Learn More Than You Teach - by Susan M Smith (Paperback)

About the Book

Through humor and personal stories, Learn More than You Teach: Becoming a Leader In a Diverse World explores an approach to work and life that promotes dignity and respect for all. Through time and intentionally diverse experiences, veteran teacher Susan Smith grows from an ethnocentric, suburban, White introvert into a creative leader who fosters reflection and problem solving in students and colleagues from a myriad of cultures. Her life stories about teaching, traveling, and volunteering demonstrate ways to connect with people. Care and change are possible no matter how different people appear. Readers can recognize themselves in the text and/or learn a new approach to working with others that allows them ownership of their own lives and development. Listen and learn before teaching.

Book Synopsis

Travel with veteran teacher Susan Smith as she acquires and develops leadership skills while working in a wide range of situations and cultures. Starting as an introverted child in a White suburban Pittsburgh neighborhood, she grew to love languages and exploring diverse lifestyles through them. For her, becoming a Peace Corps volunteer in the Central African Empire transformed her life and outlook as she thrived far from home. Throughout this book she has woven together seeking, learning, and growth as she recalls experiences including the time she struggled through the worst year of her life teaching first grade for the first time, lived without running water and electricity for a year, got terrified on a zipline in Nicaragua, and laughed when swallowed up by her newly made mattress. Throughout she has sought to learn more than she teaches.

Learn More than You Teach: Becoming a Leader in a Diverse World explores ways of collaborating that promote dignity and respect for all. Examining humorous and unexpected life adventures, Susan interacts with others allowing them ownership of their own lives and development. Readers can recognize themselves in the text and/or learn a new approach to working with others. The stories are designed to spark conversation and reflection on the reader's own approaches to Listening and learning before teaching.

Review Quotes

Susan has been a dear friend of mine for almost 60 years, so you would think I'd know everything about her. Wrong! I knew she'd had an adventurous life, but I learned a great deal more in this entertaining and informative book. Susan has the rare gift of self-analysis. Her reflections on her life's experiences provide the reader with a great deal of wisdom on how to live life - unafraid, eyes wide open, making conscious and well-informed choices - qualities of great leaders, including Susan. You will be inspired to take more control over your life and learn how to effectively lead and/or support the people in your life. This book is a must read for teachers, aspiring teachers, and anyone interested in education, as well as travelers - both physical and armchair. I can't recommend this book highly enough!
Cindy Gnech, retired Director of the Bureau of Finance and Operations, PA Department of State

Dr. Smith's Christian values, triple language proficiency, innate curiosity, adventurous spirit, as well as a desire to learn and teach compelled her not only to visit but to immerse herself into the daily life of foreign countries and cultures, unknown to most of us. In Learning More than You Teach, she pushes readers past our limited experience with unfamiliar people and places, so that we share her insights and gain new perspectives. A thought-provoking journey!
Beverly Harris-Schenz, Associate Professor Emerita (German)
Author of Living While Black

Susan Smith's innate curiosity about herself and the world makes for a compelling story of personal growth and an instructive guide. Through vivid storytelling and evocative inquiry, Smith inspires her readers to cultivate the art of curiosity and the skill of listening in a world where these crucial ways of connecting and learning seem imperiled. Learn More than You Teach: Becoming a Leader In a Diverse World is a gem of a book that will benefit teachers, coaches, and leaders of all kinds.
Jena Schwartz, Writing Coach

About the Author

Susan M. Smith, Ph.D. is an educator who found fascinating challenges at the intersection of education, culture, and languages. She has traveled to twenty-two countries, including two years spent as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Central African Republic and an additional four years as education advisor for the Lutheran church in the same country. She speaks French and Spanish fluently along with bits of Sango and Portuguese. She taught elementary school for 30 years and coached other teachers. She is now a part-time interpreter, as well as an active volunteer with Pittsburgh Lutheran United Ministries, East Liberty Lutheran Church, and various organizations working for peace and justice.