Mason Reynolds 1

Mason S. Reynolds
Professor Peter Blair
UWRT 1103
22 September 2015

The Impact of a Great Teacher

Coach Sams was an average-looking man at first glance, but he had a large impact on my
life in high school and into college now. When I first had him as a teacher he was new to our
high school. Since I did not know anything about him, I assumed the worst. But after that
semester, I was convinced that he was one of the most goofy, intelligent, and communicative
teachers I had during my 4 years in high school. His funny, yet informational lectures along with
his detailed explanations made the class not only much more understandable, but it also made it
enjoyable. He made sure that his students learned the information that they needed to know and
much more.
Although I never knew this man as a coach, that is simply what I called him because he
was the coach for the football team at the time. I was in his classes during my junior and senior
year of high school. He was a tall man with a round face and well-trimmed beard. His hair was
short and groomed as if he was a businessman. His physique was that of a healthy athlete, even
though he never talked about working out or playing sports, just watching. He usually wore Polo
shirts and dark dress pants along with dark dress shoes. He had a friendly look and had a very
goofy personality to go with it. His bearded face almost always had a smile on it that showed his
straight, white teeth. He loved to make his students laugh with ridiculous stories and experiences
that he knew about the lesson for the day. Most of the time he was darting around and flailing his
arms around to re enact what happened in the story. He would usually come into the classroom

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and say You wont believe what happened to me yesterday or Man, have I got a story for you
guys today. Immediately, he would begin to tell the story using his whole body and any props he
could find nearby to help us visualize it. Although most of his motions were exaggerated, they
did captivate the eyes of the students towards him. During these stories, he would speak in a
deep voice that echoed around the room, attracting the attention of everyone around him. Even
though the stories were all funny, he always brought them back around to how they pertained to
the days material. Even the projects he gave us were interesting and fun to make and test. Most
students respected him immensely because of his kind and funny nature, so he never really had
any problems with any of his students. His form of teaching was much more interactive for the
students of different learning types, whether they learn better audibly, visually, or kinetically. His
humorous stories helped us feel more comfortable around him and even made me look forward
to going to his class. It would be much more difficult to teach students if they dont want to be
there in the first place. A student that does not want to learn will not learn. His one-on-one
tutoring helped many get through some tough concepts while also encouraging them to ask
questions. Many students are too shy to ask questions, so they sit there confused instead, but with
Coach Sams, it always felt okay to ask questions. His vivid demonstrations would teach us how
to look at an equation with a different perspective, as if we could actually see the object flying
through the air. All of these elements together made his teaching almost perfect.
Coach Sams didnt even plan on being a teacher when he went to college. He actually
wanted to study medical practices and help injured athletes, but his wife had a child so he got his
teaching degree so he became a teacher and coach. I believe this showed how much he cared for
his family since he gave up on his dream career and decided to take care of them instead. To him,
he was teaching and coaching for the family he loved, which made him do it more passionately.

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When he was in the classroom, he did not just sit there and talk for the whole class period. His
constant jumping and shouting not only made it better for himself, but for the students as well.
He truly cared about his teaching and his students because it was the same as caring for his
family. He was a kind-hearted person in general, so I dont think he would want his students to
be bored to death while he was teaching.
During my junior year, when I first had him as a teacher, Coach Sams taught in a small
room with about 20 desks or so. His desk was at the back corner of the room to the right of the
door. When he taught his lessons he would go to front of the room and write on the board or
show a presentation. The walls were covered in posters that showed quotes of famous physicians
and other scientific related topics. The board would have upcoming assignments that we needed
to do and previous lecture materials. In my senior year, he moved into a lab room. It also
contained about 20 desks, but it had room at the back with tables and chairs where students could
do group work and experiments. This room had large cabinets filled with papers, flasks, vials,
and other miscellaneous items that pertained to science. At the front of this room there was a
long table that he stood behind as he taught to show how to do experiments and other activities.
Junior year, Coach Sams gave us our first project, which was a presentation that we had
to create about the previous lessons and teach them to the class. The presentation had to be about
the physics behind a sport of your choice. Instead of giving us a rubric to follow as we presented,
he did his own presentation and presented it to the class as an example. He spoke loudly and
clear so that everyone could hear him. He did his presentation about football and even brought in
a football to demonstrate with some students. As he would go over material, he would throw the
ball to a random student to make sure they were paying attention. Some students were annoyed
that he was doing this, but the only thing he said in response was:

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If you are not paying attention to the ball in football, there are worse things that could
happen to you. The ball could crack into the side of your head at a high speed or an
enormous football player would pummel into you and launch your body over 10 feet
away. The amount of force from that kind of hit would send your vision spinning and
your injured body off to the hospital with a concussion.
He then went on to explain the physics behind the ball hitting that person in the face or
them being hit by a 300 pound football player. He went over the amount of momentum behind it
and the distance it would send that person based on their weight. Coach Sams played football in
high school and coached our team, so I assumed that he was knowledgeable on the subject.
Someone as scrawny and skinny as me understood very well what it would be like to be hit be a
one of the hulking players on the football field. Once the presentation was over, we all had a
pretty good understanding of what he wanted in our own presentations.
That same year, Coach Sams assigned our second project. The objective of this
experiment was to keep an egg, which would be dropped from a tall height, from breaking on
impact with the ground. We were allowed to use any form of solution, but the more complex it
was, the better. To help us get a better idea of how the experiment would work, he took us to the
location where the egg would be dropped and talked about how we could calculate the force that
the egg would hit the ground. Afterward, he showed us some traditional methods that he had seen
throughout the years. One by one, he did all of the normal methods that students used as an easy
way out, such as putting the egg in a jar of peanut butter or cotton. After he had finished with
those, he explained the physics behind them and why he disliked them compared to some other
ideas. He then showed one that he had done himself. At first glance, it looked like a plethora of
straws with an egg in the middle, but Coach Sams began to explain:

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The straws are connected around the egg, acting as a cradle for it. They all run beside the
egg but not directly into it and branch out far away from the egg. This spreads the force
from the fall into the straws instead a direct point of the egg, which would cause the egg
to become punctured instead. So the straws absorb the force and take it away from the
egg to make sure the egg is unscathed. This method can be used multiple times, but after
enough wear and tear, the straws will begin to break and the egg will become more
vulnerable.
It was a little complex for such a simple project, but it gave me some ideas for my own
device that I would build later. It also used straws, but they were used as landing mechanisms
under the egg with pieces of play doh on the ends. I created a parachute out of a trash bag that
would make the egg descend slower and allow for the straws to absorb the rest of the force.
Although it was a small demonstration that Coach Sams gave us, it gave some ideas to many
people in our class, such as myself.
One day in class, we were learning about the equation for objects as they flew through
the air. A student was having a very difficult time with the concept and asked Coach Sams for
some help. After a few minutes of explaining with no success of making it more understandable
for that student, he approached the board. He began writing an example and visually displaying
the parabola that an object makes as it travels through the air. Once the parabola was drawn, he
took a pencil and told the student to stand off to the side of the room. He instructed the student to
watch as the pencil left his hand and flew to the other side of the room. Afterward, he said:
It is all a matter of perspective. Once you have seen it and can understand that image for
the use of equations, you have the hard part out of the way. If the pencil is thrown up
higher like this, then it will go up farther, but not necessarily horizontally farther than

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before. Each component, both vertical and horizontal, are their own independent pieces
of an equation. But to find them you must first understand the shape the object makes as
it goes up, down, left, or right. There is good news though. You only have to know what
half of the parabola looks like, then you can just reflect it over to the other side because it
is symmetrical. Once that part is out of the way, the rest simply falls into your lap.
After that display, the student gained a better understanding and seemed to be able to
work better new that they had seen a real life example. It also showed me how to look at an
equation with a realistic image in mind to guide me along the way. It was an interesting
perspective to me, and I still try to use it when I can.
This time, it was a small, but fun assignment; make the best paper airplane you can. This
assignment was measured based on the flight it flew after being launched from a specific device.
The device was just a small slingshot attached to a stand that showed the height from the ground.
The height was constant at about 4 feet high and so was the power of the slingshot. The only
component of this experiment that was different was the design of each paper airplane. After we
had made our paper airplanes, we had to write a paragraph explaining why we thought ours was
good and how far it would travel. One student made his very light and expected his to go far
because of its lower weight, but as soon as it launched out of the slingshot it flipped on itself and
plummeted to the ground. The student was confused, but Coach Sams came over and said:
Your plane was lightweight, but that same advantage can also be your disadvantage. It
may seem like it would zip down the hallway since it has less weight with the same initial
velocity, but you did not account for its aerodynamics as it flew. If a paper airplane has
too little weight, the air will ravage its flight path, thus causing it to become
unpredictable and ineffective. On the other hand, if a plane is too heavy, the lift of the air

