It's a story as old as formal education — the out-of-town teacher thrown into a new community with different social codes, trying to help kids who might test them at every turn. To Sir With Love, Blackboard Jungle, Wai'anae School Complex.

How do you prepare a teacher fresh out of an East Coast college to take over a Leeward classroom?

Seventy-two teachers recruited to positions in seven Wai'anae area schools spent the week with mentors and community members talking about Wai'anae, the stereotypes that have truth, those that are unfair, all the big and little things only insiders understand about a place. They met from 8 to 4 every day, took field trips to the schools, went on a bus tour of Wai'anae and talked story with people from the community.

Brad Bennett, a special ed teacher at Wai'anae High School, serves as a mentor for the new recruits. He himself was new to the Wai'anae Coast just a few years ago, having grown up in Mililani. Yes, though the Kamehameha Schools graduate was born and raised in Hawai'i, there were things he didn't know about the West Side.

"I had to learn the culture of the school. I had to learn the culture of my neighborhood," Bennett says. "Like I had to learn you cannot park your car in your garage because somebody will park in your driveway and block you in."

The lessons are often like that — very specific. Bennett tells the recruits that they shouldn't expect their students to make direct eye contact. It's not a sign of disrespect, but the opposite, because to stare someone in the eyes is considered a challenge in some Polynesian cultures. Likewise, the teachers should be careful about patting a kid on the head. Though it may be meant as an expression of affection or approval, the gesture could be taken as an insult in the Hawaiian culture. The head is the seat of personal power, and to touch a child's head is belittling.

After a year at Wai'anae High School, Joe Miller is something of a veteran. Miller is tall, built like a quarterback and talks with a homegrown Philly accent. He teaches ninth-grade special ed. Some of his students came to his class after getting into fights or hitting other teachers. Miller had to win them over. He got a break when the kids asked if he was cousin to one of their sports heroes, ultimate fighter Jason "Mayhem" Miller.

"They went, 'Eh, Mista, you related to da guy?' " He went along with it. They asked him to flex and teased him about his muscular build. Pretty soon, he found himself watching Ultimate Fighting just to see what the kids were talking about. "It's huge here, but we don't have that back in Philly," he said. He got into it, and found common ground with his students. He found a way to work math into talks about sports. "When you're in that octagon, it's about distance and angles," he told them.

Christine Pemoulie was recruited from Marist College in New Jersey to teach preschool at Wai'anae. She came with her best friend and a group of other new teachers from Marist. Like Miller, she wanted to get out of her hometown while she was still young, to experience something different. Wai'anae is different.

When Pemoulie and the other teachers saw the homeless situation and tent enclaves on the beach, they had many questions about how that would affect their students.

"Someone asked if we should still give them homework," Pemoulie said. "But we talked about it, how the kids will find a picnic table to sit and do their work. We talked about having high expectations for the students."

"The kids are resilient," Bennett agrees. "We have to hold them accountable. "

The mentors share the idea of "ho'olana" with the new recruits. The concept means to lift up, to launch a project, to encourage.

Glen Kila, principal at Kamaile Elementary, told the group this story to illustrate:

When he was a kid, he would get up in the morning and go outside to the mountain apple tree to pick up the fruit that had fallen to the ground for his breakfast. One morning, he went outside and was sad to find that there was no fruit on the ground. His grandmother came out and lifted him up to pick fruit off the tree. "And because he was raised correctly," Bennett says, "he gave the one he picked to her."

In this way, the teachers must lift up their students — "if not above us, higher than where they are now," Bennett explains.

Some of the teachers admit they came with postcard images of Hawai'i in mind. "I thought, 'Oh, it's an island, how can there be anything wrong?' " Miller says.

As he made friends on the island, people would ask where he works. "I told them I teach special ed at Wai'anae High School and they would go, 'Oh, man! Really?' " But soon he found himself defending the Leeward Coast like a lifetime resident.

"It's not always palm trees and rainbows," he says with a knowing smile. But the rewards, oh, those are better than he imagined, Miller says. "And when you help a kid, you get respect and thanks from their whole family. They bring you stuff. They bring you food."

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