Schedule An Appointment
Let’s connect to explore your goals and how I can help.
Male meaning through music
Curricular
Consulting
Upgrade your school or synagogue’s ability to facilitate joyful Jewish learning through music.
I spent 20 years working in schools and synagogues as a music specialist and ritual leader. I want to teach you what I now know to make planning more efficient and teaching more impactful.
In most academic disciplines, a teacher has a plethora of curricular options from which to choose. Not so much for Jewish early childhood music specialists or Sunday school music teachers. Many (most) of the individuals serving as Jewish early childhood music specialists lack training in child development or lesson planning that could vastly improve their competence and confidence.
What will we do?
- Develop a music curriculum for your school
- Curate your school’s repertoire
- Design age-appropriate Jewish learning experiences for young children that you are prepared to rock
Music is an incredibly rich tool for teaching that our children love. Songleaders around the globe are tasked with teaching music to young children- and many talented, charismatic people are doing amazing work…but it is an exceedingly difficult job to do well for which we are collectively underprepared and unsupported. I want to offer support to the good folks doing the sacred work of making music in Jewish community with young children on a regular basis.
How Jewish early childhood music curriculum consulting work?
Through a series of intake interviews, I’ll gather data necessary to inform the infrastructure of the curriculum design plan.
Then, through digital skill building meetings we’ll collaboratively design the thematic songsessions (AKA lesson plans), evaluate recent teaching experiences, and address any ongoing concerns.
These phases are ongoing and overlap.
Phase 1: Prepare |
Identify and describe goals, audience, environment, existing norms and resources Name involved institutional leaders, curricular topics and categories |
Phase 2: Plan |
Customize songsession template, clarify institutional roles and responsibilities, draft music learning planning and evaluation protocol Document and organize institutional repertoire |
Phase 3: Practice |
Design thematic units using curricular template Develop institutional repertoire Implement curricular plans, assess, and observe progress |
|
Phase 4: Polish |
|
Utilize curriculum developed on the first phases. Ongoing reflective development for facilitator. Extension and/or addition of curricular topics and/or audiences. Guided observation and documentation. |
Emily helped me identify what she called ‘opportunities for growth’ and then I scheduled a follow video-chat consult. She has been able to find relatively simple solutions to what I thought were going to be pretty significant challenges. Our meetings have been far more supportive and enthusiastic than other professional development endeavors I’ve experienced.
Alison Westermann
Jewish Educator
