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The Territory’s Schools Did Their Share
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
The Territory’s Schools Did Their Share E With the coming of victory, the Commissioners of Public Instruction have reviewed with pride the important part played by teachers, principals, and pupils in the historic days since December 7, 1941. Before sunset of that eventful day, trucks rolled up to the doors of school buildings and unloaded great numbers of frightened women and children. Teachers, principals, and cafeteria managers were already setting up Army cots, preparing food, and taking care of small children and babies. Night came and with it “a darkness that may be felt,” for which no person was prepared, no building equipped. Stifling curtains were hastily arranged to cover windows of rooms in which some light was indispensable. The school staff stayed on to patrol the halls in the darkness; some slept on the floor or benches in the cafeteria ; some served food to troops or workmen who materialized from nowhere and required food. For days thereafter, members of the school staffs worked on in many schools, scrubbing floors, cleaning rest rooms, making beds, cooking and serving meals,and washing dishes.The needs of many people were being met.The first selective service registration was entrusted almost entirely to school personnel and also the finger printing and registration , and the housing survey. These huge tasks, covering the Territory, were done almost entirely by teachers and principals. Schools remained closed for almost three months. When they reopened, 876 school units had been taken over for military use. Teachers met their pupils in shops, basements, private homes, and language schools—anywhere that space could be found.Air raid drills were instituted; small children were shown how to use the gas masks they constantly carried. Instructions were given as to what to do in case of an air attack. Teachers huddled with frightened children in open, muddy, slit trenches. 278 First published October 1945. The student-work program—a major contribution to the war effort—was instituted. Teachers regularly accompanied pupils to the pineapple and cane fields. The effort expended was great and the adjustments difficult, but no one complained that it was unbearable. Teachers who maintained their own homes first suffered from the shortage of help and then had to adjust themselves to the complete disappearance of full-time or part-time household assistance. Marketing , made difficult by shortages, was further complicated by gasoline rationing. With the construction of air raid shelters, playground space almost wholly disappeared. Programs of recreation at school and during outof -school hours were dropped to a minimum. There were no holidays; work went on steadily, week after week, year after year. Life was geared to a tense pace; time for relaxation was almost unheard of. During summer vacations, teachers worked in stores, canneries, and in various industrial establishments. Help was needed, and the large percentage of the teachers accepted the responsibility of doing what they could. Teachers, school secretaries, and principals willingly shared the accounting and collecting responsibilities entailed by the school sales of war bonds and stamps. These responsibilities were large; Hawaii’s schools made an outstanding record in comparison with mainland states. Teachers and principles shared in the responsibility of supervising and directing the Red Cross activities of children from the sixth grade up. The tensions were eventually relaxed, and the strictest war-time regulations were modified. From the point of view of permitting normal home life, the gradual relaxation of the blackout was of the greatest help. Now that the war is over, the Commissioners of Public Instruction and the staff of the Central Office have expressed their gratitude and appreciation to every principal, teacher, secretary, cafeteria worker, and janitor who experienced the tense war years and who met so magnificently the difficulties, problems, and responsibilities of those years. In addition to the new and heavy war-time responsibilities, they carried on during this trying period an effective program of instruction for the children of Hawaii, giving them guidance and a sense of freedom from fear, tension, and uncertainty. All this has been done in a spirit and with a competence that can never be forgotten. War!—1945 279 ...