Posted on: Friday, June 7, 2002

Good morning, Mr. Kam

By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Staff Columist

Danielle Yee has been trying all year to get someone to give her teacher an award.

In fact, the Kuhio Elementary School fifth-grader has entered her teacher, Eric Kam, in a total of five "Outstanding Educator" award programs. She put together a cover letter and sent it wide. She filled it with words of highest praise.

She got nothing.

"I know it's not anyone's fault," Danielle said, "but it gets kinda frustrating."

Still, she was determined to get some sort of recognition for Mr. Kam. Officials at one of the award contests suggested she send her letter to her local newspaper. That's how it ended up here.

Danielle wrote at length about Mr. Kam's attributes, saying: "He makes us want to learn. He's always making funny comments and jokes which makes work a lot more interesting."

Danielle emphasized that she's not the only student who feels this way about Mr. Kam. She wrote:

"I took a poll yesterday of all the people who don't like him and I came up with nobody!! A class of 34. For real!"

She even collected quotes from her classmates, including this effusive statement that pulls even more weight when you realize it was spoken by a fifth-grade boy:

"Mr. Kam is that star up in the sky. He's that mountain peak up high. He's the coolest."

Or this one attributed to another classmate: "I don't even like leaving class at the end of the day. I don't like school, but I like him."

Through her months-long letter-writing campaign, Danielle never breathed a word to her teacher. She kept hoping that one day, an award would arrive as a big surprise to him.

"He's the only teacher I've ever done this for. That's how much I like him. That's how much he deserves this."

In a follow-up phone interview, Danielle was even more expressive:

"He explains things well when we don't know," she said. "He's not one of those teachers how you're like freaked out to tell him you don't understand, you know, how like when you're in school and you're scared the teacher might yell at you? He doesn't do that."

As the phone interview ends, Danielle summons up the ultimate compliment for Mr. Kam.

"Can I add one more thing?" she asks. "I don't really have a dad — you know what I mean, right? Like they're not a couple anymore and there's just my mom who raises me and she's really wonderful and she's like a dad and everything to me, but if I could choose a dad, like one day, for her, I would want him to have an attitude and be kind like Mr. Kam."

This morning, Danielle will graduate from the fifth grade, still not having an award to give to Mr. Kam. But she's hoping that maybe he'll know how she feels anyway.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com