Stevie Van Zandt, renowned for his role in Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, has been channeling his energies into TeachRock, an educational project he initiated in 2006. The free program is aimed at K-12 educators and pupils.
The initiative will soon enjoy support from some of the most esteemed names in music. TeachRock is welcoming an Artist Council that comprises Erykah Badu, Common, Sheryl Crow, Peter Gabriel, Norah Jones, DJ Khaled, Skip Marley, Darryl McDaniels, Melle Mel, Margo Price, Rapsody, Gina Schock, Marty Stuart, and Taboo.
Members of the Artist Council will contribute to lesson planning and engage directly with students and educators who use the curriculum. Furthermore, they will promote TeachRock’s mission to their followers. This group joins Bono, Jackson Browne, Martin Scorsese, and Bruce Springsteen on TeachRock’s Founders Board.
Van Zandt has remarked, “The Artist Council is an essential stride towards our long-term objective — ensuring that arts remain an integral part of public education by developing and delivering an innovative, transformative, and effective methodology for new and future generations. This will result in substantially improved high school graduation rates. Our vision is that all artists will seize the chance to visit a classroom, either locally or while touring, anywhere in the world, and take part in a lesson plan using our curriculum. The addition of the 14 gifted musicians of the Artist Council to our network of 60,000 teachers and 19 partner schools is a significant leap towards realizing this vision.”
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop and Black Music Month, TeachRock has initiated a project that includes the aforementioned artists who act as “professors for a day,” providing first-hand accounts for The Roots of Hip-Hop classroom resource. This focuses on the semi-centennial anniversary of Kool DJ Herc’s 1973’s Back to School Jam party. The lesson plan will be distributed to over 60,000 teachers worldwide.
TeachRock offers hundreds of lesson plans and musician biographies. Its Rock and Soul of America high school history course is taught in multiple states, including California, Colorado, New Mexico, Ohio, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey.
As per TeachRock, over 60,000 educators from more than 30,000 schools in all 50 U.S. states and internationally in England, Spain, Norway, and more, are registered with the nonprofit.
TeachRock’s Partner School program involves collaborations with the Connecticut State Department of Education, New York City Department of Education, Los Angeles Unified School District, Chattanooga public schools in Tennessee, along with individual schools in Chicago, Cleveland, and Milwaukee.
The inception of TeachRock was a response by Van Zandt to music education activists who were alarmed by cuts in arts funding in schools following the passage of the No Child Left Behind legislation.
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