Meet Pascale Pinner, National Teachers Hall of Fame Inductee & Teacher at Hilo Intermediate School
Introduce yourself with your degree information and tell us what you do now.
I started with a biology degree at UH Hilo, then went on to get a basic secondary education certificate, followed by the professional education certificate, both at UH Hilo. Then I completed my national board certification. I completed my doctorate at a university on the mainland in educational leadership and teacher leadership as a subcategory. I have been, and still am, a secondary science teacher at Hilo Intermediate School. I just started my 38th year.
The National Teachers Hall of Fame is a prestigious group, with only 170 teachers ever inducted. What does it mean to you to be recognized as one of the inductees?
For me, it's like the pinnacle of all that I’ve done over the last 38 years. It’s like the recognition of the variety of grants, experiences, lessons, personal development all wrapped up in one. So, that recognition from the National Teachers Hall of Fame really felt wonderful.
Walk us through how you were surprised with the honor, and what did it mean to you?
It’s an extremely extensive application process and I submitted all the parts and pieces in September and then I was notified in December that I was one of the semi-finalists. Fast forward to just after spring break, my principal told everyone we were going to be having an assembly during Merrie Monarch because they’re going to come to Hilo Intermediate and they want to interview a few teachers. Then my principal asked me if I would mind being one of the teachers that were interviewed and I said yeah, no problem. I got a phone call that said to come down to the library, that’s where the interviews were going to take place. I went down there, and two administrators had on the TV screen and it said ‘Merrie Monarch Week’ and then all of a sudden the TV screen changed to ‘Congratulations Dr. Pinner’ and Lisa Graff from the National Teachers Hall of Fame said, “well, actually this is all about you”. But the nice part for me was they said they wanted to film in my classroom. All of a sudden, my neighbor’s class came in, Lisa came in, and every kid in the room, about 60 of them, stood up and they all magically had lei. On top of that, my friend Joel appeared in the doorway and he brought some special lei and I really appreciated that. He ended up spending time explaining what each of the lei were and what they meant. That was really super cool because the Hawaiian population of our school is like 60%, but a lot of them don’t know the background behind lei.
Why are you an educator and what drives you to continue teaching?
What drives me to continue teaching every day is my students. But the reason I went into science education is because I’ve always loved science, and I've always loved the awesomeness of science. The number one thing that makes my day, makes my week, makes my year is when students experience something during a science lesson and you can just see the awe and wonder pop out in their face, and they wear it on their face. It’s not something you can hide when you’re super blown away by something or you’re super excited. That kind of energy has allowed me to continue in this position for those 38 years.
Was there anyone from UH Hilo that was influential in your development into the educator you are today?
There are a couple names that pop into my brain. The first was Bob Fox, he taught physics. I had the opportunity to tell him to his face many, many years later how much I appreciated his class, his teaching style, and his support. Marlene Hapai was pivotal in the Natural Sciences program, which led into teaching degrees. She called me into her office one day because she knew I was right at the point of applying to medical school. She was influential in encouraging me to go into teaching. Don Hemmes was one of the big people for me that always just encouraged me. In fact, to this day, I communicate with him. He supports different science fair things I’ve come up with over the last 10 years plus. Nina Buchanan was in the education department, and she was really encouraging. A good handful of people from UH Hilo really did spark interest and encourage me to really consider going into teaching.
What is your favorite memory from your time at UH Hilo?
One of the things I appreciated most about UH Hilo was, for the biology program, it was a good, rigorous program. I had four years of bio, three years of chemistry, two years of physics, two years of math, and then the usual stuff. The nice part about UH Hilo was that all those courses were not huge classes. So, I developed a good handful of friends, and we stuck together and supported each other through everything, thick or thin. I keep in touch with many of them to this day. I think that’s what makes UH Hilo so special, because there is this small class size, small university feel, a rigorous environment, rigorous curriculum, but culturally this integration of everybody together, supporting each other to be one big ‘ohana. I taught methods for the School of Education for four years. Ironically, my principal is somebody who I taught. I have four colleagues at my school who I taught. Not only did I teach them in middle school, but I also taught them at the college level. Again, this small town, personal feeling of support and encouragement, I don’t think you can beat that.