Turning up the Volume on Education with TeachRock

 

Transcript

ANNOUNCER:  This is Curious Incident, a podcast for special needs families, and your window into the world of special education. Special needs parenting can be challenging, and we want to make it easier by providing you with the resources you need to help your child. Step deep into the world of learning differently with your host, special education attorney Adam Dayan. 

ADAM:  On this episode of the Curious Incident podcast, I’m excited to present two guests, Bill Carbone and Gina Machado from a great organization called Teach Rock. Teach Rock is a free, standards-aligned curriculum that brings core subjects to life through the power of music and popular culture. Designed by educators and artists, Teach Rock helps students engage more deeply with social studies, language arts, steam, music, and more, connecting what they explore in their K-12 classrooms to the world around them. Teach Rock was founded by Stevie Van Zant, who is famous for his work with the E Street Band as well as his own band called Little Stephen and the Disciples of Soul. With the support of Bono, Jackson Brown, Martin Scorsese, and Bruce Springsteen, Teach Rock was created to help address the student drop-out crisis by keeping music and the arts in the DNA of education. What began as a mission to prevent disengagement has evolved into a movement, one that meets a generation of students growing up isolated, distracted, and overwhelmed and helps them reconnect to learning in ways that feel personal, relevant, and real. This has never been more relevant than it is right now. Bill and Gina, welcome to the show. 

GINA:  Thanks for having us. 

BILL:  Yes, it’s great to be here.  

ADAM: Teach Rock has become an incredible resource for schools and educators across the country. How did the organization get its start and what gap were you hoping to fill in education? 

BILL:  So Stevie Van Zant was a terrible student. He ended up out of high school at one point and he’ll tell you he only went back to high school to finish for his mom. He didn’t want to let mom down, so he figured he’d go back. But then he launches into a career, right? He’s a rock and roll Hall of Famer. He’s a celebrated actor. He’s an activist. He owns a record label. He has two satellite radio networks. All of these things draw on the very same skills that could have or should have made him a straight A student in high school. And so when he thinks about that, he thinks, well, when I get excited about music, I have this passion and desire to research. I want to know more. I want to know more about the music. I want to find out who’s making the music. I want to know where they came from and how that shaped why they make the music they make. I want to know how the music that they make impacts the people around them and speaks to them. When it comes to touring, I’m applying math. I’m doing all this. So in the big picture, he realized that music was this way that he got excited about everything. And the skills that he was applying are the very same skills that we’re trying to teach in school. Stevie found a teach rock on this idea that there is a way to get kids excited about school, help them see why it matters by reaching them with music, which pretty much everybody has some connection to, and getting them to apply what they need to do in a history class or a language arts class or even a math class through that music that they really like. 

ADAM:  That’s an amazing anecdote. Thank you for sharing that. What is it about music and the arts that makes them such powerful tools for learning, connection and inclusion across different kinds of classrooms? 

BILL:  Two things come to mind immediately. And one is that music is abstract. So even music with lyrics, like the lyrics can mean something to you, but even the lyrics can be abstract. What you get from the lyrics is not necessarily what the author meant to put in the lyrics. I’m a huge grateful dead fan, Robert Hunter that wrote almost all their lyrics famously would never talk about what his songs were about. And they were written in this amazing way that they’re these stories that we can all latch on to. Different people have very different interpretations about what the song means and it becomes very important to them. But even beyond that, music is abstract in the sense that it’s aesthetic. If you like something and I don’t like it, it doesn’t mean that I think it’s wrong. It’s just a difference. If you think about what most school days are like, a kid goes in a classroom and there’s right and wrong answers, right? And they’re either doing well or they’re doing poorly and they’re being assessed and there’s, everything is structured in that way. But then you get to go into an arts classroom and it becomes more about exploration and just ideas that don’t necessarily have to be evaluated as right or wrong. And that is so powerful. And think about for a young person who’s in school all day long, that little bit of time to do that can make a huge difference. And the second thing is how powerful music is in our sense of who we are in our identity. And especially for young people who sort of start to see themselves in different kinds of music. So I mean, I already mentioned that I like the Grateful Dead and I’m part of a professional networking group in New York City called Wall Street Dead Ahead Networking Group that brings together professionals who like the Grateful Dead. I mean, it’s continued. I’m in my late 40s and it’s still part of my identity. But if you were to pull 10 teenagers and say, tell me about who you are, I would… Bet that the vast majority of them, if not all of them, would mention music. Say, well, you know, I really love hip hop or country music really speaks. You know, like it doesn’t matter what it is, but they’re going to see themselves in that way. So it’s such an important thing for young people’s identity that when we embrace that, instead of saying, well, that’s something you do out of school. Like who you are out there isn’t who you have to be in here. Well, that doesn’t work very well. How about, oh, that’s really cool that you like that. Did you know that we could compare Beyonce and Rihanna’s sales stats to practice that graphing thing that we’re working on? Did you know that that song references Jack Kerouac or something like that? You know, there’s so many ways to make these connections and you start with what is important to a kid and what they feel like they’re about. And then you bring them into what you’re working on together, but they feel like they’ve been invited in. They feel like they’re welcome. They feel like it’s theirs at that point, right? They have so much agency if they feel respected in the space. 

