Nearly two decades ago, Adrian McLean changed life inside and outside his chapter.
McLean, a music teacher at the Cordova Secondary School in Memphis, Tennessee, is the winner of 2025 Music Teacher AwardWhich is presented by the Registration Academy and a Grammy Museum.
McLean said: “We do not refer to ourselves as a choir.” “We point out to ourselves as a choir family.”
Impact on his students
The current and former McLean students say he is a father of many.
“He had this energy, it is like the energy that you want to be only,” said Joe Aguilar, a student at Cordova High School. “He gave me life lessons. It is not only about the choir.”
McLean’s dedication and design changed the path of some of his students.
“When I moved here for the first time, my family and me, we were facing some financial problems and some transportation problems, and McLean would take me at 5:30 am, take me to school.” He said head.
Sean Hunt, a current student, said that changing the schedule put him in McLean and soon had an impact on him.
“I came to high school and tied with two people who thought they were friends. Hunt said:” I have faced myself in some troubles. ” Perhaps I went like two weeks, tell him that I don’t want to be here, take me out. By the third week, I was singing everything. “
Now, Hunt plans to go to teaching music, thanks to Maclin.
“This brings tears to my eyes when he told me that he was at the beginning of the school year,” McLean said about Hunt.
Downtown in academic excellence
McLean, who started singing in the church as a child, decided to devote his life to teaching when he was in high school.
For nearly 20 years, he took his longing throughout the country to display their talents.
“There are children who come, deal with things. They are troubled. I had homeless children and my smile, and I took care of them, and I know that I changed them.”
McLean insists that the talents of his students need academic excellence in addition to their singing abilities. In his class, you will find the three best academic critics at school.
“A funny saying is that he will not wander in a group of lyric dolls throughout the country,” Agilar said.
He also states that they only represent themselves, but a society.
“It was a lot of pressure because we are a choir of African Americans mostly or like minority students. Natalia Crossby, who was Safia in the infection, said:” So we already have a vision in the minds of others for what we are. ” Let’s go whenever we sang, the more we are, and let us see them that we are more than anything they can think that we are. “
His students say they are grateful to support McLean fixed.
“Thank you for believing in a child, perhaps he did not believe himself at times,” Aguar said. “You mean the world for me. I love you so much.”
For McLean, he is pleased to be part of their journey.
“It is a pleasure to see them successful, knowing that the small part that made a change in your life,” he said.
