You might know Steven Van Zandt as the actor who played Silvio Dante on the blockbuster TV show, The Sopranoes, or you might recognize Steven, aka 'Little Steven' on stage with Springsteen's E-Street Band ripping on his '99 reissue '57 Stratocaster.

Van Zandt is the founder of the TeachRock program, an initiative from his  Rock and Roll Forever Foundation. An article on the newstimes.com website says that Steven's TeachRock program will be offered at no cost to 10 Connecticut school districts.

This past Tuesday, Van Zandt joined Governor Ned Lamont for a press conference announcing a partnership between his Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and the State of Connecticut. At the press conference Van Zandt said;

We needed to devise a curriculum that functions in the present tense. We can’t tell these kids, ‘Learn this now and some day you’ll use it,’ which is how we were taught. We need to give the students something they can use now, understand now, and [that will] have relevancy in their lives now. Third, our goal ultimately ... [is] to affect the graduation rate in a positive way.”

The TeachRock Program is configured to incorporate music into lesson plans for a range of academic programs, not just music classes. Van Zandt described his program perfectly in this YouTube video.

This is absolutely brilliant! No matter what brand of music you enjoy, that music can affect emotions, creativity, and how we think of our world. The state recently released an application for the school districts that wish to partner with Van Zandt's TeachRock program.

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