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Glass class keeps KEAAU, Hawaii -- Some students in Robert Miller's glass-blowing program would act up in their regular physical-science class at Keaau High School.
its 35 students fired
up on science
'It's just a total blast,' one
youth says of his work at the
glowing furnaces at
Keaau High SchoolBy Rod Thompson
Star-Bulletin"You can call them kolohe kids, hyper. You couldn't get them to sit still enough," Miller said.
That changed fast when they found themselves next to "glory hole" furnaces belching 2000-degree gasses producing red-hot blobs of glass. "You can see this is dangerous material," Miller said. "The material keeps them in line."
Miller and 35 students are a little more than a month into a program designed to teach physical science through glass art.
Six positions per class taught by science teacher Steve Stephenson went to the first students to write 100-word essays saying why they wanted to work with hot glass.
Ninth grader Jeff Noble, 14, was among those who wrote fast. The effort was worth it.
"It's just a total blast," he said. Keeping his eyes fixed on a glowing lump of glass as he twisted it into free-form art, Noble said, "It becomes what you want it to be."
But this is school and the class is more than fun. Miller relates glass art to science. For example, why is the glass glowing? Because heat excites the electrons in it.
Noble was a good student in California, but his grades declined when he moved to the Big Island. He sat in Stephenson's science class, but only occasionally got to the school science lab.
"This is hands on," he said.
Miller knows teachers like Stephenson have their hands full with 35 students per regular class. Miller only has to supervise six students at a time.
"Having a low student-teacher ratio allows me to control an upsetting kid," he said. "I just look them straight in the eye and tell them, 'You're disturbing the class.' "
The glass art class was brought to the Big Island by Alice Clark, a former nursing instructor at the University of Hawaii who learned about the similar but larger Tophill Artists Program in Tacoma, Wash.
Clark doesn't like labeling kids, but she knows an "at risk" community when the data point to it. East Hawaii has some of the highest indicators of social ills in the state.
"This side of the island needs help," Clark said. Her Washington friend, Joanna Sykes, responded, "Let's do it in Hawaii."
Sykes' boss, noted Washington glass artist Dale Chihuly, donated four pieces for sale which produced the core of the $50,000 budget used to start the program here.
Clark is looking for more money to keep it going. She can be reached at 533-3759 on Oahu or 885-8025 on the Big Island.