Hooray, school was NOT boring! And how could it be with Mrs. Kaplan, (then Miss Gorowitz) teaching us. Instead of submitting monotonous book reports, we performed our chosen book by enacting a wax museum. Each of us dressed up as the author or main character in the book and then posed frozen in place as the rest of the grade visited our exhibits and oohd and ahhd. So satisfying. Or how about when we read The Adopted Princess but instead of a test Miss Gorowitz had some girls write up a script, others create scenery and still others acted out the play on the public school’s stage next door. Every single girl shone that day.
But perhaps most telling of all, that year, my (Batsheva) mother gave birth to my baby brother. He was born with Down’s Syndrome. I was young and it was taking me a long time to process. I became withdrawn and quiet. One teacher noticed and after a mesibas shabbos at her house she called me over to say that she sees that I’m davening harder and that I seem sad. Is everything ok and can she help make things better? She did. Just by noticing and checking up on me, Miss Gorowitz really did make it better. I knew she really did care. I felt it and it went a long way for me that year.
We happily reminisce about those days in 6th grade and daven that our children should have morahs like that. It’s all the difference and sometimes even beyond just that one year in school.
Chanel Lipskier (ne Deitsch) and Batsheva Borenstein (ne Bronstein)
Yup, still besties 🙂