Frank ‘Chip’ Gawle is more than just one of Wilton High School‘s favorite teachers and the leader of Fairfield County’s largest high school marching band. He’s now a giant step closer to the 2016 Grammy Music Educator Award. In May, it was announced that he’d made it to the quarterfinals with 212 other educators; now yesterday came word that he was one of 25 music teachers selected as a semifinalist, winnowed down from an original field of 4,500 nominations.
The Music Educator Award was established to recognize current educators (kindergarten through college, public and private schools) who have made a significant and lasting contribution to the field of music education and who demonstrate a commitment to the broader cause of maintaining music education in the schools.
“I’m so blessed to be here at this point in my career–my 35th year. To have such an incredibly, sweepingly positive thing happen, that’s really great,” Gawle told GOOD Morning Wilton on Monday afternoon..
A total of 25 music teachers from 25 cities across 15 states were named semifinalists for the Music Educator Award™ presented by The Recording Academy® and the GRAMMY Foundation®. Gawle was recognized after a long process that involved not only an initial nomination but a lengthy question and answer survey, a video presentation and videotaping of his teaching–not to mention a background check by the Recording Academy.
“Ellen Willis was the band parent president at the time, she nominated me, and I was very touched by that, and excited and humbled. A month later I got a survey from the Grammy Foundation, with about an hours worth of essays and questions. ”
That survey helped the Grammy foundation start to narrow down the contenders, to 213 quarterfinalists.
Gawle says that being named a quarterfinalist was “very exciting,” until he was asked to then produce videos about his teaching methods.
“It was during May, and the show, which is the absolute, busiest time of the year. I had two weeks to put together these videos–one 7-minute video uninterrupted of me teaching a class, and a 5-minute video of parents, colleagues, administrators and students and past students, answering questions to get to the heart of what my success is: what’s the impact on students, what’s your philosophy of education, what legacy do you think you have left, why are you so successful, do you have a global view of education…and so on.”
That pressure was a bit daunting–until his students took over.
“I was pretty flipped out about that, but my AP music theory students, said, ‘Don’t worry, you did this, you did that, and we’ll get these kids who are coming back.’ In one 40-minute period they answered all the questions and figured out how we were going to do the videos,” Gawle recalls. “All these people helped, they came out of the woodwork to support me. The kids actually put together the production of the teaching video, using the best equipment in the AV lab, and put together a fantastic video of a wind ensemble rehearsal.”
Sue Lash, the music department videographer helped put everything together, shooting hours and hours of interviews and boiling all the footage down to produce a video that was the requisite lengths for Gawle to submit.
The outpouring of help and the desire to make the case for Gawle with the Recording Academy and the GRAMMY Foundation is surely testament to what he, as an educator, has inspired over the years. That so many people went out of their way to make it happen and support him was almost reward enough for him.
“Whatever happens with this award, there was so much love and so much of a positive feeling,” Gawle says.
The videos helped the GRAMMY Foundation and Recording Academy narrow down to 25 semifinalists. But now, that field of 25 will be further winnowed down to a final 10 teachers–nine finalists and one winner, recognized for their remarkable impact on students’ lives. The winner will be flown to the host city of the GRAMMY Awards to accept the award, attend the GRAMMY Awards ceremony and receive a $10,000 honorarium. The nine other finalists will each receive a $1,000 honorarium, and the schools of all 10 finalists will receive matching grants.
Gawle says knowing the school community can benefit from the award is what keeps his heart in the ‘race.’ He already feels gifted enough, with the support and efforts of the students, parents, colleagues and administrators that he’s received and the outpouring of validation.
“If that happens, that money for the school is going to be used for scholarship, that would be awesome, that would make all of this even that much more worth it,” he says.
He also makes a point to credit one colleague in particular with helping him continue to teach the way he always has wanted to.
“My success isn’t just me. That program is successful because John Rhodes and I are a really good team; he’s taught me so much, and he is every bit as responsible for the success of that music program in this town and school as I am. Unfortunately the parents couldn’t nominate two people, so they nominated the full time guy, [me]. We all felt bad about that.”
But Gawle also knows that programs like the GRAMMY Educator can help tell great stories about teaching in general.
“This is really a positive spotlight on the profession, when it really needs it. It’s an honor and it’s humbling, but it’s really nice to see teachers who care about kids and make personal connections for life-long learning and make friendships for life, are getting recognized in such a positive way. That’s really good for the profession and I’m honored and humbled to be one of them.”
Gawle adds that it would be amazing to know his approach to teaching might somehow be shared with other teachers to potentially impact many other kids. It’s something he relates to being inspired by a great teacher himself.
“My father was the CT teacher of the year in 1988. We were really proud of him. He was a great teacher and he’s the reason why I became a teacher. I did it because he had such a great job and the kids loved him and he loved them so much.”