MARYLAND – Joining the staff at a Maryland school as Chemistry teachers, Hena Shami has quickly become popular among the youths, promoting diversity and sharing with them her Islamic culture, Carroll County Times reported.
“I was so nervous [on my first day last year],” Shami told the Times in an interview early Thursday morning.
“I remember not just me being nervous, I remember the looks on the kids’ faces. I remember they looked at me and sat down; they didn’t know what to expect or how I was going to be.
“It took them a while to kind of break out of their shell,” she said, “but the relationships I’ve developed with some of the kids — I feel like even the kids that I felt didn’t like me will now just randomly stop by and be like, ‘Hi, Ms. Shami!’ and run out on their way to another class.”
Shami works at Carroll County Public Schools, a school district based in Westminster, Maryland.
“I know that it’s not out of a negative place,” she said. “I know it’s just out of curiosity. They’re blunt. I have a very open relationship with the kids.