ADAM:  Yeah. I mean, I really like what you said about music being a tool for entering all these different disciplines, the way you described for Stevie as well. And also what you’ve mentioned about making a song your own. And it could mean different things to different people, but you’re here as a certain way. Your brain makes connections and then it’s part of your identity. I know you’ve talked a little bit about the grateful dead and what it’s meant for you. And I’m wondering what inspired each of you to connect education, music and the arts in such a powerful way. 

GINA:  Well, I come to this work from New York City Public Schools. So I was formerly a special education public school teacher. And with that work, I saw firsthand that the traditional kind of go to model of education isn’t going to reach every child. But often what we see in schools is if it didn’t work the first time, let’s just reenroll them in the ninth grade. We’ll try a second time. We’ll try a third time. And then we end up really losing those kids. And especially as a high school teacher, you see that by time kids get to that point, they’ve really shut down. And they for so many years have just come to feel, I don’t really belong here. I’m not a school person. I can’t be successful in this space, especially as a high school teacher. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done to change that identity and to help kids feel that they are valued, they do belong and they can be successful in academic spaces. And being able to do that through music and the arts, because it’s creative, because they’re isn’t a wrong answer with that initial entry point through the arts, they can experience success in that way. And all of a sudden they’re opening up and they’re more available to taking risks in an academic setting because they have had this experience of, oh, I can be successful in school through the arts. 

ADAM:  I think one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. And you see this so often that in a school setting, teachers are trying the same approach to a student who learns differently and sometimes you got to try something different. 

GINA:  Yeah, I mean, and I’m a real champion for teachers. I believe that teachers are incredibly altruistic. You get into teaching because you want to have a positive impact on the next generation. And when teachers are not successful, I think it’s just that they don’t have the tools that they need. So if I’m pulling out the same binder that I’ve been using for the last 20 years to teach something, it’s not necessarily that I don’t care. It’s just, this is my toolbox. This is all I know. And I’m not quite sure how to reach that kid. So I’m just going to repeat the same thing again. And so what we aim to do is create really easy to use high quality resources that teachers can turn to when they need to find something unique and different to reach those kids on the fringe. 

ADAM:  Yeah, and we’ll talk more about the tools that you’re providing teachers to be able to do just that. TeachRock was originally designed for general education settings. Yet, you’ve seen its success in specialized schools serving students with disabilities. How has the curriculum evolved to meet such a wide range of learners? 

BILL:  I would love to tell you that it’s because Gina and I had a master plan and did something totally incredible, but we really have to thank the practitioners who use it with kids, right? And so we did not set out to change it in any way. People came back to us and said, I have an IEP and I did this and it was awesome. I mean, okay, well, that’s great. You know, and then over time, we got a little bit more and more of that. And then finally, we were approached by a group of schools in London called Beckmead Trust that really works with students with complex needs across their 16 sites now. And they just said, we want to take your curriculum and run with it. So we said, go. And it’s been a very fruitful partnership, mostly of us listening to them. And so then we’ve taken that and we listen and we say, okay, that is a great idea. How can we take what we’re hearing here and figure out how can we put it back into what we do so that it’s more accessible to more people? And that’s the phase we’re in right now is that we know that we have very powerful tools in, but you know, for a teacher who has several students with IEPs, they may need to go into a bigger lesson plan and pull out one activity or one piece that works really well. So we’re focused on how can we make that easier for them so that those things are more surfaceable. This is the year of AI, of course. And so that’s one of the ways that we’re exploring. Can we have T-Trock AI that you can come in and just speak to a natural language about who your student is and how you need to meet their needs and get surface the things that will help you right away? 

