New gym teacher Ryan Shelman has been a P.E. teacher for the past seven years at West Burlington High School in southeast Iowa. Although Shelman knew that he wanted to become an educator, he thought he might want to become a history teacher rather than a P.E. teacher.

“I planned on being a teacher, I just thought maybe I would be a history teacher, but it worked out that I would be a health and physical education teacher instead,” Shelman said.

Shelman does not regret becoming a P.E. teacher. He has a passion for teaching physical education and health ever since his time in the physical education program in college.

“It’s just something I knew I really enjoyed as a student, so I went ahead as an educator and decided it was something I would like to do,” Shelman said.

Many of the sports that Shelman played in high school and college have inspired him to coach as well as teach. Shelman plans on being an assistant coach for the boys basketball team, and he also coaches intermediate football at Walcott.

“I had a couple of great role-models as a student, and I also really liked the teachers that I had in the college program for physical education and health. I was a four-sport athlete in high school I [mainly] concentrated on football, basketball and baseball. My senior year I was a student assistant for the women’s basketball program,” Shelman said.