Credit: RobDeMartin
TeachRock, the open educational resource created by Stevie Van Zandt, has announced the members of its newly formed Artist Council.
The Artist Council includes acclaimed musicians Erykah Badu, Common, Sheryl Crow, Peter Gabriel, Norah Jones, DJ Khaled, Skip Marley, Darryl McDaniels, Melle Mel, Margo Price, Rhapsody, Gina Schock, Marty Stuart and Taboo. Artist Council members will participate in lesson plans, engage with their fans to spread the word about TeachRock, and connect with students and educators.
TeachRock offers free standards-aligned resources to help teachers, students and families succeed. It was created by Stevie Van Zandt with the founding board of Bono, Jackson Browne, Martin Scorsese and Bruce Springsteen.
“This Artist Council is the culmination of the outreach we’ve done since the inception of the Rock and Soul Forever Foundation and its TeachRock.org program more than a decade ago,” adds Stevie Van Zandt. “It’s an important step towards our long-term goal – to preserve the arts as an important part of public transformation and effective methodology for new and future generations, ultimately leading to dramatically improved high school graduation rates.”
“Our dream is that one day every artist will take the opportunity to visit a classroom, whether on location or on tour, anywhere in the world and participate in a lesson plan based on our curriculum. By adding the Artist Council’s 14 talented musicians to our network of 60,000 teachers and 19 partner schools, we have taken an important step towards realizing this dream.”
TeachRock has launched a special initiative to celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop and Black Music Month, featuring Darryl McDaniels, DJ Khaled, Melle Mel and Taboo assuming the role of professors for a day. These artists have contributed their first-hand accounts to The Roots of Hip Hop, an educational resource that explores the origins of hip-hop culture and the ways young people have influenced the art form.