ANNOUNCER:  If you like what you are hearing, please let us know by subscribing to the Curious Incident Podcast and letting other special needs parents know about it too. If you have thoughts, questions, comments, or would like to suggest ideas for a future episode, we’d love to hear it. So email your feedback to podcast@dayanlawfirm.com. 

ADAM:  I want to come back to T-Trock AI. If I’m hearing you correctly, you’re talking about this feedback loop between practitioners and T-Trock talking about what’s working, what’s not. And there’s a constant reiteration that’s happening where that feedback is being incorporated and changes are being made to the curriculum. 

GINA:  Totally. I’m always so proud to say that our curriculum is built on teacher feedback. We’re not sitting behind our computers guessing that the curriculum is going to work and that it’s going to land with kids. So we’re constantly piloting with schools, even just reaching out to individual teachers to say, what did you think? Did this land or the kids connecting with it? And if it doesn’t, we don’t hold tight to what we created and said, well, we think this is good. We’ll go back to the drawing board, do another iteration and test that again. Is this working for you guys? That can be from the content and the lesson to how we’re delivering the lesson, what tools teachers need. It’s really important that it’s actually working in the classroom. So we’re always listening to teachers. 

ADAM:  So Jean, I think the curriculum you’re talking about is the Harmony Student Wellness curriculum. 

GINA:  Is that right? Yeah, that’s one of our programs. 

ADAM:  Mm-hmm. Do you want to say more about what that curriculum is and explain to our listeners a little bit about how it works? 

GINA:  Harmony is designed specifically for adolescents. It is a social and emotional learning curriculum. We came to this work feeling that we were really uniquely positioned to create this type of curriculum. There is a whole wealth of resources for teaching SEL to early childhood. Think about all the time that you spend in elementary school teaching kids how to share, how to be a good citizen, how to take turns, and then you get to middle school. There’s not time for that anymore. It’s, well, we really need to buckle down on the academics. But the trouble with that is we all know the brain and body are really changing in early adolescents and the kids are coming to school dysregulated. They’re thinking about problems that they had the night before. How are people perceiving them? Maybe they had a fight with their friend and we’re trying to hit them right away at 7.30 in the morning with math or English and they’re expecting them to learn when their nervous system is just on high alert. So Harmony was developed as a way to let kids kind of settle into the day to just be able to regulate themselves so that they can be available to learn. We’ve talked a lot about personal connection to art and music and kind of the warm and fuzzies of it. But music is not just about let’s make class feel fun or let’s make class feel engaging. Totally, it’s important and it’s a byproduct of using music. But music is actually creating the neurological condition that is necessary for kids to learn. Kids cannot learn if they’re dysregulated. So when they come in and they participate in a Harmony lesson, we’re getting them ready to think about what are all the other things that I need to focus on in my day. 

ADAM:  Do you want to give an example of a lesson? 

GINA:  Sure. My favorite lesson to think about and to really explain why we felt like we were uniquely positioned to create this curriculum is yes, it’s so important to teach these soft skills to middle school students. And imagine yourself approaching a middle school student and saying, hey, come to my class, we’re going to talk about feelings and emotional regulation. They’re either not going to come or they’re going to come in and put their head down. That sounds so vulnerable. That’s not something I want to do. And so we start with music. One of our lessons uses Alessia Cara’s song here, which is all about peer pressure. And so rather than you being a student comes sit down in my room and I write peer pressure and big letters on the board and say, Adam, tell me a time that you’ve experienced peer pressure. No way. If you were a adult, you would feel a little unsure about answering that question. But if we start with Alessia Cara’s here and we pick apart her lyrics, what is she saying about it? Not you. But what is she saying? And then we can kind of back into it through that analysis of does that speak to you? Have you ever seen anything like that? Have you ever experienced something like that? 

ADAM:  I think it’s so interesting. I’m thinking about it on a parenting level. I’m the parent of four kids myself. And sometimes I’ll ask one of my kids, did it make you feel this way or something to that effect? My wife is nearby and she’ll tell me after. Sometimes it can be hard to respond to that direct a question. One thing that can be helpful is if you share about yourself, which is a step moved and gives them the floor to share if they want to. And when I’m hearing what you’re sharing with our listeners, it sounds similar in some way. I’m not sure if you’re in a conversation with a person who’s talking about your self-putting the lesson on the board that we’re going to be talking about peer pressure today. You’re facilitating a conversation that’s more indirect but still helps the students 

GINA:  walk away with the lesson. Yeah, for sure. And the way that the lessons are designed is very intentional about what kinds of things we ask kids and at what point. So every lesson starts with a community circle, which is a really important core part of every task. Can you share your personal experience with me off the top the first five minutes of the day or the lesson? We’ll come to that throughout the lesson and there’s a space and an art journal to really do that private reflection. And it’s really carefully designed that way to make sure that yes, we’re building community, but we’re also kind of protecting that safe space for kids. 

