Photos courtesy of Dublin Coffman High School
Everyone knows what the Grammys are, but there is a part to the famous awards ceremony that casual fans may not know about. In 2014, the Recording Academy and Grammy Foundation created the Music Educator of the Year Award. This year, Jeremy Bradstreet, a band teacher at Dublin Coffman High School and who has been teaching music for 19 years, was recognized as one of the finalists for the 2019 award.
In order to get nominated, a parent, student or employee has to enter a music educator’s name for the award. More than 2,800 nominations were submitted for the award and Bradstreet was one of them. He was honored to learn that he was nominated by a parent of one of his students.
“Just receiving an email that says that you’ve been nominated – just to find simply that a parent thinks you’re doing a good job and loves what their son or daughter is doing in the classroom,” Bradstreet says, “right there, we could have stopped the whole process and I would say, ‘Hey that’s pretty cool to receive even that recognition.’”
Last year, Bradstreet went through the process of submitting three essays in order to become a quarterfinalist among 188 other music educators.
The next step in the process was submitting three videos. In two of the videos, he had the Dublin Coffman principal, alumni, current students and some parents all answer questions about him and his classroom. The third video had to be of him teaching and was required to be unedited.
“They ask you questions about your philosophy and what you do in your classroom,” Bradstreet says. “Kind of what makes your classroom special, but they ask other people to talk.”
The videos he submitted made him a semifinalist for the Music Educator of the Year Award.
From there, the videos get sent to the Blue Ribbon Committee, made up of top music educators and professionals. The Blue Ribbon Committee narrows down the list of 25 semifinalists to just 10 finalists and they recommend the music educator that will be honored. However, the Board of Trustees of the Recording Academy has to approve the recommendation before the winner can be announced.
“As the process went along and you got to talk about your classroom – things that you believe in or things that are unique to your classroom – that started to snowball into the quarterfinals and then into the semifinals, and then into the finals,” Bradstreet says.
Bradstreet cares about all of his students and he never wants them to feel left out or out of place. He says band is like a family.
“My videos were all centered on what I call the band family, when a student enters in their freshman year and parents enter in their freshman year, they are not just part of the class,” Bradstreet says. “They’re part of a group of people who are all interested in each other. So, the idea is to make sure that everyone has a sense of belonging and that everyone has a purpose in why they’re there and what they’re learning. And we do this through a very family-oriented process.”
Bradstreet makes sure that his students are more than students in a classroom. He says music teaches students more than just notes and rhythms on instruments, but also life skills.
“Having the ability to not just talk about it, but to recognize all of the band programs here in the state of Ohio and across the nation is much more than just teaching the fundamentals of music,” Bradstreet says. “If I could rename the band program, I would like it to say Life Skills Through Band, because it’s this atmosphere of our band program that our kids are learning about commitment, discipline and teamwork and leadership, and all of the things that hopefully will make them successful in their workplace as adults.”
Although Bradstreet didn’t make it all the way, he says that he is still very honored that he was nominated.
“Every aspect of this process has been special,” Bradstreet says.
Bethany Schultz is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com
