From sulfur dioxide explosions to the three laws of motion, Jerry Grizzle, AP Physics teacher, has achieved many awards, including one that changed his teaching career.
Grizzle received the Teacher of the Year award on December 12th, 2025. After leaving the army, he started his teaching career thirty years ago. Since then, he has been working at schools like Prosper High School and Richland High School. Grizzle says that he got into teaching because of his wife.
“Her whole family were teachers,” Grizzle said. “I swore I would never return to high school after I left, and I was working for the Army Corps of Engineers.”
Grizzle’s first award came from saving a comrade from a sulfur dioxide leak. He was a part of the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995.
“I was on station and we had a guy that was 40 feet below ground working in a sewer lift station, and he actually cracked a valve, and sewer gas came out… sewer gas is sulfur dioxide, and smells like rotten eggs, and he immediately dropped,” he said. “…the whole lift station is full of sewer water, electricity arcing. Through the water I had to repair the system and repair the entire situation all while in pitch-dark conditions.”
Grizzle was scared when he was trying to come back up and got stuck. Fortunately, he was able to get unstuck and bring him and his fellow soldier up with one hand.
“And I got out, and the colonel was standing there, and he slapped me on the back,” Grizzle said. “He said, ‘Hey, Paul’s going to make it. You saved his life. You’re going to get an Army Commendation Medal.’ And all I kept thinking is, ‘I cannot go back in that hole.’”
Grizzle said that he didn’t expect the Teacher of the Year award.
“It was shocking,” he said. “Absolutely shocking because I came from a place where I’ve been for 26 years and never once was recognized for anything I ever did.”
Grizzle initially thought that he was in trouble when he was receiving it. Richland’s principal, Dr. Lute Croy, approached Grizzle after he taught his class and asked him to meet him on Friday in his office.
“And I’m like, what did I do? Did I screw up? Did I say a bad word? Why does he want to see me?” he said. “So we walked out, and that’s when they fired the cannons and the band was playing. I’m like, wow, these kids are out of class. What’s going on? And I didn’t realize I’d won until I saw my wife. Oh. I thought I was getting fired, literally. I was expected to be fired. Instead, I became teacher of the year. So it was a shock.”
Grizzle’s teaching style is teaching through failure.
“I expect students to not understand and not to get it the first time,” he said. “So the only way that you learn how to do something is to try and fail because you gotta learn from your mistakes. So I set up my entire course where you can fail and it’s still not your grade. So you get a chance to make mistakes and I have this huge safety net that catches people and allows students to redo their material over and over and over until it clicks.”
Grizzle’s advice to future teachers is to build relationships with their kids.
“If you can’t build a relationship with a student, you can’t teach them,” he said. “… If you want to be successful in this position, one, you’ve got to know your material… Number two, you’ve got to be able to build curriculum and lessons, the day-to-day operation. All of that’s fine and great, but if you don’t want to invest in the life of a kid, go to their events, show up, be present, talk to them, engage with them, they are not going to respect you and they’re not going to want to learn from you. You have to put the time and effort into each kid. They’re going to screw up. They’re going to make mistakes. But there’s also a reason why you’ve got to engage with students and remember that they are that.”
Grizzle embodies his advice by dressing up and supporting his students at their various events.
“You’ll see me show up in purple and white striped overalls and start yelling and cheering for the team,” he said. “And it doesn’t matter if you’re a great student or not. I can literally care less what type of student you are. If you’re involved in something and I can go to it, I go.”
Grizzle plans to continue teaching for ten to twenty more years.
