FULLERTON, Calif. – There is no denying that rock music has been instrumental in shaping American culture. Using his fame and platform, famed guitarist, Steven Van Zandt is leading a campaign designed to empower teachers and engage students through popular music.

Orangethorpe Elementary School in Fullerton is the first campus to partner with TeachRock. Students’ in a kindergarten to third grade were glued to the TV screen showing a video of a TeachRock lesson plan led by teachers Pam Keller, Nancy Archer and Jen Alonzo.

Instead of learning about September 11 by reading about the tragic terrorist attack in a book, the teachers pulled a lesson straight from TeachRock to help students learn what happened and how 9-11 affected the United States. They had their students’ undivided attention. One of the songs in the lesson plan was “Only in America” by country music duo Brooks and Dun.

“I bet whoever made it was feeling sad and didn’t really want to open it, like didn’t really want to sing the song, but he had the courage to do it in front of everybody. If the people didn’t know that it happened and they didn’t know it wasn’t happening, then they would know because of the song,” said Marissa Gomez, a second grader.

The Teach Rock Foundation was founded by Steven Van Zandt, known for performing alongside Bruce Springsteen. He is using his fame to lead the foundation in making art a core part of public education. The foundation targets the kids who are at risk of dropping out.

“We want to focus on them and keep them in school. If the kid likes one class or one teacher, they’ll stay in school. If we can improve the graduation rate by 5 percent, we could save society $18 billion in crime costs because half the kids that drop out end up in prison. So this is something we need to focus on and that’s what we’re doing,” said Van Zandt.

Long-time teacher Pam Keller agrees. She says she has seen a lot of teaching trends over the last 30 years, but nothing like this.

“I think music is just a universal language. You find emotion in music,” said Keller.

Keller says all of her students get excited anytime they are about to learn something from a TeachRock lesson plan.

“Teaching 9/11 is a very difficult thing to do with elementary school students it just really is. Every year we kind of struggle with how is it that we’re going to talk to our new students about this and so this has really helped us this year,” said Keller.

She says this program helps teachers connect with students that they might not be able to reach otherwise.

As for second grader Marissa - who says she doesn’t remember what it’s like not to have TeachRock be a part of her class, but knows she never wants to go back to a time without the music.