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will not be able to hold it up very long, meaning that it will fall faster. So you must come
up with a compromise between weight and aerodynamics to create an effective paper
airplane.
Now that the students confusion had been cleared, he hurried off to create another paper
airplane design according to Coach Sams directions. I never really thought about it with so
much depth before, but it did make perfect sense afterward. I was even able to make some
adjustments to my own design before I tested it.
Then in senior year, I was in Coach Sams Honors Physics class this time, instead of his
Physical Science class. Within the first week, we were learning about data collection in the
scientific method. Coach Sams opened up with an experiment:
We were going to do a data collection activity where we would use M&Ms and you
would get to eat them after the experiment is over, but I have good news and bad news. Which
do you want to here first?
The bad news first!
Well, they were all out of M&Ms when I got there.
Whats the good news?
ITS BECAUSE I BOUGHT THEM ALL!
As he bellowed that last sentence, he then pulled out two large bags of M&Ms and started
to hand them out. We were given packs of M&Ms for the experiment and told to guess how
many of each color would be inside each pack. We made our guesses and opened the packs to see
how close we were to our guesses. Most of us were far off from the estimated amount, of course.
After that, we counted the amount of each color that we actually had and recorded it on paper.
Coach Sams went around and collected the results from everyone and put them into a

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spreadsheet. The next day he pulled up the spreadsheet, which now had the same statistics from
other classes. He put them all together to show what the average amount of each color was in one
pack of M&Ms. Once this was on the screen, he said:
As you can see, we have gathered the data for how many of every color M&M will be in
one pack. If you look back on your guesses, you were probably very incorrect about the
true number. But now that we have some data, we can use it to more accurately estimate
how many of each color there will be. This experiment shows you the importance of data
collection when forming a hypothesis in the scientific method. Even with a little data, it
can change your outlook on the experiment completely.
Although it was a simple experiment, it truly showed how far a small amount of data can
go. It can be the difference between right and wrong or almost and not even close.
Coach Sams was not there for very long during my senior year due to him finding a better
job. Even though he was leaving halfway through the semester, he stilled tried to teach as much
as he could before he left. As the days closed in on his departure, he told us this:
I understand that they may not have a teacher before I leave, but I am going to pass
around my email to all of you. If any of you ever need help with something that the sub
cant help you with, feel free to message me for assistance. I feel terrible for leaving so
early in the semester, but I want to try to help you as much as possible. The class is only
going to get harder as you continue through the semester. Im not sure how long it will be
until they get a real teacher, but it could take a month or the whole semester.
We never did get a teacher the semester after he left, so we were usually reading from the
book and helping each other. But if we were really troubled by a topic, we could always message

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him and he would get back to us within the day. It was very reassuring to know that we had
someone we could go to if we ever need help, almost like a personal tutor.
Although Coach Sams was a great teacher, he did have one fault. When he was telling his
funny stories, he would sometimes go off track and continue to talk about it for extended periods
of time. The stories were interesting and hilarious, but this would lead to some confusion from
both the students and himself. Coach Sams would forget what he was talking about before the
story and so would the students. Then it would take some time to backtrack to where he started
and get the lecture going again. This could go on for a few minutes or half an hour depending on
the length of the story. Once his story was done, other students would throw is some stories of
their own, taking us even farther off track than before. This would waste precious class time for
work and lecturing. It was also uncomfortable during these times to ask questions because that
would mean interrupting his story. Although this could be inconvenient for us, his stories were
part of the learning for the class. Without them, it would take away some of the fun of his class
and make it less interesting.
Coach Sams is a caring teacher with a passion for teaching like nothing I have ever seen.
His detailed explanations and demonstrations gave us more than just the answer, but a different
way of finding the answer. His amusing stories and strange personality made his class something
to look forward to everyday when I got to school. Even now, in college physics, I still remember
the material he taught me and use it to find the answers, whether it be final velocity or maximum
height of a projectile. It is teachers like Coach Sams that keep students in school and wanting to
learn more and more not only in education, but in life as well.