A Grateful Farewell as Ben Wildrick Retires

This year, we celebrate the retirement of a teacher whose influence is woven into the very landscape of Brookwood. For twenty-six years, Ben Wildrick has helped our students see the world not as a collection of facts to memorize, but as a living, breathing place bursting with curiosity, questions, and possibility. 

Ben joined Brookwood in 1999, and from his very first year, he brought a kind of joyful science teaching that felt almost electric. Students learned about ecosystems by pulling on wellies, grabbing nets and binoculars, and stepping into them. They learned science on West Beach, among the Monoliths, at Black Earth Compost, throughout our thirty acres, in the ponds and marshes, and in the wind and weather of the North Shore. His classroom extended far beyond the walls of the building, and his students learned to understand the environment not as a diagram in a textbook, but as a living community of which they are a part.

Ben also helped students understand their power as citizens. Under his guidance, they created public service announcements on ocean plastics, researched the sources and consequences of trash, walked our beaches, and even petitioned Beverly Farms businesses, and ultimately the Beverly City Council, about eliminating plastic straws. It is classic Ben: blending joy with purpose, curiosity with responsibility, imagination with action.

And of course, his contributions extend far beyond the science program. The Sustainability Fair, in all its many evolutions, was a signature part of Brookwood’s culture thanks to Ben’s leadership and creativity. His performances at faculty school meetings are legendary; his croquet skills unreasonably good; and his voice has lifted our faculty choir for years. He brought levity when we needed it most, a joke at precisely the right moment, and a sense of camaraderie that made this place feel like home.

Brookwood is also a family affair for the Wildricks. His son Lorenzo (Class of 2010) and his daughter Lily (Class of 2014) are proud graduates, and his wife, Annabel, shared her own gifts with Brookwood for fifteen years as both an art teacher and, when we were lucky enough, a French teacher. Their family’s imprint on this school is wide and cherished.

Ben retires with a legacy that cannot be summarized in a single letter. It lives in the former students who still find themselves pausing at a tidepool on a walk, wondering what tiny worlds exist just beneath the surface. It lives in those who learned that science is alive, participatory, and joyfully messy. It lives in the countless children who, because of him, grew up believing that the earth is worth knowing (and worth protecting).

Ben, on behalf of the entire Brookwood community: thank you. Thank you for your creativity, your humor, your voice, your passion, and your unwavering belief in the power of wonder. Thank you for giving our students not just knowledge, but a way of seeing.

As we look ahead, we will be posting Ben’s position in the coming month. This moment gives us the chance to reflect on what has made this program so special and to carry those values forward for the next generation of Brookwood students.