After 11 years, beloved history teacher and advisor Suzanne Aldridge-Peacock will be moving on from the LWHS community.
After moving to California from Bowdoin, Maine, Aldridge-Peacock heard about LWHS at a cocktail party in Oakland. She said she loved the idea of teaching at a progressive school with small classes and having more flexibility and control over her curriculum, something she was used to as a professor at Bowdoin College.
Her experience as a professor is evident in her teaching style at Lick—she’s known for her engaging lectures and seminar-style classes, which her students say feel like true college courses. According to several of her senior students, Aldridge-Peacock is a sought-after
teacher for eleventh and twelfth-grade history classes.Over the course of her tenure at Lick, she has taught junior US History and three senior seminars: Cold War, Social Movements and America in the 1960s. Her senior classes fill up every year.
Her students, she said, were her favorite part of her job at LWHS. “The community spirit, the commitment to education and the sense of inclusion among the students was noticeable from day one and has continued throughout my time at Lick,” she said.
Viva Donohoe ’20, one of Aldridge-Peacock’s advisees, said her experience with her advisor has gone above and beyond her expectations as both a teacher and a mentor.
“The amount of determination and attention [Aldridge-Peacock] channeled into helping me navigate the academic and social scene at Lick was only matched by the lighthearted spirit and jokes she brought to advising sessions,” Donohoe said.
“She has, without a doubt, turned history into my favorite subject,” Donohoe continued, reflecting on her junior year US history class and two senior seminars with Aldridge-Peacock. “I don’t think Lick will ever be able to replace her!”
One thing Aldridge-Peacock will miss is eating the Caf’s “wonderful” food with Ivonne
Hernandez and Rosa Zapatero on the patio outside of the Fishbowl. Both Herandez and
Zapatero said they’ll miss these lunches just as much as their colleague will. Aldridge-Peacock’s bright personality, positive energy and warm hugs will be deeply missed by her many close friends on faculty.
“Lick will miss having someone who could connect to everyone from the heart, make them feel heard and that they mattered,” Zapatero said. “Lick will miss a person who was refreshing, authentic and genuine, someone who spoke up and stood up for her values.”
“[Aldridge-Peacock] is funny, intelligent, creative, positive, compassionate and just an amazing human being,” Hernandez agreed. “For me, Lick will never be the same without her. I am so thankful for having been her colleague and friend all these years and I know that others will now get to appreciate a truly unique person in their lives.”
Aldridge-Peacock also said she will miss her colleagues in the history department, and will remember them for all their hilarious storytelling, silly singing of “bad songs” and the many tears of laughter they shed together.
This year, the LWHS history teacher will return to Maine. In a goodbye-email sent to her senior students, she said she hopes to find a “calmer, less congested and more sustainable way of life” in a small town, where she and her family will live on a blueberry farm by the sea.
