John Lee at Mason City High school had always wanted to go into teaching. It was something that he always wanted to pursue since he had great respect for all of his teachers growing up. He also wanted to pursue coaching, which led him to his path of being the head football coach at Mason City High School from 2000 to 2009.
Lee graduated from Newman Catholic High School in Mason City, where he got a scholarship to play football at UNI. Lee was a starter for 3 years, where he played offensive guard and tackle. During his stay at UNI in 1994, Lee had student taught for a semester at Mason City High School and substituted, where he was then offered a job as a history teacher in 1995.
Mr. Lee has also been a City Councilman for Mason City for the past 6 years. Lee stated the main reason he became a councilman was because “We have great things going for us in Mason City. I thought at the time that the city council was more of a barrier than a gateway, and I wanted to change that”. Lee also commented, “I do love Mason City, and I think Mason City has serious potential”.
With his political experience from the council, Lee states that he is able to use his experiences and apply it to his government classes, which gives him the credibility as a teacher to relate his experiences into his lessons. Lee states that “I can say that I have done what I teach about”. Lee in the past has also been appointed to different commissions and have been on 3 or 4 boards in the city. When asked about his future in the council, Lee stated,“8 years was good enough for George Washington, and I think 8 years on the council is good enough for me too”.
When asked about life lessons that he had learned along his journey of being a teacher, a head football coach, and a councilman, Lee simply said, “Don’t stay on the sidelines, but get involved”. Here, Lee talked about the importance of taking ownership of your own learning, to work hard, and not to be too critical of other people in life for the people around you make mistakes. But most of all, Lee states, “You have to have fun with whatever you are doing and to be able to smile and not take yourself too seriously” which has followed him through his teaching, coaching, and his position as a city councilman. He also noted that a quintessential philosophy of his is The Man in the Arena speech by Teddy Roosevelt, which focuses on perseverance through adversity.
Challenges that Lee has faced would be motivating people to do something that they don’t necessarily want to do in order to accomplish what they want. This followed him in not only his teaching but his coaching and his time as a City Councilman.
After his time on the Council, Mr. Lee plans to find something to keep him busy again. He believes “there is another opportunity out there for me, and I look forward to finding out what that is, but I don’t know what that is yet”. Lee has flirted with the idea of possibly running for a position at the state level, which would present him a new challenge for him to enjoy. He has also thought about running for a state congressional seat, where he would be in office for at most 4 years. He would then come back to teach government class one more time to share his experiences with his students.
“History is something to understand, not to judge” is one of the main lessons out of all of Lee’s lectures, along with the importance of understanding the different ways on how we can interpret the history of the past. If Mr. Lee’s students had to take away one important key of advice from him, it is that no matter what we do, we must live out our lives with purpose to truly make an impact on the world just as much as Mr. Lee has made a positive impact on all of his students and our community as well.