Specialties:

Music Education, Songwriter, Folk Music, Guitar and Banjo

Mike Kaufman, a Charleston singer-songwriter, is a recently retired music teacher and lifelong folk musician who primarily plays acoustic fingerstyle guitar and clawhammer banjo. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education from Montclair State College and holds a Master's Degree in Educational Leadership. Throughout his teaching career, he had the opportunity to work across all grade levels and with a variety of musical aspects. Outside of teaching, he has worked as a live music performer, a guitar teacher, and a recording artist.

Mike’s teaching philosophy is based on the idea that everything is interconnected, and this is the way students learn best. He will work to assist students in seeing the natural connections between music and the world around them. Just as an example, music can be connected to the rhythm of seasons, to our heartbeats, and to the poetry and prose written and experienced throughout history. Music is influenced by many factors and therefore lends itself to cross-curricular connections which allow Mike to create a one-of-a-kind experience for your students based on your academic standards.

While each ELE is carefully designed to be aligned with state standards and is customized to your school’s unique objectives, these are just a few examples of the transformative potential that our instructor can craft around your learning targets. Examples of ELEs: *Croaking for Mood and Tone: Students will work to write an original composition about frogs as they explore an author’s, in this case, a musician’s use of mood, tone, and point of view to convey meaning to an audience. Content for the song will be based on science standards in conjunction with the EL curriculum.

*Cross-Curricular Connections: Students will work to write an original composition based on overarching universal themes to create connections between subject areas and content matter to draw a greater understanding of how these themes tie our world together. Examples of universal themes: conflict, power, change, cycles, structure, systems, causation, etc.