November 20, 2025
contributed by Miriam Beigelman, teacher
As a budding teenager, she made little impression on me.
Her personality was ordinary; even keeled and serious. Her dress was ordinary; she wore brown suits with starched blouses. Her looks were ordinary too; She styled her straight brown hair in a chin length bob that framed her face. Her hair always looked like she had just had it cut. That was her finest feature.
However, as an adult I remember Mrs. Cole fondly. She wasn’t funny, flashy or flamboyant. But she was far from ordinary.
In sixth grade, Mrs. Cole was my language arts teacher. Nothing noteworthy there. We did the usual reading, writing and grammar. But our English enrichment group was an epic chapter in my teenage era.
Every Tuesday, during lunch eight of us, both boys and girls, gathered in the school auditorium down the hall from our regular classroom. We sat on hard metal benches around a long, rectangular brown table, dissecting stories like The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. Mrs. Cole was at its helm, helping us feel at home.
She liked me. I could tell. She smiled at me warmly as she gently nudged me to share my ideas about what we had read. She had a way of bringing out the best in me. Until I joined that group I didn’t like to share my inner world.
There was risk that my feelings would get trampled. I shared when I had to but not too much and not too often. Mrs. Cole showed me that it can be safe to share, that my feelings would be handled with tenderness.
In our group I slowly learned to unjumble my thoughts and feelings and share them without hesitation. I learned to trust my timid voice. Following Mrs. Cole’s example, we valued and validated each other’s opinions. We didn’t always agree with each other, but not one boy or girl mocked the other’s musing.
Daniel, the class clown, was in our group too. In our regular class, he relied on his silly antics to feel noticed, but in our special reading group, he did not crack a single joke. He must have felt secure in our intimate club, like I did.
At the time I didn’t appreciate the gift I was given. It was before I knew anything about introverts and extraverts (and ambiverts.) It would be years before I understood that I thrived in smaller settings.
Perhaps my teachers saw that in me, so they recommended I join the Tuesday reading group. Or perhaps, I was simply a good reader. Even that I didn’t know about myself.
Back then, I had little self-awareness. I suppose that’s age – appropriate for a twelve-year-old. How I wish I knew then what I know now – Wisdom is wasted on the youth. For better or for worse, life’s adversity hammered me with much wisdom and self-awareness.
Mrs. Cole tickled my prefrontal cortex. She gave me a taste of analysis, first of story book characters then analysis of my own character. And I’ve been analyzing ever since.
I’ve been searching for Mrs. Cole. I couldn’t locate her on Facebook and when I Googled her name, it yielded at least ten other women with the same name. Serendipitously many were English teachers.
Some had profile pictures, but I didn’t recognize my Mrs. Cole in any. I finally came across a picture of a woman who resembled her.
What the heck? I’ll email her and see if she taught me in sixth grade.
A few hours later, I received an email, “Good evening! I’m afraid I’m not that Mrs. Cole. It is a common name. I wish you the best in finding your former teacher.”
At least I connected with some Mrs. Cole out there. It gave me hope that if I keep searching, I will find Mrs. Cole, my far from ordinary English teacher.
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