Sachi Gowe leads our Toddlers Observation classes and works in our Nursery program one morning per week. She is a graduate of the teacher-training program at Rudolf Steiner College and is a certified Waldorf teacher. Sachi was born and raised in Japan and earned a B.A. in English Literature from Kobe College. While in the teacher-training program, Sachi was an assistant in the parenting program at San Francisco Waldorf School and she especially enjoys working with parents and their young children. For the past two years, she has worked in a Waldorf-inspired preschool. During her free time she enjoys creating handmade puppets and performs puppet shows featuring stories from Japanese folklore. She has three sons at SFWS. After the birth of her sons, Sachi discovered Waldorf Education and knew that this would be her path.
Annette-Hughes White works with our Nursery children twice a week, as well as leads our Cooking with Children and Exploring Together in Nature courses. She did her early childhood training at Rudolf Steiner College. She traveled the world extensively as a child, being educated in her early years in Africa and her high school years in the Fiji Islands. After completing a course at Bangor Technical College, she went on to work as a flight attendant, visiting parts of the world she had missed as a child. She has a great love of cooking as it relates to grounding family life in a hectic world and of being outdoors with children, nurturing their natural capacities to explore and play, and with parents, sharing special spots in nature here in our beautiful city of San Francisco. Annette has two children. Her son recently graduated from San Francisco Waldorf High School and attends
UC Merced while her daughter continues at SFWHS.
Susanna von Rombs facilitates our Babies Observation class. She is in her final year of the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training and runs a small Waldorf-inspired nursery program in her home in Glen Park. She was born and raised in Munich, Germany and attended Ludwig Maximilian University, where she completed a bachelor's degree in Special Education. Before moving to the US, she worked in public relations with a start-up company and completed a goldsmith apprenticeship. Susanna is the mother of three boys who attend San Francisco Waldorf School and has been active in the parent community for the past eight years. Besides baking and knitting, she enjoys tending her small apple orchard in her yard and exploring together with her family in nature.
Nichola Clark is the Director of the SFWS Parent-Child Program (on maternity leave until August, 2013). She is a graduate of Rudolf Steiner College. Nichola has been involved with Waldorf Education for over 15 years. Her interest in Waldorf education grew after she stepped into a kindergarten and saw how the children were content and extremely capable in this environment. This led her to study in the teacher training at Rudolf Steiner College where her focus was on the grades. During this time Nichola worked in a Waldorf inspired pre-school in Palo Alto. As her training came to an end during 2003, SFWS offered her a place to teach in the Nursery program, which was opening for the first time that year. Helping to found the SFWS Nursery program has given Nichola a valuable insight into how to help our little ones start on their school journey. Nichola also helped in the Work and Play parenting classes at this time and continued her studies. Her studies were on Waldorf education in the grades with an additional emphasis on education for the young child. Such joy was found in teaching at the Nursery in being with the children and meeting the parents. Thoughts and inspiration were shared together, so as to encourage their child to truly unfold in their daily lives, and to be ready for their next step in their school years. Nichola continued in the Nursery until recently she left to have her beautiful daughter. Nichola was born and raised in Lincolnshire, England. She has lived in San Francisco since 2000, where she takes time out to explore nature with her husband and her daughter and also enjoys sailing, cycling and travel.
Marianne Alsop offers handwork-based classes in our Family Life classes and has been involved in Waldorf education for nearly 40 years as a mother, early childhood teacher and facilitator of Waldorf parenting groups. Born in Austria of Dutch parents she is fluent in Dutch despite having lived in the US for most of her life. She holds a B.A. in English and attended Emerson College in England, a center for Waldorf teacher training. Much of Marianne’s focus and interest has been on all things early childhood. She was co-founder of The Ark in 1977, one of the first Waldorf toy stores in North America.The growing interest in Waldorf education in this country led her to become the first Managing Editor of Renewal, A Journal for Waldorf Education. For 15 years Marianne developed and led parent support groups in the Sacramento area and for the past 7 years she has taught in the SF Waldorf Parenting program. Marianne is also the Director of the California Coast LifeWays Early Childhood Training which meets in the Bay Area. To top it all off she is the Administrator of the Online Waldorf Library,a remarkable website for Waldorf educational resources. A passionate crafter, knitter and toymaker, it is Marianne’s joy to bring her creativity to the parenting classes. She and her husband, Dave, have two, Waldorf educated grown children and one adorable granddaughter.
