In this interactive program, Latin GRAMMY Award winner MISTER G (Ben Gundersheimer, M.Ed) and MISSUS G (Kat Jamieson, MFA) will be sharing insights from their decade plus experience performing original music in schools throughout the world. Ben and Kat will talk about simple ways to weave music, books and movement into the Jewish classroom, and use it as a jumping off point for lessons and activities around Judaism, community, service, environmental awareness and much more. As this will be an experiential keynote, teachers should be ready to engage with MISTER G’s singing and dancing -- and have fun!
In this dynamic, interactive workshop, Ben empowers teachers to use music and movement in their classrooms. Regardless of musical background, teachers will learn to incorporate musical techniques such as call-and-response, simple rhythms, and dynamics to increase experiential learning opportunities, facilitate language acquisition, and teach common core topics. Teachers will leave with a toolkit which includes a free download of Mister G’s environmental-themed album Mundo Verde/Green World, sample teaching guides, song lyrics, online resources for teaching music in the classroom, and current research about the connection between music and education.
This seminar explores the remarkable history of Ben's great great grandfather, Julius Rosenwald, a social justice philanthropist who collaborated with Booker T. Washington to build over 5000 rural schools throughout the southern United States to address inequities in African-American education. Rosenwald asserted that Jews understand the horrors of racism “more forcefully than others of the white race, on account of the centuries of persecution which they have suffered and still suffer.” Ben reflects on how these teachings have informed his own work, leveraging music and early childhood education as a means to dissolve borders and foster cross-cultural connections among children. The workshop empowers participants to take action to foment social change in their communities.
