Teacher Rod Maghsoudlou is taking a walk with a student when I get to Keʻelikōlani Middle School in downtown Honolulu at 7:15 a.m.
He does this every morning with a different student. They stroll around the campus, past the methodone clinic next door and sometimes past homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk or drug paraphrenalia littering the street outside the fence. For 15 uninterrupted minutes, the two will talk about anything and everything, what’s going well, what’s falling apart, whatever is in the student’s heart.
Some of the students have difficult home lives. Some live in cramped apartments in Mayor Wright public housing where sometimes there’s no hot water. Some have to take responsibility for younger siblings or older relatives. Some sleep at the foot of their parents’ bed on what is essentially a Costco dog bed…