White Woman teaching in Hawaii

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by Nyfinestbxtf

Haha, I’m more of a beer kinda guy.

it's a good start ...

Originally Posted by Nyfinestbxtf

I tried weed a couple times when I was younger, but I can’t ...

You gotta inhale ...

Originally Posted by Nyfinestbxtf

. I will most definitely embrace the laid back pace and feeling though.

[steiconi]

I know several mainland-born white folks (men and women) who came here to teach and stayed. They settled in and liked it, stayed for decades; most that I know are now retired here.

[Nyfinestbxtf]

Originally Posted by steiconi

I know several mainland-born white folks (men and women) who came here to teach and stayed. They settled in and liked it, stayed for decades; most that I know are now retired here.

I know a white couple I went to college with who moved out to Oahu to teach right after college and 18 years later are still there.

[terracore]

"Also, I teach AP chemistry, physics, and trig, so making a grammar error is not a new thing for me"

You'll probably have to dumb down your teaching skills. I don't recall any of those classes being offered to my daughter when she was in High School on the Big Island. She learned calculus by watching youtube, because the high school didn't offer it:

Hilo, a good place to live?

[Nyfinestbxtf]

Originally Posted by terracore

"Also, I teach AP chemistry, physics, and trig, so making a grammar error is not a new thing for me"

You'll probably have to dumb down your teaching skills. I don't recall any of those classes being offered to my daughter when she was in High School on the Big Island. She learned calculus by watching youtube, because the high school didn't offer it:

Hilo, a good place to live?

What was your daughters experience in the classroom like through middle school and high school? I guess what I’m asking is was her experience like Rompa Room or we’re the students for the most more respectful and well behaved? Was discipline enforced by administration? Where my wife teaches now, there are a handful of unruly kids in her class who are also disrespectful, but she does pretty well with classroom management. Though, Classroom management is more effective when administration has the teachers back. Where my wife now teaches, administration (the principal) is overly lienent on the students to appease the parents. So where she is at now, administration (principal) doesn’t have the teachers back. My wife has explained that there are teachers with poor classroom management skills and their classrooms are off the wall.

I have also researched many public high schools on the islands and math and English proficiency is alarmingly low compared to schools on the mainland. It looks like the math and English proficiency is equivalent to inner city public schools. I imagine this must be pretty interesting for teachers to overcome?

[mr.magoo]

Originally Posted by steiconi

I know several mainland-born white folks (men and women) who came here to teach and stayed. They settled in and liked it, stayed for decades; most that I know are now retired here.

yup, my braddah, 32 years @ Punahou.
Don't come any whiter than him..blond hair Blue eyes..so White he can't dance nor jump.

[GraceKrispy]

Your attitude towards your students, their parents, and the community in general will go a long way towards deciding how you'll be treated. My best advice for you is to watch and listen and keep your thoughts to yourself until you gain an understanding of the way things work and who people are. An open mind is worth a whole lot, and that means "that's not how we did it [on the mainland]" needs to stay locked in your head and not coming out of your mouth. And always remember that it's a very small world. You talk stink about someone to someone else, and chances are good it'll get right back to that person. Circles are very small and very overlapping.

There are plenty of "white women" teaching in Hawai'i and many stay for years. Many others get their fix and the cred of being able to say they taught/lived in Hawai'i and leave after a year or two. And still others were born and raised on the islands. There is some turnover, however. With cost of living factored in, Hawai'i is the worst paid state (by far) in the US for teachers. Without factoring in cost of living, the pay doesn't seem quite as bad (it's somewhere in the middle of the country). As soon as you factor in cost of living, the story changes dramatically.

As a side note (and I've mentioned this before in other posts), your educational experience will vary. We hear crap about Hawai'i's school system, but the truth is that my kids transferred to a mainland school around middle school and they were ahead of most of their peers. And we moved to one of the top school districts in our state. Like most districts, the quality of education in Hawai'i varies by school according to administrator, teachers, and student/family population. A higher level of poverty or lower level of parent support/participation in some schools makes for lower test scores. That's true on the mainland as well. Students who are motivated and parents who are supportive can still get a great education. The quality of one's educational experience does not rely solely on the school itself.