Boris Kaufman was an educator at Thomas Jefferson High School, located in central Michigan. He was rather infamous at the school because the first year he arrived at the high school, after over 26 years in education, tragedy befell the man and his family. They lost their youngest child in a traffic accident.
Many of the people around the man thought he was done in his chosen field. Fellow educators had seen it before, and most of them expressed to one another, more than once, that Boris was done. No one could recover from the loss of a child quickly enough to make a difference in the classroom. Many others who had faced a similar tragedy would become hard, complacent. However, no one had ever met an educator like Boris Kaufman.
Fortunately for the educator, his child had passed in late April, and the students would be getting out of school in May. That meant he wouldn’t have to deal with school things in the current school year. The final month was a blur for him, but he got through it. His fellow teachers and his beloved students were constantly checking on him. That gave him the strength he needed.
Summer came and went, and when Boris returned for a new year, he was placed in a new room on the second floor at Jefferson High. A change of classrooms was just what the doctor ordered.
The first group of seniors marched into his room on the first day of school and sat down anywhere they wanted. Boris walked in and suddenly said, “This will not do.” He walked over to his desk, pulled out his seating chart, and started putting the students in their designated places. Eyes were rolling, and faces were turning red.
One of the more assertive students spoke. “Mr. Kaufman, we were told you let students sit wherever they wanted in your classes.”
“Normally, you’d be right, young man, but I noticed over the summer that I have developed a certain absent-mindedness.” The teacher walked over and pulled out a stool and sat down. “I want to put a name to a face. I’ve always been terrible at learning students’ names. So, I decided on seating charts, just for a month or so. Ok?” His answer seemed plausible; therefore, the students sat back to listen while their Civics teacher explained how his class was going to go.
It was so quiet. He just sat there looking at his class, and they at him. “I love teaching. Did you know that?” He paused, waiting for an answer. There was no answer, so he continued. “ However, I learned last year that some students don’t like Civics and think it’s boring. If you want to learn about Civics, then I can help you do that. However, I need you to show me you are going to succeed in my class. I like to learn from my students. It makes me a better educator. What do you say? Do you think you can help teach me what I need to know to get everyone, including myself, through this class?” The students remained silent.
Boris continued, “You’ve got to do two things in this class in order to succeed. First, you have to talk to me. Next, you must trust that I know what I’m doing. I have one philosophy that has followed me throughout my twenty-six years in education: I am a mirror. I reflect what you give me. If you are polite and respectful, I will reflect that back to you. If you are disrespectful, I can reflect that as well.” He looked around the room and noticed a few of the students were trying to smile at him. Still, the bulk of the looks he received continued to be sad faces staring back at him.
“Hey, guys, most of you know that I’m still grieving the loss of my child. Trust me, I’m working on things. You don’t know it yet, but you are the best medicine for what ails me. You are the best distraction I have. I am not looking for sympathy. I can get nothing accomplished if you feel sorry for me. I need to teach you about civics, and you need to help me with that so that you can graduate next year. It will go faster than you think.” He sat for several moments trying to smile, though he understood why they were acting the way they were. Eventually, he started his regular routine.
One thing was certainly true on that day, as it was every year. The time between the first day of school and graduation day seemed to fly by. The students grew to appreciate Mr. Boris Kaufman and the way he encouraged them to share with him. Through the years, he used the death of his child as a lesson about how they needed to take better care of themselves. For example, before every homecoming dance or prom, he would remind them to be careful and be safe. “You don’t want your parents to get that phone call.”
He was never sure that what he said made a difference, but one holiday season he learned just how special his students were. The incident in question started in early November as Mr. Kaufman came into his room. As he moved toward his desk, he saw a glint of something metallic on the carpeted floor. He nonchalantly walked over and bent down to pick it up. He asked, “Did anyone lose a penny?” He waited for a few moments, but no one said a word.
Instead of moving to his desk and taking roll, he walked over to the stool that his child had hand-painted several years before when they attended school at Jefferson. He placed it, and himself, in the center of the room and waited for the room to go quiet. After several minutes, the students noticed him sitting on the special stool and realized he was waiting for them to focus before he would speak again. Boris raised his hand to reveal the shiny penny. “Are you sure this penny doesn’t belong to any of you?”
