Susan Mayclin Stephenson

Artist and Educator, Trinidad, California

RECENT NEWS BHUTAN: In October, 2008, Susan returned to Bhutan. Click here for information: Bhutan 2008

Bhutan painting in progress, traditional religious class in Paro, Bhutan

September, 2008 meeting in Susan's home in Trinidad, California. Susan, Karin Salzmann also from Trinidad, Takako Fukatsu from Tokyo, Japan.

ARTIST

Art website: ART

Susan has studied art in some form or another since 1960. During her travels she sketches and photographs the people and scenes that inspire her the most, and upon her return combines them with her own memories, creating oil paintings in order to share her experiences with others. She haunts art museums wherever she goes, at times arranging travel around specific art shows, especially of the impressionists and post impressionists. In order to carefully learn from the great masters she sometimes paints studies of their work.

She has taught art appreciation and studio arts. Her work hangs in homes as diverse as Albania, Japan, Palestine, Australia, Thailand, Italy, Colombia, and Sweden, and throughout the USA.

WIFE, MOTHER, GRANDMOTHER

Susan is married and has three children and two grandchildren. She became interested in children very early in life. At age nineteen she traveled around the world on the maiden voyage of The University of the Seven Seas (now known as Semester at Sea), spending several months studying, among other subjects, a sociology course on childhood and education, during which she visited homes, schools, orphanages, hospitals in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia.

In 1969, when her first daughter began attending a Montessori school in San Francisco, California, Susan saw the immediate positive results of her daughter's experience—the practical application of the best that philosophers had to offer concerning the meaning of life, education, creativity, and happiness. She appreciated that Montessori education emphasizes kindness and consideration for others and joy in learning, bringing the arts into the everyday life of a child in a beautiful way, and weaving artistic expression of all kinds into a creative study of other disciplines.

She left graduate studies in philosophy, and went with her family to London, England to study at The Maria Montessori Institute in Hampstead (MMI). During this time she also read Rudolf Steiner, to learn about Waldorf education. For the last thirty years she has continued to be both a devil's advocate, and a student, of Montessori and several other kinds of early childhood educational practices, visiting Reggio Emilia in Italy, and the Suzuki Talent Education Institute in Matsumoto, Japan.

EDUCATION CONSULTANT

Susan occasionally has time to give talks and serve as a consultant on Montessori philosophy and practice. She tried to incorporate what she learns on these occasions in her writing, so that more people can benefit. Working with people in other countries gives her a valuable perspective on education in the USA, and working in countries where Montessori is new provided opportunities to see Montessori practiced "right out of Dr. Montessori's writings" rather than having been diluted and compromised. She has consulted in a variety of countries including the USA, India, New Zealand, Thailand, Nepal, The Bahamas, Bhutan, Peru, Albania, and The Netherlands.

Dear Susan
I highly recommend you as a consultant for many reasons: Your experiences of working in so many diverse environments and with all age groups gives you a depth of knowledge that is rare to find. You build on the experiences of the people and the environment that exist, focusing on their strengths and not making them feel their weaknesses are failures. Your suggestions do not feel like criticism; you have a unique way in passing on direction in a very supportive way.

At 2 Voices we have felt that your suggestions have made a big difference already as we slowly work towards the goals we set. Some of your suggestions just in the positioning of furniture and art work were small details but they have had a big effect. It was a fresh eye coming into the working environment that gave the already hard working teachers a boost and stimulation to go further. Susan, you have a keen eye for what is disrupting the environment and your solutions were clear, simple and, most importantly, easy to apply.
Thank you!! —Heidi Philappart, 2 Voices Montessori School, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Susan at the birth of grandson Tai in 2003

EDUCATOR

MONTESSORI OVERVIEWS: Susan's writing on Montessori education can be found here:
The Joyful Child Montessori overview for the child from birth to three+
Child of the World Montessori overview for the child from three to twelve+

CHILDREN'S PROJECTS: For information on international projects to help children that resulted from Susan's travels, go to: michaelolaf.net/childrensprojects.html

UPDATE 2009: Susan just finished a "store" site for the Michael Olaf Montessori Company: store

"NOTES FROM THE FIELD" (PDF)
Some of Susan's Montessori-related experiences over the years. These pdf files are from a PowerPoint presentation given at the AMI Centenary Celebration in San Francisco in February, 2007.

Part 11964-2003, India (Mumbai); London; Lima, Peru; California; Japan; India (Dharamsala, Tibetan children's village); Nepal, Tibet; Australia; Nepal; Thailand (PDF)
Part 2 2006, Nepal; Thailand; Bhutan (PDF)

Undergraduate studies: Denison University (Granville, Ohio), Indiana University (Bloomington, Indiana), The Semester at Sea program (previously knows as "The University of the Seven Seas" a shipboard study/travel trip around the world, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia), De Pauw University School of Music (Bay View Music Festival, Petoskey, Michigan), Alliance Francaise (Paris, France), San Francisco State University (San Francisco, California)
Graduate or extension courses: San Francisco State University, The California Institute of Integral Studies (San Francisco, previously known as The California Institute of Asian Studies), University of the Virgin Islands (USVI, St. Croix), The Berkeley Psychic Institute (Berkeley, CA), University of California (Berkeley, CA), Loyola College in Baltimore, Harvard Graduate School of Education (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
Degrees: BA, Philosophy; MA, Education
Post-graduate diplomas: AMI (Association Montessori Internationale) diplomas for three levels:
Birth to three (TMI, Denver, Colorado, and Rome Italy)
Age 2-7 (MMI, London, England)
Age 6-12+ (WMI, Washington, DC)

Susan's Montessori teachers and lecturers included Mario Montessori, Mario Montessori, Jr., Renilde Montessori, and several others trained by Dr. Maria Montessori.

She has attended master classes given by Dr. Suzuki and visited the Suzuki Talent Education Institute in Matsumoto, Japan. At their request she spoke on Montessori at an International Suzuki conference. She has studied Teaching for Understanding (TfU), and Project Zero (PZ), along with participants from twenty-six countries, under Howard Gardner, at The Harvard Graduate School of Education. Inspired by Howard Gardner she visited the Reggio Emilia program in Northern Italy, and is involved with a project to provide educational tours to study Montessori and Reggio schools in that country, where both Montessori and Reggio Emilia began.

She has taught children from birth through college, worked as a counselor for juvenile delinquents and a school administrator, published articles, and lectured in colleges and universities. She has written for and spoken at conferences for several Montessori organizations, including AMI, AMS, NCME, and independent training centers, and has worked as course assistant and in other roles for The Montessori Institute in Denver, Colorado and for the first AMI Montessori training course held in Thailand.

In April, 2008, Susan gave the first public Montessori lecture in Tirana, Albania to the heads of government, and celebrated the opening of the first Montessori school in Albania. On the way home she was hosted in Italy by two of her art patrons who have her oil paintings hanging in their lovely home in Rome. She was taken to see the art of Giotto in the Upper Church in Assisi, to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and to experience religious art in Sienna and Rome. There are some wonderful pictures here: Assisi