Name: Michael Asato
Age: 49
Position: Eighth-grade math teacher at Aliamanu Intermediate
Education: UH-Manoa
Pastimes: Tennis, watching sports
Michael Asato believes in putting his eighth-graders in adult situations to teach them lessons that go past numbers.
Asato has created a system of "Asato bucks," generated by doing homework and scoring well on exams. Students also earn the rewards by filling out job applications catered to his class.
"They have to tell us their background in seventh grade, what kind of courses they are taking," he said. "If they're getting an A in math, they can be an accountant. They need to meet criteria to qualify for different jobs."
Principal Linda Yoshikami said Asato has spearheaded a movement to teach all intermediate students some algebra. "He's a go-getter," she said. "It's nice to have a teacher like that on staff."
Though the Christmas lights are long gone, students are still applying the lessons they learned. In addition to geometry and fractions when building the city, Asato said the students learned lessons of self-esteem and hard work.
"They had to deal with numbers. They had to do a lot of measuring. They learned houses don't just pop up," he said. "When it came together and everyone put all their projects together, be it a good project or a bad project, it looked good."