You know what kinds of things keep our friend and teacher, Brook, awake at night? Winter Celebration Dances! That is just one of the millions of reasons we are grateful for her.

Brook grew up at The Garden and when she graduated from high school, the last thing that she wanted to think about was preschool. She had shared her parents and her home with preschoolers her entire life. She decided to go on to work with older students, junior and senior high students. Brook decided to do her thesis on the importance of a foundation of social emotional education in the formative preschool years, to set the students up for success throughout their education and beyond. She was in the Bay area and looked around for a preschool like The Children’s Garden to work with. After extensive searching, Brook realized that she couldn’t find another preschool like The Children’s Garden! So, she worked with The Children’s Garden, skyping into board meetings and interviewing Garden families, her alum friends, and lead teachers, and published her thesis. In the end, Brook realized that she had indeed ‘drank the Kool-Aid’ and came to the Board of Trustees and said that she wanted to apply to be a teacher at The Children’s Garden.

To watch Brook take on the role of an intern teacher, to becoming a mentor to our Gibson Ek interns – becoming a parent, and of course, becoming a Garden parent – to becoming a Garden landlord with her husband, Mick, and to become a lead teacher in our program…It has all been a true joy, and point of pride to those of us who have witnessed each step.

Brook has always mentioned at New Parent Luncheons that she has a special place in her heart for the ‘challenging’ kids, or those that push buttons. She sells herself short, as we all know that Brook has a special place in her heart for all the children. We love and admire how Brook easily moves between the role of teacher to parent-peer, the role of parent to landlord, and the role of friendly peer to true friend.

Brook takes special pride in the history of The Children’s Garden and the legacy of her parents, her mum, Bonnie, and Bonnie’s co-teacher, (admittedly, Brook’s favorite teacher as a preschooler), Debby, and all that they set out to do with this play based, social emotional program, that has a wonderful devotion to visual arts, music and movement, and an amazing goal of building community for students and families.

During the recent ‘bomb cyclone’ and subsequent power outage, Brook and Mick checked in on as many elderly community members as they could, and when they found that some of their current Garden peers were struggling, they extended the comfort of The Children’s Garden for warmth and community.

Each of the staff takes the lead in one or two areas of the curriculum each year, and Brook has taken on music and movement as one of her focuses the last few years. We all appreciate her manning the set up of the sound system at each special event and are so very grateful for her teaching the intricate dance steps of each dance performance to the students. When the power outage prevented us from having school for a few days in the very important lead up time to the Winter Celebration, Brook, first panicked, second, panicked some more and lost sleep, and finally, pivoted brilliantly, to come up with a completely different program for our beautiful Winter Celebration. We know that you are going to love the special event this evening. (We also love how Brook instills such excitement in the children as they learn each new dance.) You will love to watch the joy in their faces as they race around, greet Father Christmas, welcome winter, act like snowflakes and dance like elves. While most of the joy is of course, just your children being children, a lot of the joy is from our friend, Brook. The way she sells a story, getting down low to the ground, acting like a wave, creating a magical wonderland where elves make shoes, to teaching the children the sign language for “Peace Like a River”.

It is for all these reasons (and a million more!) that we are grateful for Brook.

Love you, Brook!