Claudia Khafra

Emery Education Campus, 4th grade, Teacher for 20 years

Teacher Claudia Khafra | Photo by Marie Pasquel

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Why did you become a teacher?

When I was 8, I had a great admiration for a teacher who later became a principal. Ever since then I wanted to be a teacher.

It was the way she cared for children and conducted herself. She also had a child, and I saw how she raised her child and taught the same way.

Her example and the choice to teach remained with me when I grew up, because after high school I wanted a career where I could give back. I thought I could make a great contribution to the future generation.

Who was your favorite teacher and why?

His name was Aftab Khan, a high school teacher in Trinidad. As a teenager I had skills and talents but was not aware of them.

I had no confidence in myself or my performance. He saw it, pointed it out and told me about the great things I could do.

Only then did I realize I had skills and talents, and I began to shine, get good grades. That has always stayed with me.

Three adjectives that describe your job:

Enjoyable, creative, challenging.

What is one thing that you wish someone had told you when you were a first year teacher?

I wish someone had given me advice in terms of classroom management. It would have made my job easier at the beginning, because I had to learn from experience and trial and error.

This was hard especially because I came from another country and was dealing with culture shock. But I learned.

What's one thing your students have taught you about being a better teacher?

My students have taught me that even though children are children, they do crave discipline and the respect that adults crave. They have also taught me how important it is to learn to get to know people as individuals.

Tell a little about a time when a student's accomplishments completely exceeded your expectations. Or, tell a little about a time when you were inspired by a student.

This student completely exceeded my expectations but not because my expectations were low. This student came to me from another school and couldn’t read.

This was at the fourth grade level. As a result, she was very frustrated and displayed unacceptable behaviors.

I kept talking with her about this, and I used CDs—at that time it was cassette tapes—with reading lessons, for her to do in her spare time. She was far below where she needed to be, but every time she had a minute she would put on the reading headset and listen to the selections.

Then one day, suddenly I heard her advising the other students, when we were doing a lesson on new words.

She was telling them “Remember what Ms. Khafra tells us, use your decoding skills” and she was breaking down the words.

By the time she was in the fifth grade she had moved from below to on level. Her grandmother was so touched by this, that she gave me a Christmas CD, which I still play every Christmas.

She moved so quickly, she wanted to learn. She was motivated to go and listen to the tapes, the same selection for days and weeks until she got it, in addition to the classroom lessons. This shows me that you must never give up.

Why is teaching an incredibly important job?

It is an incredibly important job because teachers teach the future generations. Children will be in charge of the world when we move on, and we want to be sure that what we leave is a great legacy, so that we human beings—and the earth—will survive. We have to make sure to pass that on, and teaching is one of the jobs that gets this done.

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