ADAM:  One of your lessons at Teats Rock invites students to share the story behind their names. And you mentioned community circles before. I was part of a community circle where this was the very exercise. Why is the naming exercise such an effective one for building self-awareness and empathy among classmates? 

GINA:  To start by stating the obvious, we all have a name. And so it’s a really easy entry point. You’re not sitting there as the talking piece is passing around going, Oh God, what am I going to say? Because you know you’re going to share your name. That’s the first step is that we just ask kids to go around and say your name as you want it to be pronounced. And then as we progress through that lesson, we ask kids to go home and ask, what does my name mean? Why am I called to this? And it really builds self-awareness because for some kids, it might be the first time that they ever really considered that, that there’s a story behind their name. Sure, we hear great stories. You know, Oh, I’m the third generation, whatever the name is, or I was named after this incredible song that, you know, my parents fell in love while they were listening to. Sometimes the stories are more lighthearted. Sometimes they’re about nicknames and not necessarily about the name that they were given. But there’s always a story behind it. And sharing those stories is creating empathy among the students because they’re starting to see each other as more complete people, as people that come from families and communities with really specific identities. You’re not just the kid who sits behind me in class. You are a more complete person. And I’ve learned more about you by you sharing the story of your name with me. But if I had asked, let’s all go around and share something about our identity or something more abstract, it’d be a lot harder to get started. 

ADAM:  It seems like a good way to break down barriers too, especially if you’re looking around the classroom thinking that others are so different from you, then you get into this exercise, start sharing your story and realize that you have more in common than you thought. 

GINA:  Absolutely. 

BILL:  You know, there’s something I love about that name part of the Harmony Student Wellness program. Each week has a little mini capstone project. So the name one is designing a little art project of your name. So when we visit schools that are running the program, you’ll see the wall is just covered in these art projects with the kids’ names. Every day they come in and there’s their name on the wall, right? Like they designed it the way they want it to be. And it’s such a small, simple thing, but it just, they have that little bit of ownership. My classroom, like there’s my name, you know, I was invited to put that up there, as opposed to my name is only important when it’s taking attendance or something like that. 

ADAM:  Yeah, that’s powerful. Gina, you shared the story of a school in Nevada using the Harmony program where music prompts helped students participate in community circles. What did that experience reveal about connection and emotional safety in classrooms? 

GINA:  That school in Nevada, Harmony is being used just by one individual teacher in the classroom. She’s a longtime teacher, a teacher who was excited to take the lessons and give them a try with her students. And she was really excited to share this story with us. She actually has a group of students in a class called Teacher Academy who are middle school, high school students that are interested in becoming teachers. And so those students actually used our curriculum to lead classes. And they’re leading classes with the self-contained program at the school. And so they’re doing this lesson that we just spoke about, the name lesson, and they’re going through the community circle practice, which involves passing a talking piece. And one of the tenets of that is that the talking piece needs to touch everybody’s hand. Even if you don’t have anything to say and you’re going to audibly pass or make a sign that you’re passing, it still needs to touch your hands. So they’re passing the talking piece around and it passes through this student who’s non-verbal and has not spoken in class to date during the school year. Continues around and all of a sudden the student speaks up. My name is everybody turns and looks and kind of takes a second and then just right away responds with, hi, back to them. And that was sort of the practice that they were doing, sharing their name. And then everybody would say hi back to them. And they were able to continue on with the circle. Following that, they found that the student was sharing his name with people in class, saying his name at home. And the teacher was so moved by this. And I don’t think that this is a function of T-Trock has specifically changed this child’s life. And it’s a tool that the teacher and the students use to create the environment in which this could happen. And I think it’s very easy, not even just as teachers, as humans, to see a person on the surface and assume this kid isn’t interested in participating. This kid can’t participate, whatever it might be. But that practice of passing the talking piece and every person touches it gives them an opportunity and invitation to speak and to share. And you otherwise might have even just accidentally not given that student an opportunity. And it also makes me think of a school that we work with in New Jersey. We had the opportunity to interview a couple of the kids. And one of the young sixth grade boys, we asked him, do you like these lessons, the Harmony Student Wellness lessons, and what do you like about them? And he said, my favorite part of the lessons is circle. And I just was struck by that because I don’t think that I expected him to say, we talk about, oh, accidentally assuming something about him. I just didn’t expect him to say that. And I said, well, what is it that you like about circle? And he smiled and said, everybody has to listen to me. And all day long, they come to school and they have to sit and they have to listen to what the teacher says and raise their hand and ask if it’s okay if they speak. And through this practice, it really flips the script. The teacher is not standing in front of the room. They’re sitting shoulder to shoulder with the students in the circle. And the teacher is not supposed to speak out of turn when they don’t have the talking piece. So really everybody has this equal voice and this equal opportunity to be heard. I think that’s what’s so powerful about it. 

