SAN ANTONIO – North East ISD’s Roan Forest Elementary school music teacher Matthew Trevino goes above and beyond when it comes to teaching music to his students.
His passion for teaching music has even been recognized by the Recording Academy’s Grammy Awards.
Trevino was nominated for teaching music this year, and it’s his third Grammy nomination for teaching music in the past four years.
“Waking up and getting to make music with these awesome, young little musicians is just the coolest thing,” Trevino said.
When the pandemic hit, Trevino had to find creative ways to continue teaching his students. So he put up a green screen in his classroom and learned how to edit music videos.
“A lot of what I’ve done this year is video editing,” Trevino said. “There are professions for video and audio editing, but I’ve decided to learn and it has come in so handy. Had I not learned, I don’t believe I would have had a successful year in this classroom.”
But even before the pandemic, Trevino has been using different ways to connect with his students. He says he has always started his class out with dance.
“That social aspect,” Trevino said. “Whenever we dance via Zoom or in-person, it’s just that chance for us to connect.”
Between Trevino’s fun dancing videos and teaching students about pitch or musical instruments, he says it’s the journey of watching his students discover something that they didn’t know was special to them --that makes all the work worth it.
“They walk in the hallways and they say, ‘oh this is my favorite place to be,’” Trevino said. “Or when we open the car doors for them in the mornings, they say, ‘oh it’s my music day. I’m so happy.’ It’s very special.”
Trevino has been an elementary school music teacher for 11 years. When he started at Roan Forest Elementary in 2016, he started the music group called “Sonidos.”
It’s a group of fourth and fifth grade students who play on xylophones with one student on piano and another on the drums.
Sonidos has played at several Spurs games, at the Tobin Center for Performing Arts and was even selected to perform at a national teaching convention.
To follow Matthew Trevino and his teaching journey, you can follow him and his Sonidos group on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
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