Living Stories

Susan Bernheimer is an educator, researcher, and trainer on contemporary issues in early childhood education and formerly a member of the human development faculty at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, California, from 2001–2015. She taught early childhood teacher preparation to impoverished college students for over ten years. Bernheimer received her doctorate from Claremont Graduate University. She is the author of New Possibilities for Early Childhood Education: Stories from Our Nontraditional Students (Peter Lang, 2003) and Voices of Early Childhood Educators (Peter Lang, 2016).

“In this gem for early childhood teacher educators, Susan Bernheimer shows us how to create transformative learning experiences for our students that will, in turn, transform us as teachers. Through insightful stories of teaching and learning with nontraditional students, she asks us to take a hard look at ourselves and who our curriculum serves. As she lovingly and sensitively brings her students’ lived experiences to the center of the learning process, she opens doors to relevance, empowerment, and profound meaning-making. It is a clarion call for rethinking our priorities and re-envisioning our pedagogy.A lifelong learner herself, Susan provides a roadmap for becoming a reflective practitioner, authentically modeling what we ask of our students and finding our own humanity in the process. It is one teacher’s journey with lessons for us all.”—Judy Magee, Faculty, School of Human Development, Pacific Oaks College

• Acknowledgments – Foreword by Jacquelyn Green – Introduction – A World in Flux – Inside the Cultural Divide – Reflection on Life Stories – Gateway to New Realities – Vision of Hope – Journey Into Higher Education – Shifting Priorities for Classroom Teaching – Hear My Voice – Challenges of a Relational Pedagogy – Stepping Into the Future – Index.