ADAM:  So the second student you mentioned, I think you said was in the sixth grade. And how old was the first student you mentioned? 

GINA:  Middle school. 

ANNOUNCER:  If you like what you are hearing, please let us know by subscribing to our podcast and letting others know about it too. If you have thoughts, questions, comments or would like to suggest ideas for a future episode, we’d love to hear it. So email your feedback to podcast@dayanlawfirm.com. 

ADAM:  Bill, you’ve spoken about finding your own validation through music. When academics or sports didn’t provide it, can you share more about your own story and connection as well as how does Teatrock create those same moments of self-worth and belonging for today’s students? 

BILL:  Like so many boys when I was probably five, six, seven years old, it was the Don Mattingly era. And I was going to be the first baseman on the Yankees. For sure. There was no question about it except physique and talent got in the way, right? But so pretty quickly, it became clear that I was not a very athletic kid. And I lived in a town where sports were everything. Everything is sports. My memories of playing sports as a young person are kind of dark when I think about it because the dads all want the kid who’s the good athlete. And if there’s a kid who’s a great athlete, you can feel even your dad likes that kid more than you in that moment. I’m laughing now, but it’s not a good feeling. And I also remember performing poorly and just letting my team down. So it was pretty clear to me that just sports weren’t giving me positive feedback, right? And so, you know, when you’re in elementary school, I guess going into middle school, academics or academics, but you’re not really at that point where it’s about straight A’s and positive feedback there. So but in fourth grade, I joined school band and I got my first pair of drumsticks and it felt cool. It was another community. It was another group of people doing a team activity, right? Even though we don’t talk about band as team. It is a team. And by the time I was in sixth grade, I was incredibly passionate about music and putting time into it in the way that someone who does sports would put into sports and getting the positive feedback, realizing I talked earlier about identity starting to see my identity as this music person. And even more than that, ultimately, it just became part of who I was writ large. I ended up in the Shoreline Youth Symphony Orchestra, which is like traveling sports for music. So for me, it created this alternate universe in which I could be good at something and feel good about it. And it created a pathway for me to be excited beyond performance, right? Getting into music was this thing that I did, learning about various types of musicians and whether it was about being a drummer or learning about different styles of music. And then I think of all the skills that came with being a music fan, especially before the internet. You had to talk to people all the time. You know, so I had teachers. I had to ask them questions. I had to go in record stores and ask questions about, you know, like learn about things, navigate these spaces and relationships. By the time I was in high school, I was performing and booking my band. So I was taking the local paper and seeing where bands were playing in Connecticut. And by the time I was 16, I was cold calling bars to see if my band could play there. And I look back on that and all those kind of skills, amazing amount of skills just put into play that have so much more to do with whether or not ultimately you end up in a band. It’s just these life skills. So I think it’s this incredible pathway for people. And I love to offer it as an example of something that is a possibility to succeed, even if you’re not athletic. 

ADAM:  Are there any teachers along the way who really made a difference for you in this way? And second, for children who are out there and may have this hidden talent or passion for music, but they don’t yet know it. Do you have any tips about how they might discover it? 

