Congratulations to Mr. Jonathan Snodgrass, the band and choir director at the Academy for Academics & Arts (AAA) Middle School, who has been selected for this edition of Teacher Spotlight!
Mr. Snodgrass comes from a long line of teachers, including his mother and grandmother who both taught here in Huntsville City Schools. He says that initially he thought he was in college to work on a performance degree, but by the time he realized he was actually working in an education program it was really too late to backtrack. Dr. Olivia Sanders, one of his education instructors at Alabama A&M, helped him to realize that it was about more than just music – it was also about having a positive impact on young lives. That was when he realized that he was right where he should be.
His mother, on the other hand, always seemed to know it was his calling. She used to tell him, “You were born to teach.” Now that he has been a successful educator for over thirty years, Mr. Snodgrass is quick to admit that she was probably right.
“He’s a wonderful teacher,” says AAA Middle Principal Tyrone Jones, “what he does is at the core of what we try to offer our students at AAA Middle School.” Mr. Snodgrass begins all of his classes by having his students recite a statement of purpose, where he asks them to remind each other of their responsibility as students. They work by the motto, “mediocrity is not acceptable - people come to hear excellence,” clearly setting a very high bar for his students to achieve. Mr. Snodgrass also works in smaller group sectionals and one-on-one with students during his planning period and even after school. Often, Mr. Snodgrass will stop during rehearsals to talk with his students about real life situations that may relate to the music they are studying.
When he isn’t teaching, Mr. Snodgrass loves to travel with his wife and two daughters whenever they can. They’ve taken trips to a variety of locations, including Aruba, but they are very excited about the trip they have coming up which will take them through Rome and onto a cruise around the Greek Isles. He also enjoys writing and arranging his own music, which he often shares with other area bands, or watching crime, law, and comedy shows on Netflix or Hulu. Mr. Snodgrass teaches his students to respect others, themselves, and to be model global citizens in society. However, nothing fills him with more pride than to have a former student come back to him later in life and let him know that he helped teach them how to be a self-disciplined individual. That is a skill which stays with them for the rest of their lives, and ultimately, he says, that’s why teachers teach. Those former students, quite often now parents with their own children in his music classes, show that he has had a profoundly positive impact on his students - one worthy of being in the spotlight.