When I was in school, before the turn of the century, we were reading Johnny Got His Gun in English class and discovered that Metallica's One is about a very similar situation (though not apparently originally inspired by Johnny Got His Gun), so we got to play it in class and do a report on the two. Received some minor kudos from the class and a reasonable grade from the teacher.

It got slightly awkward as I believe that was just before the Columbine shooting, and after that metal had a more negative reputation for a while.

I knew someone from the local goth scene where I used to live, who was a German teacher. Part of the assigned homework was to listen to Rammstein ;-)

I'd imagine it could backfire as anything school or parents recommend is automatically less cool

Because it's not regular class. It's an extra-curricular club. If you joined the heavy metal club, you might have had similar activities.