BILL:  My very first music teacher was Mr. Clemens, fourth grade, put the sticks in my hand. And he and his wife were both music teachers in my town. And they ran that Shoreline U Symphony Orchestra that I was part of. So I, not only performed in their ensembles at school, I then performed in their traveling orchestra. So they became a second family to me. And I recently moved back to fairly close to where I grew up. And I reconnected with Mr. Clemens, but ended up playing tennis with him, which was amazing. It was so fun. And he had retired. Sadly, Mr. Clemens just passed. He was in his early 80s. And I thought, I’m going to the wake, you know, I need to pay my respects. I got there maybe 15 or 20 minutes after it started. And there was a really big line. And by the time I got up to see the family, I turned around. And the line of people was winding through the entire church and out the door and down the street. And it hit me in that moment. I mean, I’m like, I feel like I’m going to cry right now talking about it. How many lives Mr. Clemens touched, right? So I feel like I feel about him. And I just passed through and he did that for 50 years. And it’s like, there it is. There’s the line. Like, I hope that I can have half that impact in my life. 

ADAM:  That’s beautiful. 

GINA:  Yeah. We talk a lot about the impact of just having one teacher like that, how having that one relationship can completely turn around your school experience. And that’s what drives a lot of what we do is how do we give the tools to teachers to be that one special person to as many kids as they can. 

ADAM:  Yeah, amazing. You’re moving from pilot programs into a full public launch. What have you learned from that process and what excites you most about this next chapter? 

GINA:  The public launch is specifically for our Harmony Student Wellness program. We first piloted that for a few years collecting about 11 pilot schools across the country. And what we learned is that the central conceit works. The concept of using music to build these softer essential skills with students really works. But that we had to do some work to make it far more flexible for every classroom setting and to make it more accessible for students of all different abilities. We would hear just anecdotally from teachers, I love this. This is so great. But what if I only have 15 minutes? What if I only see my class three times a week? What if I’m out sick? What if I have a student that’s deaf and hard of hearing? Or a student who’s not yet fluent in English? We hear those concerns all the time because we are asking for them and we’re really interested to learn and how we can improve the curriculum. So moving into the public launch, those are a lot of the shifts that we are making and trying to just make it really clear for teachers how they can adapt the curriculum to best fit whatever it is that they and their students need. 

ADAM:  Through that process, how does Teach Rock take into account scaffolding that’s necessary for students with disabilities? 

GINA:  The program in its original state is highly accessible. I’ll take the art journal as an example. Sometimes through the art journal, we’ll ask for something in writing. Write about a time where you experience this. So one of the things that we offer when we talk with teachers through professional development, we have it printed in our implementation guide, is how can you take any writing prompt and turn it into a visual art prompt? How do you use color, shape, and line to communicate your thoughts and feelings if you’re not able to get there yet in writing? And that’s something that can be applied across the board with harmony lessons, but it’s also something that can be applied anywhere. If you’re starting with, I can’t even get this kid to pick up a pen and write one word, how do I at least get them started and get them feeling like they can be successful with this task? And then, yeah, of course, we want all kids reading and writing so we can move them towards that. But it’s a fantastic entry point. It’s very low stakes, very low stress for the kids. 

ADAM:  I speak with a lot of parents who are concerned about the academics, and I’m remembering our last podcast guest talked about this point as well, that sometimes there’s some preconditioning or preliminary steps that are necessary to open up a student to academic learning. So that’s important. No one is going to dispute that, that we want to see students progressing academically, but they have to be available for learning in order to progress. And the idea behind the social emotional learning curriculum is that it’s helping students get to that place where they’re more available for learning. 

GINA:  Correct? Yeah, absolutely. A lot of schools are using this in their homeroom period. So when the kids come in, whatever happened on public transportation on the way to school, on their walk to school, on the yellow school bus, whatever it is, whatever they’re bringing into the classroom that morning, it gives them an opportunity to regulate. And if you’re in a classroom and you see kids doing these activities, whether it’s community circle, they’re in their art journal, they’re listening to music and discussing it, you can actually see the shift in the room and the body language change. The kid’s head comes up off the desk, shoulders drop, you see everybody’s breathing kind of regulate, and it’s just a moment for everybody to be and feel at peace in school before we start asking them to do all of the academic tasks. So it certainly does not replace academics, but it sets the stage for a successful day. 

BILL:  I would just add to that when a school implements it in multiple classrooms or across the whole school. So when Gina initially piloted it, it was at a couple places where six, seventh and eighth grade would all do it at the same time. If you think about a school day, it’s so siloed, right? If you’re in sixth grade, you may never actually be in the same room with an eighth grader. You may certainly won’t do the same academics, right? And then math class is math class and social studies is social studies. And everything is very, and it’s a little kind of grid on the schedule. But this creates this moment where the whole school does the same thing for a short period of time. And it becomes a shared experience and a community building experience. So some of the really sweet things we’ve heard is that you end up in the lunchroom and the kids break in the song because they all heard the same song that morning. They just have this opportunity to have a shared experience that otherwise just doesn’t happen. There’s just not a mechanism for it in the school day. You know, it’s not like it’s being prohibited. It just doesn’t fit into the structure that we’ve built for a school day. 

