Mrs. Sokol Oh The Places We Went!

It seems ridiculous that to say that forty years ago a second grade teacher changed my life.

But it’s true.

I sat in the second seat, first row against the wall.

I was not the smartest in the class. Or the most talented. Not the sweetest nor best behaved or even from any important family. I was just me. And at that moment, nobody knew I would evolve into a chutzpadike, angry, defiant, oppositional child that every teacher would dread seeing me on their class roster.

So in second grade, as I sat in that classroom, I was simply an ordinary child, with nothing particularly special or noteworthy about me.

And nobody knew that with the onset of third grade, a new baby in the house, a mother that left to work leaving me in the care of babysitters, and a move to an unfamiliar school, those changes would create a monster of a child who bullied others, wreaked havoc in the classroom, disrespected teachers and principals, and caused trouble wherever I walked.

Second grade was the calm before the storm.

And my second grade teacher, Mrs. Sokol, was the safe harbor, the calm captain, whose work was so profound, that for all the years that followed, strewn with debris of wrecked ships, and docks that denied me landing, as long as I turned to shore and saw her standing there, I knew I could make it somehow.

Mrs. Sokol was the quintessential teacher.

She simply loved her students and loved her job.

Most simple of all, she loved me.

That year was a magical year of learning.  Mrs. Sokol stretched our minds to grow past our classroom into other worlds, past, present, and even future, with stories that filled the shelves and our minds.

But for the problem child I was to become in less than a year, the greatest gift she gave me was the belief that knowledge was the key to success. If I would always seek to learn, to know, I would find my way.

I left second grade, but second grade never left me.

Somehow, she conveyed her absolute love for me in ways that made me assume that she wanted to read the sporadic letters I sent her the summer second grade ended, and even years later. And when I was old enough to cross streets by myself, I checked the return address on the the letters she wrote to me, and one fine day, rang her doorbell.

She was so glad to see me, her smile reaching her eyes, encompassing her whole face.

It never dawned on me to think otherwise.

Mrs. Sokol never knew I was a behavioral issue. She never knew my mother cried because of me, that she dreaded PTA. She never knew the school worked every year not to expel me, and was so relieved when I left to high school. She never knew that in twelfth grade, when I received my rejection to seminary, one teacher sat in the teacher’s room midst many of my high school teachers and said spitefully (not realizing a classmate of mine was standing unobtrusively in the corner), “She deserved that rejection letter.”

Mrs. Sokol only knew the second grade child she once taught and loved. She did not know how she was still teaching me.

And basking in her appreciation of me, I made it my business to learn. If I could do nothing else right, I would get an education.

I loved chumash and Rashi. I loved writing and reading. I loved Navi and Parshah and I loved history and literature. I loved them all. I devoured my subjects, and even as I misbehaved and caused trouble, I took notes, did my homework, and studied for tests.

I was kicked out of class regularly, sent to the principal almost weekly. I was reprimanded and punished with a variety of threats and assignments and punishments. And through them all, I did not return to class without making up the notes, getting the information I had lost while waiting to be scolded in the principal’s office.

True, my academic excellence did not go unnoticed by teachers and principals, and some valiantly tried to channel my energies positively; but at that time they did not have a message I could listen to and I was unready to find meaning in messages that seemed too unclear.

I was popular, good at sports, and a dancer. Combine that with academic smarts, my behavior was troubling to most teachers and exasperating to my principals, but I pulled through the system mostly unscathed.

I finally did make it to seminary, accepted by the skin of my teeth at the last minute, and continued on to the rest of my life.

It did not take me long to pursue the field that pulled me most fiercely. I became a teacher, my passion to give to my students just a fraction of what Mrs. Sokol had given me paling in comparison what she had achieved with me. But I loved my students, I tried to convey to them that education and knowledge was power. Learn and you will one day be able to achieve what you want. One day, when you will be bigger, stronger, more independent, you can leave behind people and environments that do not fit you and go on to find the ones that do. But you can only seek them out if you have an education, a love for yourself and for others.

No child wants to be a troublemaker. No child enjoys walking into school not knowing if this will be the day he destroys himself one more time.

There isn’t a child that enjoys his status of bully, of class clown, of problem child.

But there isn’t a child who cannot benefit from a teacher that says, “You are special. You can do it. I know you can.”

In second grade, that was Mrs. Sokol’s message to me.

It was the message to the that ordinary kid in the second seat, first row at the wall; it was the message to the unhappy, rebellious, troublemaker.

It was a message I carried all my years. Through teaching elementary school and high school, through the years of raising my own children, through the years mentoring at-risk children, and then through the years as a school psychologist.

The funny thing?

I meet former classmates, and when we reminisce and talk about Mrs. Sokol, I realize that she gave each and every member of our second grade class the exact same message.

Originally published by The Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation