TeachRock, the open educational resource launched by Stevie Van Zandt with the Founders Board of Bono, Jackson Browne, Martin Scorsese, and Bruce Springsteen, has announced its newly formed Artist Council composed of renowned and celebrated musicians including 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.
The Artist Council members will participate in lesson plans, engage with their fans to shine a light on TeachRock’s mission, and connect directly with students and educators who are benefiting from the curriculum.
Launched by Stevie Van Zandt with the Founders Board of Bono, Jackson Browne, Martin Scorsese, and Bruce Springsteen, TeachRock has provided free, standards-aligned resources to help teachers, students, and families succeed for more than a decade.
“This Artist Council is the culmination of the outreach we’ve engaged in since establishing the Rock and Soul Forever Foundation and its TeachRock.org program over 10 years ago” says TeachRock’s founder and music legend Stevie Van Zandt.
“The Artist Council is an important step toward our long-term goal -- keeping the arts a vital part of public education by creating and distributing an innovative, transformative, and effective methodology for new and future generations, ultimately leading to drastically improved high school graduation rates. Our dream is that one day every artist will take the opportunity to visit a classroom, whether locally or on tour, anywhere in the world, and participate in a lesson plan using our curriculum. By adding the 14 talented musicians making up the Artist Council to our network of 60,000 teachers and 19 partner schools, we have made a significant step toward making this dream a reality.”
Today, TeachRock shares a clip from their special initiative celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Hip Hop and Black Music Month with Darryl McDaniels, DJ Khaled, Melle Mel, and Taboo, and other Artist Council members (to be announced soon) in the role of professors for a day. These artists have contributed their firsthand accounts to "The Roots of Hip Hop," a classroom resource that celebrates the 50th anniversary of Kool DJ Herc's 1973 Back to School Jam. This lesson plan, to be shared with over 60,000 teachers globally, explores the origins of Hip Hop culture and highlights the ways young people impacted the artform and through it changed the world.
Watch a clip from the “The Roots of Hip Hop” lesson plan HERE.
Several Artist Council events will be announced in the coming months.
About TeachRock:
Launched by Stevie Van Zandt with the Founders Board of Bono, Jackson Browne, Martin Scorsese, and Bruce Springsteen, Teachrock.org has provided free, standards-aligned resources to help teachers, students, and families succeed for more than a decade.
TeachRock improves students’ lives by bringing the sound, stories, and science of music to all classrooms. From The Beatles to Beyoncé, from kindergarten to AP History, in the classroom or remotely, TeachRock offers meaningful lesson plans, all at no cost to teachers, students, and families, inspiring deeper learning and understanding through the power of music.
TeachRock.org is an open educational resource of hundreds of unit and lesson plans, Student Editions, and musician bios. TeachRock’s “Rock and Soul of America” high school History course is taught throughout California, Colorado, New Mexico, Ohio, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere.
More than 60,000 educators in over 30,000 schools in all 50 U.S. states, England, Spain, Norway, and elsewhere are registered with Teachrock.org.
TeachRock’s Partner School program includes a multi-year collaboration with the Connecticut State Department of Education, ongoing projects with New York City Department of Education, Los Angeles Unified School District, Chattanooga, TN public schools, as well as with individual schools in Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and several others.
Stevie Van Zandt founded TeachRock to keep music and arts in the DNA of school systems and empower teachers to engage a generation with the internet in their pockets. Stevie saw music as the way to present positive representations of all learners, make real-life connections between the classroom and student experiences, and inspire student success.
More than 85% of teachers surveyed report heightened enthusiasm in TeachRock classrooms. TeachRock’s curriculum has been highlighted by The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Education Week, and many others.
TeachRock functions as part of the 501(c)(3) The Rock and Soul Forever Foundation and is endorsed by the National Council for the Social Studies, the National Association for Music Education, the National Council for Geographic Education, and has collaborated with and partnered on projects with The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, The Grammy Museum, Scholastic, CNN, PBS, ABC News, among others.
Why TeachRock Matters: Click HERE for A Message from Stevie Van Zandt
