Hyeunwoo (John) Yi, better known as Mr. Yi, is Kalani’s new EL coordinator. Born and raised on the island, he has a passion and dedication to teaching and a strong connection to his students.
Yi has always had a passion for teaching and making an impact on students’ lives. Before coming to Kalani, he was an elementary and middle school teacher.
“I was teaching early childhood elementary school, and after a year, I realized that wasn’t gonna be my life,” he says. “I decided to go to secondary school because that’s where I thought I could make the most impact.”
When Yi got offered the job at Kalani, he was shocked and wasn’t too sure about it at first, but after he looked into it, he realized it was an amazing opportunity for him.
“I’m actually really liking it,” he says. “I’m not going to lie, it’s hard right now. I need to talk to so many people and I have to do that self-introduction all the time. I’m not even getting my proper emails,” Yi states. “But being an EL coordinator is an awesome job. I love working with the counselors and everyone’s really nice and helping me out.”
At the moment, Yi is a “floater” without his own dedicated classroom; despite this, he tries very hard to make his class environments friendly and puts effort into his students’ education.
“When I had my classroom at my old school, I tried to make it an environment where everyone feels safe,” he says. “My number one rule is respect and my second rule is no negativity. I have literally dedicated a couple years of making lesson plans and calendars.”
Yi is a very kind and thoughtful person who not only has big dreams for his teaching career but is also constantly brainstorming ways to help his students. He is in a position where he wants to try out all kinds of things, even having already considered going into counseling.
“The EL coordinator’s job is good because I can interact with one student at a time,” he explains.
He once even considered the counselor route because of his devotion to his students.
“It might sound corny, but I really do feel like I dedicate my life to my students in every way. If you see my phone, for like 10 years I’ve been collecting notes of what to teach my students, what to tell them, and stuff like that.”
