“Susan Mayclin Stephenson was a high school Latin tutor and counselor for girls in detention centers—both experiences inspiring her to learn more about education and human development. After university travel in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, she earned degrees in philosophy and world religions at San Francisco State University. It was the book “The Montessori Method” that led to her 3-year-old daughter attending an AMI school in San Francisco, and inspired Susan’s to become a Montessori teacher, her first AMI diploma earned at the London AMI training center in 1970-1971. Since that time, she has earned AMI diplomas for 0-3 (Denver and Rome) and 6- 12 (Washington DC), edited The Erdkinder Newsletter during the research to create the first US farm school for adolescents, earned a MEd degree at Loyola University in Baltimore, and studied multiple intelligences with Dr. Howard Gardner at The Harvard Graduate School of Education.

“Susan selected the materials, wrote the “teaching text,” and created the paintings of children found on the covers of the catalogs for the Michael Olaf Montessori Company—a project begun by their two confidant teen-age Montessori graduates. These catalogs were used world-wide as an introduction to Montessori and resulted in Susan being invited to speak internationally at universities and for governments. She has worked as a consultant for traditional and Montessori schools, helped to develop programs for orphanages, schools for refugees and the poor, and a private girls’ school in Peru, and has lectured and been an oral examiner on AMI courses.

“Susan was introduced to TM meditation by her AMI trainer in London in 1970 and credits this daily practice with her ability to create calmly over the years. She has traveled in 70+ countries and carried out Montessori work in 30 countries on six continents. Her fifteen books share her own teaching experience, and what she has learned in her work with others and have been translated into many languages. When not working in the field she writes and paints in their home near Trinidad, California, surrounded and inspired by giant redwood trees and the sound of the ocean waves.

Home page: www.susanart.net