The work of a teacher goes far beyond educating; teachers are also supporters, leaders by example, listeners and problem solvers.
David Brooks is currently the high school social studies teacher at Ka'u High School. Ka'u High and Pahala Elementary School are located in the southern district of Ka'u in the town of Pahala. Pahala, Na'alehu-Waiohinu and Hawaiian Ocean View Estates/Ocean View Ranchos are the three major communities within the Ka'u district. Ka’u High and Pahala Elementary School is accredited by the Western Association for Schools and Colleges.
Brooks, who is also the school’s National Honor Society advisor and coding club advisor, has been on the receiving end of learning a time or two himself in his years as a teacher. Being service-oriented runs in his blood.
“I have many generations of teachers in my family,” he told Big Island Times. “I think it’s a wonderful part of society, to be a teacher and help the world be a better place.”
Brooks’ career started in public health, where his passion for educating was first sparked. Before coming to Ka’u, he spent a decade teaching at the university level. The biggest shock to Brooks in his career so far, he said, has been the stark difference in college-level teaching vs. public grade schools.
“I was surprised that public school teachers have so little time to actually work with individual students during a regular school day,” he explained.
Public school teachers see back-to-back groups of students from first to last bell with little time for one-on-one feedback. Brooks’ university experience was quite different.
“In higher education, there is a lot of attention on student work and feedback,” he said. “The massive amount of students that teachers have to see [in public school] each day was a surprise. How does someone not burn out?”
Despite the occasional exhaustion, Brooks closely follows the growth of his students. He’s recently learned how powerful assessments are in the learning process, something he didn’t realize when he was a student himself.
Since becoming an educator, the biggest change in the teaching field that Brooks has witnessed is a shift towards growth-oriented mindsets.
“People never talked about a growth mindset in the way that we do now at school. The way I’m responding is with full agreement and full investment in everybody growing somehow, and not ever underestimating their ability to continue growing,” Brooks said. “Education is changing and being more independently assessed -- not everybody using the same paper or test. Having many alternatives that are always being revised for multiple opportunities to show growth.”
One educational tool that Brooks uses is competency-based assessments, where students have a clear task and are encouraged to struggle to reach it. They are then evaluated on their progress in getting there, rather than completion of the work.
“I see [that] making all the difference and people actually growing, feeling like they're making progress and recognizing their own growth.”
A lot of Brooks’ best memories since starting at Ka’u are actually tied to the community as a whole. He’s often been surprised by the tightness of the community and the respect, culture and values its members share. The high school is a small, tightly knit group, and Brooks sees success and struggle alike in his students.
“[I see students struggling] every day in some way,” he said. “Usually the way I help anyone is by proposing alternatives. If they’re struggling with one way of doing something, we come up with an alternate way to show that same skill. And students are very happy to have a choice.”
Sometimes the resolution is not always that simple, however. Students can often be hindered by stress, frustration, sadness or any other concoction of emotions. Denying that a child’s feelings are contributing to the situation at hand will not help the problem, Brooks said. On a daily basis, public school teachers are faced with challenge after challenge of getting a struggling student up to speed without piling on unnecessary stress.
Providing this personal guidance to struggling students requires extra time outside of the classroom, which Brooks described as a challenge. Other barriers to academic progress, he said, include simply being an authority figure to teenagers — meaning all the drama, trauma, relationships and friendships emerging and crashing down that distract young adults from the classroom.
Typical high school romps and rumors can be found in any public school. There can be added stressors when that school is Title I; many students have familial turbulence in addition to their standard pubescent woes.
"It can be a toxic level of stress, and the root cause is something away from our school," Brooks said. "We try to address, add to and nurture our students, but the stress comes from roots away from school because of economic situations or other family things."
Brooks feels that a student’s progress can also be impacted by poor diet and technological overconsumption: sugary foods, energy drinks and staring at cell phones can mess with a child’s brain chemistry, he explained.
Despite the challenges, Brooks feels fortunate to have the administration he does. They give teachers opportunities to try new things, be creative and respond to students’ needs. Ka'u features several unique programs, including the collaborative Global Learning Lab and the "What I Need (WIN)" individual support periods for students.
Considering it's among the most remote schools in the world, according to Brooks, Ka’u works to have a wide variety of programs to help students enrich and support their education. Teachers could fit into all sorts of metaphors about being farmers tending to students, who are growing like crops with the knowledge from educators being the fertilizer they need to thrive — implying, Brooks said with a laugh, that teachers are full of something smelly — but the message behind all the metaphors are the same.
“The teacher... provides an example of the skills that are encouraged, but not giving the answers to things,” Brooks said. “In social studies, which I teach, the skills are analyzing things for causation and finding continuity and change in things. My role is to demonstrate, discuss and point out things, then give students a chance to do it for themselves with whatever support needed.”
That support should come from the home, too, he said. He encourages parents to be more mindful in talking to their students about school and ask about more than just grades.
“Asking about grades is not very helpful, because students often don’t know their grades. It’s an incomplete kind of growth,” Brooks said. “A much better question would be, ‘What are you learning? What are you trying to get to? What are you trying to master? What are the skills that you’re working on? What are you excited about?’”
Besides asking questions, encouraging a love for leisurely reading and a curious, inquisitive mindset, as well as having an abundance of creative materials, is what parents can do to help students be successful.
He reminds every family to talk to their children about learning and ask what kind of help they might need. “Those kinds of things are really supportive and reinforce that the learning is not about grades, but about growth, excitement and passion for topics.”