My mother and grandmother were famous for understanding people and helping them think and grow. Wanting to follow in their footsteps as a professions, advised by a local MD, I was on the path to become a psychiatrist. Then, one day in India, everything changed. A flash of light in the middle of the day (that no one else saw) and awakening seated on the ground in India. In the following months in Asia, visiting hospitals, orphanages, humanitarian projects—and seeing a level of poverty and suffering that this 20-year-old from a small town in Indiana couldn't imagine existed in our world—my search to be able to help in these indescribable situations began. I returned home determined to find out what had happened to me on the street in Bombay, and finding a way to be helpful. I studied everything, seven degree majors in seven years.

But it was mainly Montessori years of experience that have given me the tools to fulfill this desire. Montessori is not about mastering a curriculum. When understood and practiced authentically, it reveals the very best of the human being, one who loves work and learning, and looks continually for ways to express the natural empathy and compassion that follow appropriate work carried out in deep concentration.

Below are some academic details, and all of my work around the world, has been shared in now 14 books. Before finding Montessori I worked as a counselor for adolescent girls in California detention center, and as a Latin tutor for high school students. Since that time I have been a teacher, a school administrator, workshop leader, speaker, writer, school and government consultant, and oral examiner for the Association Montessori Internationale.

Undergraduate studies: Denison University (Granville, Ohio); Indiana University (Bloomington, Indiana); Semester at Sea (University of Virginia; 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, double degree, Philosophy and World Religions, 1969)
Graduate and other studies: San Francisco State University graduate school, humanities; The California Institute of Integral Studies (San Francisco, previously known as The California Institute of Asian Studies); University of the Virgin Islands; The Berkeley Psychic Institute; University of California Berkeley; Loyola College in Baltimore (MEd degree 1996); Harvard Graduate School of Education; Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamsala, India.
Degrees: BA, Philosophy; MA, Education
Post-graduate diplomas: AMI (Association Montessori Internationale) diplomas:
Birth to three (TMI, Denver, Colorado, and Rome, Italy, 1991-1992)
Age 2-7 (MMI, London, England, 1970-1971)
Age 6-12+ (WMI, Washington, DC, 1976-1977)
My Montessori teachers and lecturers included Mario Montessori, Mario Montessori, Jar., Renilde Montessori, and several others trained by Dr. Maria Montessori.

My consulting and speaking work is planned many months in advance. Contact: Susan

For details of my international work, go to BLOG and search by country
BOOKS
These "First Montessori books" are available from the publisher, from Amazon in 100+ countries around the world, and wherever Montessori books are available.

As the pandemic broke out in 2019, I was visiting the oldest Montessori school in Mexico, See more here; Mexico

Book signing at The Montessori Institute,Translations of The Joyful Child
Birth-3 development video clips

In 2003, for her 60th birthday, Susan traveled through Tibet. Information on Braille without Borders that Susan visited in Lhasa. Braille

Moscow in 2010 Russian Orthodox baptism. See more of this visit here: Russia. See Russian script on this Montessori language chart: chart