A: The first day of class the systems were already in place so they knew the structure of the class; they know how things worked. I hear other teachers say, "Oh, they talked about professional posture," because my kids have to be in professional posture. They know what that means. When they hear someone else outside say a dead word, I've heard them say, "That's a dead word. Don't use it." It makes me feel good as a teacher knowing that they've taken some of the positive things from my classroom and transferred them outside. It's constant reinforcement, and it's consistency because the minute you stop or you falter on the consistent factor just a little bit, then they know you're not structured. And that's what they crave because maybe their home lives aren't structured, so at least in this class I can make it as structured as possible, and it's simple. Sometimes it's not, as a first-year teacher.
Q&A: Hanifa Farooq
Q: How do you come up with some of your outside-the-box kind of teaching ideas?
A: Sometimes I hear about them, and then I'll change them and manipulate them to make them my own. I noticed with the class library that I didn't have books for the first couple of weeks and I would slowly start getting them and filling the shelf. And I remember students kept asking me, "Can we check out books?" And I would just say, "No." And I realized that they were getting really impatient, and they really wanted to check out these books. So I filled up my library, and two weeks before I wanted to start checking out books, I put up a poster for the library grand opening, and it got them so excited. And that day at lunch they all had lemonade and the room was packed. I have four shelves in my library; the first day three of them were completely empty. I had to go the next weekend and buy $300 worth of books.
Q: There must be more than 100 books on these shelves. Who's paying for them?
A: I do. And sometimes people say, "Aren't you scared they're going to steal your books?" And I say, "If they steal anything in my class, I would rather it be a book." Because at least I know — yeah, they've taken it, it's unethical and they know better, but if it's one thing they steal, if it's a book, at least I know that there's like a 50% chance they'll pick it up and read it. Right?
