As An Educator

NEWS:

-2020, Steven updated every bundle to new, more inclusive 2020 standards (more courses, the line-up of courses refined).  In the age of Covid, homeschooling is clearly the safest and smartest route as far as education is concerned, and Steven has made certain that Steps is ready.  he also published on the Steps site (www.stepsed.com) a program for High Schoolers who have 3 years or less left, with a program for 3 years, 2 years, and a single year, so such students can get the most out of their homeschooling experience with Steps.

– 2018, Steven authored a new free course to be done by all students (no matter what they are studying or where), which will help them focus on a reason to study.  Download yours here.

– 2018, Steven created a new line of curriculum for Steps, A Teachable Month, a fantastic new way to do Steps for summer.  Take a look here.

-Also August 2017, Steven started a series of talks about education and homeschooling.  Take a look at the first talk about education!

– August, 2017, Steven started presenting a series of short talks on creative writing, starting with how to write lyrics.  Take a look at the first brief talk!

– In 2016, Steven’s curriculum, K-12, was reconfigured and updated, and can now be found at STEPS.

– In March, 2016 spoke at another Education Options Expo.  Take a look at his speech here.

– RELEASED IN SEPTEMBER ’14 – Steven’s third book, The Homeschooler’s Handbook – A Practical Step-By-Step Guide To Improve The Homeschool Experience For The Entire Family.  The most useful and valuable of all of Steven’s works for homeschoolers!  (It was updated in 2017.)

– Steve spoke at the Education Options Expo in San Jose, California, on Saturday, March 15, 2014, about the advantages of homeschooling.  Watch a video of the speech!

– In 2014, Steven released a MASSIVE educational site for producers, directors, and other Musical Theater talent.  It discusses in great detail over 100 musicals – how to get the most out of them today, and provides a special search function to help you locate the best musical for your needs.  It’s called The Right Musical.   Visit it here!

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BIO:

For nearly 50 years, alongside Steven’s work as a creative artist, he has taught.  At age 16, he started teaching private workshops to actors, and has almost never stopped, holding at least one a week.  In his twenties, he was asked to help teach the Professional Writer’s Program at the University of Southern California (U.S.C.), for two years.  This was followed by a one year stint teaching in a Los Angeles Unified School District Magnet High School, an experience he detested.  He continued to lecture and guest-direct productions at colleges and universities like Pierce Jr. College, U.C.L.A. and California State University Northridge throughout his twenties.

Steven expanded his efforts in his twenties to the teaching of private writer’s workshops, and private voice students.  He continues in these endeavors to this day, as well.  After his wonderful children were born (Katherine and William), he assumed responsibility for their educations by teaching in private schools they attended, for around a decade.  He created arts departments in two schools, and taught theater arts, acting, writing, music and voice.  While doing this job, he authored his first courses in Creative Writing, and piloted them with 50 students – to great success for two years.  (He also won the school’s Teacher Of The Year Award.)  By the time he pulled his children from school in order to homeschool, Steven had logged well in excess of 20,000 hours of classroom time as a teacher.  (Please note – he has no degree and  has never once attended a college class as a student.)

At the start of the school year in 2002, Steven started homeschooling both his children, out of frustration for the methods used by even decent private schools, and from disgust over their curriculum.  He started authoring curriculum for his own children in history, science, and the arts.  He showed the curricula he was writing to several teachers – who immediately insisted on homeschooling their own children using Steven’s courses.  Within six weeks of starting, Steven had 10 students, supervised by two trained teachers, in his house every weekday.

He has since authored well over 300 courses in history, science, study skills, life skills, literacy, the arts, creative writing, current events, civics, literature guides and other subjects, a comprehensive curricula that he has taken great pains to make certain is “religion friendly” while remaining secular.  The name of this curriculum is currently STEPS, and it has been used by over 20,000 students worldwide.  In order to test the curriculum beyond the daily slew of students in his house, Steven opened a small school and served as dean for one year.  This finally convinced him that schools are simply not a good way to teach.  The curriculum was completed in 2010, for ages 5-adult, obviating the need for any student to ever go to a school, though every year Steven authors new courses.

In the process of authoring STEPS, Steven came to grips with all of the elements of modern education that he feels have utterly failed both teachers and students.  To that end, he authored a book, Poor Cheated Little Johnny.  He followed this up with a second book, encouraging Universal Private Education. He then authored ten courses just for teachers, and parents who are homeschooling their children, to help them understand and use a far more constructive and successful educational system than that used currently by almost all schools and teachers.  Finally he replaced those courses, and added a great deal to them, in his homeschool “masterpiece”, The Homschooler’s Handbook, a step-by-step guide to successful homeschooling.

To find out a lot more about STEPS curriculum for ages 5-adult, Poor Cheated Little Johnny, and Steven’s Parent/Teacher training courses, please use this link to visit our site for STEPS.  There, you’ll find success stories, articles, and free samples of every available course.

An acting teacher for nearly 50 years now, in 2015, Steven authored two massive books about acting, which together make up a complete acting program that can be done by just two people age 11 or older (it works well for adults, too), over a 1-2 year period of time, teaching the unique acting technique that Steven developed through decades of work.  To take a look at The Great Actor’s Handbook, and The Great Scene Study & Monologue Book, use this link.

Steven also authored extensive blogs about education.  Homeschool Under Siege contains many articles he’s authored about education today, and why it is in the condition it’s in, throughout the world.  (He no longer authors this blog, but the articles are all there and informative.)  To take a look, use this link:

Homeschool Under Siege