The following continues the serialization of Chapter 3 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity:
My Life in Education
The Early Years
A rainbow is virtual, again, something you can’t touch…it is not real. There are so many inculcation theories, that for all practical purposes, they, too, are virtual. Our schools today focus on reading, writing and arithmetic, the three R’s, only a small part of the rainbow. We need to expand the spectrum to at least seven.
School boards are fixated on the budget and standardized tests. The White House does not want to leave a child behind (this section was published during the Younger Bush era). An early national commission wondered if our Nation was at risk because of our educational system. All are noble and worthy foci, but limiting.
But hey, I’ve got good news, we are doing okay! The USA is the greatest country in the world. Yet, we can do a lot better, and must, as the world is catching up in various ways. While K-12 teachers are given all the formal tools, professors, like myself, are never told how to teach. Which way is better? The jury is out, which is another way of saying, it almost doesn’t matter. How many of you took a course on how to be a good parent? Anything works, but nothing is good enough. Such is the nature of education.
I remember as a four year old in pre-school when World War II was still raging, and in Honolulu, we had experienced Pearl Harbor and went through blackouts every night, fearing another attack. Gas masks were prevalent. I hated being in this virtual prison, that year in nursery school. The tomato juice was just awful and the hot chocolate was not hot chocolate. The problem with me in those days, and many people today when they even grow up, is that you don’t appreciate your life. I could easily have been starving or with a bunker mentality in Hiroshima or Dresden, but, here I was, in Hawaii, and bemoaning my misfortune on the hard floor in a sleeping bag being forced to take a nap when I could have been playing.
One day I decided to do something about my confinement, and, somehow, before nap time in the afternoon, escaped. I don’t remember the details, but do recall walking around the neighborhood as a free boy. At some point I got bored and went home. There was a policeman talking to my mother. The daycare center had reported my absence and I had become a fugitive or kidnapee. Bear in mind that this was wartime. I’ve forgotten the consequences, but in hindsight now can pinpoint my life from that afternoon, chapter by chapter, as always being on the edge of the envelope. Apparently, this experience did not frighten me into becoming a better citizen, but, instead, set the tone for the rest of my life, until I retired and again became a free man, with peace of mind. So what do I do? I begin to write Simple Solutions, again saturating my life with controversy.
In real kindergarten, at Pohukaina Elementary School, my only memory was fighting over a nametag with someone named Pauline. We pulled in opposite directions, and it ripped in two. Unfortunately, because Patrick and Pauline were similar to two five year olds, my Patrick was the casualty, and I spent all school year with a Scotch-taped nametag, for it was, it turned out, my tag. I learned that being right was not necessarily good or sufficient.
In first grade, my most vivid recollection was a girl, just outside our room, throwing up…worms. I can still see them squirming on the ground. There are some memories that never go away. I should delete this paragraph, as it has no redeeming virtue.
In the second grade, on the last day of class, the instructor picked a student to carry the records, with the group following, to the third grade room to meet the teacher for the following year. This selected individual stood up and made the usual thank you for teaching us speech, and, being next to her, as she began to sit, I got the sudden urge to pull her seat. She fell to the floor. Well, I think I might be the only one who has ever spent an hour disciplinary period on the last day of school. But this was not the end of this type of punishment. I think it was just mischievousness, and I learned something that day: don’t be so stupid. This is called gaining maturity.
The only thing that comes to mind about the third grade is that the teacher made cinnamon toast and sold them to us; in the fourth, that we drew pictures of Hawaiian flowers and shrubbery; in the fifth when we painted pictures and sang songs; and sixth, yikes, spitting out the window from the second floor and hitting the school principal, who just happened to walk by. This was not malicious, but the lesson I learned was that you need to be careful about where you spit…or whatever you do, yet another step towards maturity.
I learned to do well with what you can—like being on time—for there are so many other factors over which you have no control...well, maybe not, for sometimes you don't have control over time, as you shall see. I remember missing school one week while I was sick in bed, when fractions were covered, and for the longest time, never really understood the concept. Most of us have flaws in something or another because we were not there when the lesson was being taught. The biggest lessons, the other four R’s, are never really covered in our schools, so we all suffer, especially society.
