A little background

I’m grateful for the privilege of extending a hand to other adults who love children as we navigate the uncertain terrain in front of us, nurturing their sense of wonder, compassion, and curiosity, and strengthening their sense of agency in this interdependent world - as we do our own.

Some highlights of my experience:

 

“We are part of an ongoing story of men and women, ideals intact, who realize that history can be changed, and that it is changed starting with the future of children.”

— Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the municipally funded infant-toddler and preprimary schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy

A bit of my story.

In many ways, my story began in the potato fields of Northern Maine. It’s cold up there. And the people are tough. And though I never really lived there, my parents came from there, and their parents, and before that from colder, harsher climates where children were born to work. I grew up a little further south, in Bangor, raised by parents who fed me well, and valued education, and told me they loved me because they did - and gave me other things they never had themselves along with a lot of things they carried with them, that I probably would have been better off without.

Like most people who have recognized the opportunity for repair in generational do-overs, I’ve filled in gaps with my imagination. I’ve done better for my own children. Also, I got incredibly lucky.

For almost 20 years, I learned and worked alongside other parents and educators to create a small public school called Opal School which was a program of our local children’s museum. My family benefitted from that place, and the future generations of our family will, too. Opal School was a place that believed in play, and the arts, and inquiry, and beauty, and equity, and love. And this is what it means to make the world a better place starting with the future of children.

When the pandemic abruptly closed the school and the museum, there was profound grief. Like so many families now, mine has struggled with grief and change and ending up places we never expected to be.

I am filled with gratitude to be ready now to work with you - to support you to find peace where you are and to practice love as an action - an investment in a future we want to inhabit together - as our children grow.

My book

Even our youngest students have lots of stories to tell, whether real or imagined. How can we create entry points for writing, so that all writers feel confident and motivated to share their stories?  How can we establish a classroom community of beginning writers where equity, empathy, and compassion become part of the process and vital by-products of story writing?

Enter story workshop, a structure for early literacy that amplifies the relationship between play, art, and writing.  Children develop ideas and stories through choices of art materials. By creating images through play, story workshop invites children to explore the "amazingness" (Nisa, age 10) of their ideas in a variety of art forms.  “Through their stories,” Susan writes, “students share the meaning they make of their experiences in the world.”  Children in every classroom environment feel empowered to transition from play to pencil as they add words to their stories.

Story Workshop includes an abundance of classroom videos, photos, and student samples that illustrate what is possible when children use words, colors, textures, shapes and all kinds of materials to create the stories they want to tell.  Watch how students’ imaginations soar, their love of writing blossoms, and their connections with one another become the focal point of your classroom.

All Are Welcome

REGARDLESS OF RACE, ETHNICITY, NATIONALITY, GENDER, GENDER IDENTIFICATION, RELIGION, AGE, OR SEXUAL ORIENTATION.

Black Lives Matter.