Kapolei campus
By Harold Morse
will change way
students learn
Star-Bulletin
Expect to see 21st century-style learning at Kapolei High School when it opens in late July 2000.
"Gov. (Ben) Cayetano is really looking at this school as being the model for the state of Hawaii," said Al Nagasako, school principal. "We're going to be taking it one grade at a time. It's going to be a long process, but we're taking it one grade at a time," he told about 50 residents last night at Kapolei Middle School.
The $40 million first increment at Fort Barrette Road and Kapolei Parkway will be home to 350 ninth-graders before summer's out.
Each year thereafter it will add a class until it's a full four-year high school as additional new buildings come available, he said.
Next year, the first two-story building -- with no separate classrooms -- will promote education without walls, Nagasako said. It will feature large open spaces called production areas to encourage students to work together, work in groups and work on projects for meaningful education, he said.
Projects will show in a number of ways what students are learning, he added. "What we're trying to do is pull together math, science, social studies and the related areas," Nagasako said. "We want those particular subjects to have meaning."
It will be a hands-on, interdisciplinary approach, he said. Textbooks will be used, but students will use a lot more research and technology to get information, with two computers for every 10 students, Nagasako said.
The three Rs won't be forgotten; neither will discipline, he said.
Responding to a question about discipline and order on campus, Nagasako said he wants to help kids who have had some tough times -- but he won't advocate bad behavior. "We won't compromise the security," he said.
Core subjects will be packaged to prepare students for the real world, Nagasako said. "Writing helps us to think; writing helps us to plan; writing helps us to problem-solve and organize."
Algebra, geometry and trigonometry will be taught jointly in a three-year integrated math program with credit for all three math disciplines granted only on completing the entire three years, he said. Students will still read the classics, Nagasako said.
Ka Leo O Hawaii
