Students praise DeSoto’s Grammy-winning ‘Music Educator of the Year’

DESOTO, Texas — DeSoto High School offered a chance to meet its newest national celebrity on Wednesday but instead, it provided an opportunity for students to brag on the inspirational Grammy-winning teacher they call a mentor, second mom, and friend.

Pamela Dawson’s classroom, the choir room at DeSoto High, echoes with music in English and German and Latin. Since this past Sunday, those echoes are also bouncing off cloud nine.

“Have you come down from the cloud yet,” I asked her.

“No, I’m still in the cloud,” the DeSoto High School Choral Director said.

Because Dawson, after being nominated by the grandparent of a student, was chosen as the Grammy 2023 Music Educator of the Year, honored by Trevor Noah at the Grammys on Sunday in Los Angeles. And her students will tell you that it’s a cloud, and an honor, long overdue.

“Honestly, she’s that girl and she deserves that Grammy,” said student Tiyana Bailey who considers choir a refuge. “I’m just automatically happy once I walk through those two doors,” she said.

Erica Howell, and most of her fellow choir members, consider Dawson a second mom.

“Ms. Dawson, she’s like everybody’s biggest supporter,” Howell said. “And we all just love her for continuing to have faith in us and believing in us even when we didn’t have faith in ourselves.”

Elija Mitchell says she teaches music and life.

“Just to be yourself and don’t be too strong about what other people think because everybody’s gonna have an opinion,” Mitchell said.

“We love her,” added Howell. “That’s all I can say, we love her.  And we’re happy for her.”

And that’s why Dawson thinks she was chosen. She said she spoke from the heart in the video testimonials she was asked to submit for the nomination. And she made it clear that she believes she isn’t just teaching music.

“That music is so important and anything we do in life is so important. Follow your dreams. Follow your passions,” she said. “I’m excited that I won the Grammy because I want to show them they can achieve anything they want to do. I want to be a beacon. To say, ‘if she can do it, I can do it, too.'”

As for that cloud she is still on, it may take a while to come down.

“Sitting next to Jay Z wasn’t too bad was it?” I asked her.

“And sitting next to Jay Z, and Beyonce, and Lizzo….and Adele,” she laughed.

On cloud nine or not, it’s a night, and an honor, they’ll be singing about in DeSoto for years to come.