Well, I graduated to Central Intermediate School and the seventh grade, which was another war zone for me. There were fights and bullies and I was never really all that comfortable in this arena. How can I forget David Kakalia, who regularly borrowed a quarter from me through pure intimidation. A couple of decades later, I read that he had died, and only then felt relieved that he wasn’t going to come after me, again. As I think about it now, he probably only “borrowed” from me a grand total of a dollar, probably less, but the fear factor was everything. I’m not sure what I learned from this experience.
I do recall that I did okay in math, but in the eighth grade, scored in the bottom ten percentile in the verbal portion of some standardized test. We walked to school, which was half an hour away, at least, and barefeet. How we got by is a mystery, because there were glass shards everywhere we went. In a sense, I can better understand how dogs and lions can survive without wearing any kind of protective footwear.
I graduated, to McKinley High School, but we were wearing shoes by then. However, growing up, you exist in gangs. Ours was about ten strong, and the process of getting to school was exasperating. The person farthest away walked by the next, and by the time they came to me, we were still at least twenty minutes away from the campus. Invariably the group had to wait for someone, so we were perpetually tardy. Doing so meant you had to report to a room at the end of the school day. We held the world record for being kept after school, but the psychology of being friends is that you just accepted all this.
In those days, and maybe so today, too, students in English/Social Studies were placed according to how smart you were. In my sophomore year I was in the second level class, with some not so bright students, but above the truly dumb and/or unmotivated ones. Around this time, though, the Kakaako area was being re-developed, so my family moved to Kalihi, really not that far away from Farrington High School, another tough public school. To maintain continuity, I caught the bus to McKinley and was on my way to becoming a model citizen, for I was never again kept after school. The bus was always on time.
The turning point in my life was during this transition period. My focus and grades began to improve, to the point where I was placed with the best students in my junior year. Does the environment and who you hang out with make a difference? It certainly did in my case. Most of my gang never went to college. I still see them every so often, for some have in most ways remained my closest friends. In their own ways, most of them did quite well. No one went on drugs and I know of no arrest. They ran companies, became supervisors...just solid citizens.
There were two crucial factors in my junior year of high school. First, I had Mildred Kosaki as my English/Social Studies teacher. She quit teaching soon after my class—nothing to do with me, I hope, for she did go on to become an important planner and served on the board of Hawaiian Electric Company. Something she did as a teacher woke me up on what I wanted to be. The low aptitude I had in verbal ability was confirmed early in this junior year of 1956 when I took the practice college board exam, did well in Math, but, again, scored in the bottom percentiles of the Verbal portion.
Second, in the spring of 1957 I broke my wrist playing basketball. In those days, many, during the summer months, labored in the pineapple cannery. This I could not do, so I decided to extend what Mrs. Kosaki kept preaching, and memorized the vocabulary words in a red and blue colored (I vividly can remember what it looked like) college board preparation book. They say that you cannot improve your test scores much, but I am living proof that you can. My high 200’s verbal score more than doubled into the 600’s when I took the real college entrance exam early in my senior year.
During the spring of my junior year, though, I recall, for a reason that still mystifies me—for I never before had the guts or interest to run for any office of any kind, and never have again—I campaigned for Senior Class Vice-President, and faced three female opponents. I guess it was more the gender ratio advantage, but the cast I wore possibly served as an identifiable macho symbol, and I triumphed. My VPship put me in charge of graduation exercises, and I somehow prevailed in having Mrs. Kosaki’s husband, Richard, who was a fresh political science professor at the University of Hawaii, as our Commencement Speaker. Normally you provide a really old important person this privilege. Much later, when I joined the faculty of the UH, Professor Kosaki had become an influential administrator. Just as I am writing this, I received in the mail the Commencement Program from Richard, showing him as the keynote speaker and me as the chairman. He even sent me his speech.
You see where this is headed? One thing leads to another. I would never have been accepted into the California Institute of Technology had I not improved my Scholastic Aptitude Test scores; probably not into Stanford University if I did not show any leadership skills; and perhaps not have been as successful a professor without Mildred’s and Richard’s assistance. Thus, breaking my wrist catalyzed a whole range of opportunities. I’ve particularly noticed that the best comes from the worst.
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There is one disturbance each in the West and East Pacific and Atlantic, but none should threaten any populated region. Dujuan, now at 50 MPH, will soon become a typhoon, but turn away from Japan.
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