ADAM:  I know schools and teachers like to tune into this podcast. We’ve heard that classrooms using teach rock feel more alive and that teachers themselves are happier. Why do you think using music can renew a teacher’s sense of purpose? 

GINA:  Your students start to come alive through these lessons by bringing music in the classroom. Teaching is so hard. And especially in the last five or six years, teachers really haven’t been in favor in the public conversation. I think it’s just a tough time to be a teacher. And you could every day you’re getting up at the crack of dawn and at this time of year you’re going to work in the dark and you’re probably coming home in the dark and you’re thinking, why am I doing this? This is so difficult. And using this curriculum and seeing that spark and that aha moment happening with the kids, seeing that one kid that you’ve been trying to reach pick his head up off the desk, that’s a feeling of renewal for the teacher and remembering, that’s why I’m here. That’s why I got into this. And the second piece is that it invites teachers to bring a piece of themselves into the classroom. Teachers are humans too. They need moments of joy in their day. They also need to feel like they belong somewhere. They also need to feel like they’re connected to something bigger than themselves. And music gives them the opportunity to do that. 

ADAM:  Is there any single defining moment that drew you to this work? 

BILL:  The big bang for me was receiving Mickey Hart’s drumming at the Edge of Magic book. Pretty sure Christmas of my ninth grade year in high school. I loved music and played a lot of music and was going to concerts and it’s all rock and roll, you know, but I wasn’t really familiar too much with the Grateful Dead or Mickey Hart the drummer from the Grateful Dead, one of the drummers. But this book explores each section looks at a different country and ethnic group and their drumming traditions and then explores the ways in which those traditions are more than entertainment. And it just blew my minds to think that this thing that I like so much that I’ve been watching on MTV could actually have this much bigger meaning. And then, you know, from a young mind, all these spiritual connections and different things that it set me on this course of being so curious. And it introduced me to the word ethnomusicology, which ultimately I ended up in grad school for many years later, which is the study of music and culture or music as culture. They argue over the end or the as. I think it’s kind of both. But it’s anthropology and music. It’s really thinking about why do we love music? What does music mean to us? How do we use it? So it can be anything from a study of Senegalese drumming and local traditions to Taylor Swift fandom. That’s all ethnomusicology, depending on how you do it. And so I’ve really fascinated with that. That book kicked it off for me, just kind of introduced these ideas and then set me on the course of I started seeking out teachers, you know, lived in a place where there was a good name and drum teacher. So I started that and then just kind of set me on trying to understand and explore and be open to all these ideas, which just blew my mind open and made me want to receive so much more information. And ultimately I ended up with an ethnomusicology degree. And that is definitely why I’m at T-Trock. 

ADAM:  And who are your musical influences today, besides the Grateful Dead? 

BILL:  They’re so vast. I am constantly searching. Right now I am listening to a podcast, Fela Kuti, Fear No Man. And I’ve always loved Fela Kuti’s music, but I am completely re-obsessed. 

ADAM:  Do you know what about you? What stands out about your journey? 

GINA:  So I did not come to T-Trock through music and the arts. And I think it’s important to share that because I want teachers to know that you don’t have to be a musician or an ethnomusicologist or a visual artist for our curriculum to resonate with you and your students, for you to easily implement it really is for anyone. So before being at T-Trock, I mentioned I was a New York City public school teacher. I taught the majority of my time there I was teaching a self-contained program. And we talked a little bit about the definition of insanity and repeating the same thing over and over again. And with that program I would have kids placed back into my class year over year over year. And so now you’re 16, 17 years old in the ninth grade and something just did not add up for me. And so I ended up developing a program at that school that matched kids with internship programs. And so we would spend time in our classroom learning our core academic skills. And then the kids would have internship experiences. And then they would come back and we would talk about how can we connect the skills that we’re learning in the classroom to the skills that we need in these internship experiences. And I come from a family of teachers. So I’m just kind of obsessed with teaching and learning and the problem solving behind how do you reach each and every kid. But that was the first opportunity that I had to start thinking about how to teach more creatively and how to really reach every kid in the room. And then I had two little kids. And so I left the classroom for a little while and I started working in the forest school environment and was really influenced by Montessori and regio education. And again thinking about what are the other options besides this is how the mainstream does it and this is how it always has been done and therefore how we should continue to do it. And just being so interested in creating an alternative. And how do you create an alternative in environments or communities where there’s no funding available to pop up a new innovative school. You have to find ways to create alternatives in our existing public education system. And that’s really what drew me to teach rock. Seeing that it’s an organization that that gets it that gets teachers and the amount of time and energy and effort that goes into designing something unique and effective for each and every kid that sees kids as human beings that deserve to have a learning environment that works for them. That’s joyful. Seeing that made me feel like, okay, this is I need to be here to be part of that problem-solving piece to create these resources to support teachers. 

