Posted on: Friday, September 27, 2002

Award declined is team lesson

By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Last week, when the Department of Education District Teachers of the Year were announced, one district was conspicuously absent. There was no Teacher of the Year from Maui.

Well, there was a Teacher of the Year from the Maui District, but she said "thanks, but no thank you" to the honor.

Dara Lukonen, a teacher at Moloka'i's Kualapu'u Elementary, bears no hard feelings toward the award, but says, "It wouldn't have worked at all."

Lukonen works as a team with teacher Victoria Newberry. They've taught a combined fifth and sixth-grade class for the last seven years. There are a number of teachers who work as a team for certain subjects throughout the Department of Education, but this team is unique in that the teachers work together on all class subjects plus community projects.

Every year, Lukonen and Newberry have their students research an issue that affects their community. The kids present their findings and recommendations at a public symposium. Through this process, their students initiated and lobbied for the bottle bill recycling incentive that the Legislature passed.

Lukonen and Newberry have won numerous awards for their work and were recently named Disney American Teacher Award honorees for team teaching. Lukonen had hoped that the District Teacher of the Year Award could also be shared.

"When you're a team," says Lukonen, "you can't separate into parts. I mean, the way we teach, you can't always tell where one starts and one ends off and you can't always tell where an idea comes from or where a particular lesson comes from or you don't remember and it doesn't really matter. You don't keep a tally board where you mark down 'this was my idea, this was her idea.'"

DOE spokesman Greg Knudsen said that Maui District officials asked if Lukonen and Newberry could receive the honor together, but that it didn't fit into the requirements of the award.

"We do need to have a nominee that can stand as the district teacher of the year, and if selected as the state teacher of the year, go on to represent us in the nationals," Knudsen said.

The superintendent for the school complex area, Alan Ashitomi, tried to get Lukonen to go it alone.

"I tried, the principal tried," Ashitomi said. "She's an excellent teacher and she would have been great."

For Lukonen, the decision to pass on the award was the right thing to do and the right message to send to students.

"Absolutely. Teamwork is one of the state's general learner outcomes. In fact, we have it posted on our wall in the classroom: 'It's essential for all human beings to learn to work together.'"

And because the team didn't fit the award, the award didn't fit the team.

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