Thank You, Little Steven

Photos by Michael McGrath, Story by Amy McGrath

Dear Little Steven,

• First, thanks for the great show on Friday at the Gothic Theatre. Your band sounded amazing and the music was bright, energetic, uplifting. Your band is badass, and you are a real rock and roll machine. 
• Thank you for founding a truly inspirational organization, TeachRock. Established as a response to the slashing of arts program across the country associated with the deeply misguided No Child Left Behind Act and the entirety of disastrous education policy that has followed it, TeachRock is a massive, teacher-generated, standards-aligned, arts integration curriculum that uses the history of popular music and culture to help teachers engage students. This website, teachrock.org, is pure gold for teachers looking to inspire their students and who want great ideas about how to utilize popular music of all genres in the classroom.
• Thank you for kicking your activism and altruism up a notch by engaging in the “Teacher Solidarity Tour.” You gave several hundred Colorado teachers at the Gothic the absolute coolest teacher training session imaginable- it was LEGIT- full of practical ideas and lesson plans aligned to a huge database of content standards. And you did it at the Gothic, where we could have an after-school drink while we professionally developed.
• Thanks for coming out to speak to the teachers during the workshop. You engaged us with such empathy, insight and compassion. You praised us for being the undersung, underpaid heroes of this country. You acknowledged the disastrous pay and unreasonable working conditions that so many of us struggle with every day.
• Thank you for the awesome “I TEACH ROCK” t-shirt that you gave me and every other teacher who attended the training. Bringing a shirt home from a show always means you had a good night. 
• Thanks especially for giving every teacher who attended the workshop a ticket, with a plus one for their guest, to your incredible show Friday night! Feeling personally valued, appreciated, celebrated by a badass rock and roll hero like Little Steven was a deeply powerful- and totally fun- experience for this tired teacher. My teaching friends in the audience felt the same- so happy, so grateful, so moved by your support and generosity. I can’t complain that nobody appreciates teachers anymore, because you showed me, with concrete examples, how clearly you do.

You made a real difference to Colorado teachers last Friday night, and you’re continuing to do it all over the country. We’ve never needed you more! Keep up the great work!

A+

Gratefully,

Amy McGrath,

24-year teaching veteran

Co-editor, Denver Thread

p.s. thanks for Underground Garage, the Sopranos, Lilyhammer, your awesome scarf collection, and all of those amazing years with the E Street Band. Everything you do is so cool.