ADAM:  As you look to the future of teach rock, what’s next? What’s your vision for how music and the arts can continue to transform education nationwide and feel free to lump in AI in your answer. 

BILL:  You don’t want to lump in AI in my answer because I think that AI is just a tool and it’s fine. Gene and I use it every day. We trade AI tactics and we have a good time with it and it is pretty cool. But it’s not the answer to anything I don’t think. The answer is about us. For me, the big vision is bigger than teach rock. I think that there’s a pedagogy at the core of what we do, which is this idea of meet students where they’re at and the power of using music as a way to do that. I want us to continue to grow. I would love to see our programs implemented everywhere. We’ve reached a million students. There’s 49 million in the country, so we have a lot of room to grow. But I think what I really would love is to have this concept of meeting your students where they are by trying some music be something that every teacher does at least a little bit. Whether or not they do a teach rock program or even teach a whole lesson plan, if there’s some little piece that we can get planted out there that helps every educator pull the kids in a little and it just becomes very normalized and second nature, that would be my dream. 

ADAM:  Nice. Do you know anything you want to add? 

GINA:  Just thinking about, you talk about the pedagogy and using the overall method. I had the opportunity to work with some pre-service teachers a few weeks ago. They’re actually pre-service math teachers. In a really good time. 

ADAM:  Do you want to clarify pre-service? 

GINA:  Oh, sure. So teachers that are students, graduate students that are studying to be teachers, specifically math teachers. And having the opportunity, I don’t know, I hope that it just sits somewhere in the back of your brain until you’re in the classroom with students and you’re navigating those challenges. Maybe it’s hard to understand why this approach is so essential. But I would love to see us connect with more teachers before they go into the classroom. So you’re armed with this tool and this strategy and you don’t have to wait to get there to realize, well, this isn’t exactly what I’d like. I thought it was going to be, why aren’t they sitting down and listening to me? Why isn’t everyone responding to any of my questions? That this would just be part of what it means to become a teacher. It means getting to know your students, meeting them where they are and creating this space where all of the kids can feel like they belong and they can be successful. 

ADAM:  That’s great. Before we wrap up, where can our listeners learn more about Teach Rock? 

BILL:  They can head to teachrock.org. And everything is free. So everything we’ve been talking about is online. It’s freely available. You just have to make an account, which is also it’s a free account. So if they visit us there, it’s the gateway to all of it. 

ADAM:  Wonderful. Bill Gina, thank you so much for being here with me today. This was a wonderful and exciting conversation. I’m amazed by the things that Teach Rock is doing across the country, both with general education students and special education students. And I’m looking forward to following your continued progress and success. Thanks for the wonderful work that you’re doing. 

BILL:  Thank you, Adam. 

GINA:  It’s been a pleasure. Yeah, we appreciate that. Thank you for having us. 

BILL:  Of course. 

ANNOUNCER:  Thanks for listening to Curious Incident, a podcast for special needs families. Don’t forget to subscribe for a new episode every month. For more resources and helpful information, check out our website and blog at dayanlawfirm.com. This podcast provides general information, which is not intended to and does not constitute legal advice. You should not rely on this information for any purpose. For legal counsel, you should consult with an attorney to discuss your specific circumstances. You’re listening to this podcast does not create an attorney-client relationship between you and the law offices of Adam Dayan, PLLC. No attorney-client relationship is established unless a retainer agreement has been executed between the clients and the law offices of Adam Dayan. This podcast may constitute attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any guests featured or resources mentioned on this podcast are for information purposes and are not endorsed by the law offices of Adam Dayan, PLLC.