Again, the students said nothing. Little did they know that they were about to learn a special lesson in life.
“It’s just a penny, Mr. Kaufman. You can have it if you want it,” one student commented.
“Thank you for your input, Mr. Parker.” Boris’s eyes latched onto the penny as he started to tear up. “However, I don’t think you realize how important this penny is,” the educator said.
Everyone’s attention focused on Mr. Kaufman as he explained, “If no one is going to claim this lost penny, then I am going to assume it is a ‘Penny from Heaven.’” Everyone gazed at him when he said the words. Once Mr. Kaufman realized he had every student’s attention, he began to narrate his story.
“When our child died, we started to pack away things in boxes. Almost every day I would find a penny near those boxes until I stored them away in our attic. After that, I noticed I would find a penny around the house a lot more often. One day I said to my wife, ‘Have you noticed that there seems to be a lot of pennies everywhere? I must have found at least ten this week alone.’
‘It’s all right, honey,’ my wife tells me. ‘They’re pennies from heaven.’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Boris,’ she says, ‘surely you’ve heard about pennies from heaven.’
‘Of cours,e I have the phrase,’ I answered. ‘But I thought that was about throwing coins into fountains and stuff like that.’
She stopped what she was doing and said, ‘How can a guy who is so smart, be so dumb? Those pennies you are finding are to remind us that our child is in heaven, thinking about us.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
I never questioned it again. Now, when I’m out and about, I celebrate when I find one because I know that my child is thinking of me.”
When Boris stopped talking, he noticed several students were wiping tears from their eyes. He flashed a look around the room and saw almost everyone had red eyes, even Mr. Parker. “Oh, come on, you guys. I thought we had a deal that you wouldn’t feel sorry for me.”
“We’re not,” Macey said. “That’s a great story, Mr. Kaufman. How do you do that?”
Before he could answer, someone came through the door and announced that bad weather was causing them to dismiss school early.
Christmas break was upon them, but Mr. Kaufman still needed to use the scanner to grade the multiple-choice portion of his last test before leaving. He left his room for only a few minutes. Upon returning, he could see his classroom door was shut. He never shut his door when students were inside. Then he saw a glint on the floor. It was a penny. He stopped to pick it up. A few feet ahead of him, there was another penny, and another, until he finally reached his door.
When he opened the door, he was prepared to chastise everyone who was out of their seats. But, what he beheld caught the educator by surprise. The room was filled with all his senior students from that year, and several of his teaching colleagues. They shouted, “Merry Christmas, Mr. Kaufman!” In the center of the room was a stool, similar to the one his child had painted. The top was encircled with pennies, and in the center of the stool it read, “Pennies from Heaven.”
Mr. Kaufman burst into tears. As he turned away, he found his wife was there so that he could be consoled. The room went eerily quiet. The students started to feel uncomfortable. Then, his wife whispered something to him.
He immediately stopped crying and looked at all his loving students and said, “Whose idea was this?” Macey Williams and Michael Parker raised their hands. He said nothing, but walked over and hugged them. He was famous for his hugs. He thanked them for their thoughtful gift. Macey explained that they had asked their fellow seniors to donate one penny for the stool, but the entire student body wanted to get involved. “We collected so many pennies that we didn’t know what to do with them. So, your wife told us we could donate them to your child’s 4-H scholarship fund.”
Mr. Kaufman was overwhelmed by the generosity of his students. He had no words except, “Thank you.”
Since the time of that story, the years have flown by. I hadn’t thought of Mr. Kaufman and his “Pennies from Heaven” speech until last week when we were in my mother’s home, trying to box up her belongings so my father wouldn’t have to. After we came home, my husband, Michael Parker, said to me, “Macey, remember the pennies from heaven story Mr. Kaufman told us?” I nodded as he gently placed a penny in my hand that he had found in my mother’s closet. Pennies from heaven, indeed.
