Two years ago, Geri Sasaki retired after 32 years with the DOE. She couldn’t give it up teaching completely so she accepted a half time position as a Gifted, Talented and Enrichment Resource Teacher at Waikoloa Elementary School. When she took over the program for students in grades 3 through 5, its focus was on history and science. Geri changed the focus to “Math and Language Arts through Economics and Communication.”

In her application, Geri said, “I accepted the position with a goal in mind – to create an economics program in our school to produce financially knowledgeable citizens for the 21st century.” During the three years Geri has the students, she is able to build, enhance and expand their economics knowledge and practice their communication skills. In the first year, the third grade students learn basic economic concepts and Personal Finance and Financial Fitness, in the fourth grade, students focus on personal financeand entrepreneurship and the fifth grade students learn more about personal finances and the Stock Market.

Although Dennis Tynan of Nanakuli High School is a newcomer to teaching in Hawai‘i, he has made a tremendous impact on economic education. Dennis introduced the first economics course to the curriculum at Nanakuli and his junior level economics course has become a semester requirement at the school. With confidence and belief in his students, he has brought his students to compete in the Economics Challenge, a competition of economics knowledge for high school students, for two consecutive years.

Dennis is a strong advocate and supporter of economic education. In addition to introducing economics and the Economics Challenge to the students at Nanakuli, he gave up a week of his summer break to attend the Economics for Leaders course co-sponsored by the Foundation for Teaching Economics and the Center for Economic Education of UH- Manoa and participated in the HCEE Financial Literacy Conference. At the recent Hawai‘i State Teachers Association conference, Dennis introduced a resolution to endorse the idea of making economics a requirement for all public high schools.

The Hawaii Council on Economic Education congratulates Geri and Dennis on their incredible accomplishments. Keep up the good work!