Learning from Everywhere - A Little Foo Magic

“Fuck Yeah!” You would expect a rock n roll star’s autobiography would have profanity, and it does. It has cigarettes and alcohol. It has a few tales of drugs. Hard to “just say no.” It has a rags to riches component with a humbled perspective. The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music, by Dave Grohl, reads as multiple vignettes of key points of Dave starting with Scream living out of a van and buying cheap cigs to moving on to Nirvana where he could lavish himself on Marlboros, then was almost with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers until finally living the dream of being the front man for the Foo Fighters.Dave’s mom was a hard working teacher. He starts the autobiography telling of him and mom playing instruments, singing at home and regularly attending a jazz workshop in Virginia on Sunday afternoons. For a birthday present, Mom asked Dave to go up on stage and play the drums with the great Lenny Robinson. This was Dave’s first time on stage ever!
These few pages are about courage, inspiration by failure, support, guided practice and love. Now I will “ruin” a great story about how this could be used with faculty to remind ourselves of experiences we can provide our kids. Pages 12 - 15 of The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music could be used with faculty to reflect on why we are here, in school, working with kids and searching for motivation, at times, to do what we are most passionate about - bringing meaning to what we learn and teach.
The cool thing about Dave’s life is his love and appreciation of teachers because of his mom. If you would like a lesson plan for a 25 minute activity with your faculty to read these pages, which may have a Nirvana/Foo Fighters connection with teachers, just contact me via LinkedIn or in Messenger - I’d be happy to share.


Best line in the book so far - “He’s gone, Dave.” When Dave was on the phone hearing about the first time he thought Kurt Cobain had died. I didn't know Kurt had died more than once.