You may have heard about a teacher at East High School who doesn’t have a car or a cell phone and lives differently than most of this generation. This is science teacher Colin Coulter.
“I spend most of my time as a father and a husband, but I’m also taking seminary classes to get my master’s in divinity,” Coulter said.
He spends a lot of time with his wife and taking care of his kids and being social or keeping himself busy. He is always taking new classes and working hard even outside of school.
“I would say he’s straight to the point and makes sure you’re on top of your work,” sophomore Camila Fuentes said.
Mr. Coulter makes sure students are focusing and making sure they’re on task and completing their work.
“He brings a different energy for sure,” co-worker Nikki Dorr said.
He does bring a different energy, but in a positive way and is a good person to talk to because he will match the same energy and isn’t boring. He will make sure he makes the class or himself entertaining, even without a phone he strongly opposes.
“It’s not about not liking phones, I love phones and love watching videos, but there’s kind of two points to this. One, it’s almost too good right? Quite frankly it’s addictive. It’s the reason I have students get out their phones and turn on their screen timer. It really makes them aware of the down sides of technology, because there are pros and cons, so the big part of it is that I see a lot of the down sides to a smartphone, or the cons out do the pros. And the second part of it is when I look at how people use their phones, and most of their time is spent just looking and scrolling. And I just have so many more and better things to do the just scroll and stare,” Coulter said.
He has very valid points on why he doesn’t use a phone or wants his students to be on phones. Because there are way more downsides to phones and takes up a lot of people’s time to do other things that will better themselves and be more focused on school and life.
“I liked how he would give us breaks sometimes in the middle of the class if we needed it,” Fuentes said.
Breaks during class are a must for most kids, everyone gets a little overwhelmed with work. But if you aren’t on your phone, you can take a break or a pause during class; Coulter knows this is important because he’s been a student, too.
When he started college, he made it through with a rough patch as he struggled in high school. But still shows how you can go get an education even while hitting a rough patch, and nothing or anyone should bring you down for trying to better your life. People might struggle financially as Coulter did but didn’t let it stop him and was worth it.
“It was just kind of something people told me I had to do, so I really struggled with it for the first couple years like I did in high school. Not much changed there, I ended up getting kicked out of Iowa State because of grades, so I went to DMACC and got my associate degree, and started to really turn it around again, then went back to Iowa state and finished it out there,” Coulter said.
Overall, Coulter shows his true colors in the East High School community and is a very good teacher, to have and really helps makes students motivated, and be on time to class to make sure students get the education they need.