My name is Collin, and I am currently a freshman at the Delaware Military Academy in Wilmington, Delaware. I am gratified to nominate my 8th-grade Physics teacher and varsity hockey coach, Mr. Dunn, as Educator of the Year. He works at Upland Country Day School in Chester County, Pennslyvania. He has taught and coached there for more than 45 years. I am nominating Mr. Dunn as Educator of the Year due to his hand-on experiments that he has the students take part in. He is also not just an astounding coach or teacher but also a dear friend to all, and for making an impact in everyone’s lives. Finally, his positivity towards others drives inspiration in his players and students. Fit for Educator of the Year, Mr. Dunn is an all-around amazing coach and teacher.

Mr. Dunn was all about having his students take part in experiments. He always thought the best way to learn something was to go out and experiment, and when you’re finished, you try to come up with ways to improve it. For example, we made gravity cars, and the idea was to make the fastest downhill car without any machinery to propel it forward. The only element allowing the car to go down was gravity. We learned throughout the making of the cars, that we should experiment with the cars determining what would make my gravity car outperform the others. This creation developed our problem-solving abilities and creativity. My classmates and I learned much from being in his class, and it will soon be used in everyday tasks in our near future.

I not only knew Mr. Dunn as a teacher or coach, but I also knew him as a friend. He was evermore caring and was open to hearing whatever you had to say. He knew how to make you laugh and he always had countless stories to tell of his many stories at Upland. He could connect with people easily, and he always made you feel important when talking to him. I don’t know how this came to be, but we were on some sort of hockey or field trip, and we had to link up with a “buddy”. Mr. Dunn was next to me, so we decided to become “buddies”. We didn’t think that the term “buddies” was cool enough for us, so we settled with the nickname, the “thunder buddies”. We both thought it was hilarious, so the name stuck. It stuck so much, that to this day, whenever we see each other, we yell “Hey thunder buddy!” It was little things like that, where he could just connect with people, and make their day brighter.

Inspiring on and off the ice was one of the many things Mr. Dunn could do. He believed in every student and player and always gave positive feedback. He would give feedback or critique in such a way that you were inspired and pushed to do better. He brought out the best in people he talked to. He also gave motivational speeches before all the ice hockey games. Every word stuck and had meaning to it. This gave the players the energy to give it their all and to fight with heart. Upland always had their big invitational tournament usually right after the winter break. Spirits grew high, and the tournament was all you could think about. Right before the first game, Mr. Dunn brought the team together for their pre-game talk. He didn’t talk about the past successes the previous Upland teams had. He talked about how this was our time and only we could determine what the final outcome would be. We came up short of winning by one goal, which was really disappointing but we knew we put up a hard fight. If it wasn’t for Mr. Dunn’s inspiration and heart, we wouldn’t have made it as close to a battle as we did. Mr. Dunn is a huge reason why Upland has been so successful.

Mr. Dunn is everything you would want in a coach and teacher and more. He does so in countless ways: his experiments that he has the class participate in; not only being there as a coach or teacher but also a friend, and most of all, for inspiring others. Mr. Dunn has always been there, and is a huge reason for some of my successes today and will be the reason for many future successes which is why I nominate him for Educator of the Year.