Kimi Yasunaga-Frith ’92

As a child, history teacher Kimi Yasunaga-Frith ’92 loved visiting the public library in her Aiea neighborhood with her mother. She rushed to the shelves that stocked the Amelia Bedelia series and was disappointed when she was not permitted to borrow them all at once.
   
These children’s books, about a well-intentioned housekeeper who carries out simple tasks in unusual and comical ways, always made Frith giggle, sometimes hysterically. Amelia Bedelia’s unflappable comic appeal likely influenced Frith’s optimistic and positive outlook today.
   
When asked to measure a cup of rice, most folks would make sure eight ounces filled the Pyrex. Not Amelia. Out comes the yard stick and Amelia, wearing her trademark white apron, is busy measuring the inches across the cup’s top. When told to “run home” while playing baseball, Amelia Bedelia scoots off to her employer’s house.
   
“What book made me laugh?” Frith asks. “Amelia Bedelia came to mind right away. I could not put these books down when I was about seven-years-old. This was the first book that made me realize English words had different meanings and there was a play on words.”
   
Her second grade teacher Mrs. Chow at Mililani Uka Elementary School introduced the books to young Frith, who was unaware that she was really being immersed with metaphors, idioms and semantic ambiguity.
   
Frith still remembers Amelia being told to draw the curtains then pulling out a pen and paper to, literally, create a drawing of them. To Amelia, dressing the chicken meant to put a little skirt around the poultry, not to prepare it for roasting like a regular person would do.
  
“What is my philosophy in teaching and life in general?” Frith says. “What books inspired me for that?  I just love to laugh. I keep telling my daughters and my students that laughing is so healthy because it makes you feel more upbeat.”
   
Naturally, Frith knows that her classroom must become serious when covering certain material, but she tries to make learning fun when appropriate. She has rallied her classes to hold bake sales that raise funds for orphanages in India and has helped children in Jerusalem, Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, and South Africa. She urges her students to become involved in community service projects that integrate with her history and geography lessons.
   
“When you have fun, time goes by faster,” she says. “It’s easier to learn about things. It’s what I try to do. I’m not fun all the time, but it helps to laugh in the classroom. That’s what I want to do when I teach.”
 

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