The tiny venue, Kulturbolaget Club, is literary steaming as Little Steven and his 14 piece band the Disciples of Soul enter the stage and start playing.
The band is tight, energetic and on. A five piece horn section, percussionist, drummer, two keyboard players, three back-up singers, bass, and a guitar, they play as one big machine. The Disciples have genuinely fun on stage and their energy is powerfully contagious. It is flawless and intense. It’s crowded and sweaty (the sweatiest show I’ve ever been to), but oh so great, outstanding and spectacular!
It is a night that transfigures (and transpires). After about 2,5 hours of soul, doowop and Rock ‘N’ Roll the band send us off home in the best possible way with the encores I Don’t Want To Go Home, Out of Control and Out of the Darkness, leaving us sweaty and exhausted yet overflowed with energy and joy.
Each stop on the Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul’s “Teacher Appreciation Tour” features a professional development session – a workshop – during which the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation team present the possibilities of the TeachRock curriculum (read more about TeachRock further down).
Local educators, like myself, who attend this free workshop are not only able to take part in the workshop, we also receive a complimentary ticket (and a t-shirt) to that evening’s show.
Mac and Danya from the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation are the lecturers of tonight’s TeachRock workshop in KB Club in Malmö as I and six other teachers with guests check in at 17:30.
Integrated with a quick survey of the contents of the website we are assigned to a task and discussions and although I’m currently on summer holiday my teacher’s brain starts grinding, giving me new ideas for future lessons. The lesson plans collections at TeachRock.org is a brilliant resource that I’m definitely going to incorporate in my classroom.
After the workshop Steve van Zandt comes to greet us and to take a “class photo”. He also gives us more information on why the foundation was started and why it is so important to him. This tour directly benefits hardworking teachers who do so much for so little pay and that is also something he stresses later during the show.
The TeachRock work shop:
“Steven Van Zandt’s TeachRock project brings rich, multimedia educational materials to teachers and students everywhere–at no cost. The lesson plan collections and resources at teachrock.org help teachers engage students by connecting the history of popular music to classroom work across the disciplines. From social studies and language arts to geography, media studies, science, general music, and more: TeachRock has engaging and meaningful arts integration materials for every classroom.”
Stray Bullet 
I’m dying to hear more about the workshop, Anna! What kind of activities and lessons did you explore?
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Thanks Ken! I didn’t want to put too many boring teaching details in the post. One exercise we did was to chose three songs connected to a historical person or an event. For example:
“Prisoners’ Song” Dropkick Murphys+”Rocking in the free World” Neil Young+ “Waka Waka” Sahkira equals Nelson Mandela.
That is an assignment you can give the pupils as an introduction, a homework or an exit ticket.
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Reblogged this on It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City.
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