacher. Since 1991, I have never imagined doing anything else.” Terry Kaldhusdal was a newspaper reporter near Los Angeles, covering education among other issues, when his wife, a teacher, kept telling him he would make a great teacher. To convince him she suggested one evening class. It was the history of education, and it caught him by surprise. After seven years in journalism he left to teach, and his mother’s reaction was “It’s about time.”
He earned a journalism degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1984, a teaching credential from Chapman University in 1992 and a master’s in technology in education from Lesley University in 1996. He taught fourth grade at Wales Elementary from 1993 to 1999 and at Magee Elementary until 2013, and since then has taught sixth-grade English and history at Kettle Moraine Middle School. He received a Herb Kohl Educational Foundation fellowship in 2006 and was named Wisconsin State Teacher of the Year in 2007. He was also named Wisconsin’s environmental educator of the year in 2010, a Gilder Lehrman history teacher of the year for Wisconsin in 2011, and National History Teacher of the Year by National History Day in 2023.
Beyond the Classroom
Kaldhusdal started the first National History Day team in his school district, and more than 150 of his students have researched and presented projects through it. They have made documentary films and written one-act plays, and a former student says the work taught her to “search for the legacy.” He also coaches the middle school speech team, which has produced state champions and finished second at the state competition twice. For nearly three decades he has helped run the Art of Writing, Young Authors and Artists Conference at the Milwaukee Art Museum.
As an elementary teacher he created Virtualville, a program in which fourth and fifth graders ran for state and federal offices in a simulated primary and general election. At its peak more than 700 students from three school districts took part, and it ran for over a decade. He co-started KM Create, a personalized learning “house” at the middle school where students follow their interests through projects. When a field-trip site, the MacKenzie Environmental Education Center, was threatened with sale, he rallied students and parents, and the students spoke at a Department of Natural Resources board meeting in support of keeping it.
He is a founding board member of the Kettle Moraine Education Foundation, a founder of the Wisconsin Teacher of the Year Network and the Wisconsin Teacher of the Year Council, which meets quarterly with the state Department of Public Instruction. He is also an author, documentary filmmaker and podcaster who has produced more than 40 videos on education issues, as well as a documentary for the Wisconsin Historical Society, “Thinking Like a Historian.” His publications include a 2023 book, 6th Grade Ready: Expert Advice for Parents.
Philosophy Into Practice
His philosophy is learning by doing. His class travels to the local library, museum and state archives to hunt for primary sources, to quarries for minerals, and into the woods to look for life beyond the textbook. He assigns no homework. Instead, students hold weekly one-on-one conferences with him, set their own goals and plans, and give themselves the work they need that night. He says that is “a dramatic change of ownership.”
A visit in 1995 to a local manufacturer changed what he teaches. He asked the company’s CEO what the most important thing to teach students would be, and the CEO told him to teach students how to learn. Ever since, he opens the school year by asking his students that same question. His only classroom rule is that students may not say “I’m done.” During the pandemic he taught in-person and remote students at the same time, and he brought his students into the problem-solving, from break routines to lockdown plans.
“Who’s in charge of a child’s learning? The child.”Terry Kaldhusdal
In His Own Words
“Prior to 1991, I never thought of myself as a teacher. Since 1991, I have never imagined doing anything else.”Terry Kaldhusdal
“My educational philosophy is to learn by doing.”Terry Kaldhusdal
“Once they learn how to learn, there’s nothing they can’t accomplish”Terry Kaldhusdal
What Others Said
“He has always been a quiet, humble leader and a fierce advocate for children and public education.”Former superintendent, Kettle Moraine School District
“I have never seen a one-size-fits-all approach in his teaching.”Michael Comiskey, former principal
“we have never seen such selfless dedication from a teacher.”Jeffrey and Heather Hein, parents of former students
“Mr. Kaldhusdal created a captivating environment in which students were encouraged to use critical thinking and problem solving”Krin Blegen, former student