What are you reading?

I just finished "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time," by Greg Mortenson and David Relin. It's a nonfiction book, and I picked it up because the cover has three young Afghan girls reading, and they are really engrossed in their books. And I thought, my goodness, if we can fight terrorism by building schools in villages then I want to read that book.

What do you most like about it?

What was really so meaningful to me was the journey he took from first being a mountain climber, where his heroism was focused on himself, to equal heroism focused away from himself and on building schools in Afghanistan, where the spotlight is on the deed that was done and not on the hero. ...It's an indication that fortitude, perseverance, and being tenacious are incredibly important in parts of our world to bring something of value to other people. ...

How does Mortenson's story affect your thinking about serving the needs of immediate Kamehameha Schools' beneficiaries while also fulfilling the mission into perpetuity?

The first truth for me is that when you are educating people you need to listen to those people first. So when Kamehameha works with our communities, which we do a lot, we need to listen to them and we need to understand the circumstances that they face, and we need to be patient to be sure that we cover all the bases that are important to the community. By the same token, we never should give up, just as Greg (Mortenson) didn't. We should always know that there is an end to the journey and always keep our sights on that, and never let the milestones in between stop us from going forward. ... If you mix will with knowledge and understanding of what's going on in the world, that's where people thrive.