Like a lot of us, Bruce Nakamura thought he understood about the unbearable heat in Hawaii schools. He read news stories and heard first-person accounts from his kids and his wife, who is a teacher. Then he went to a parent night at Roosevelt High School.

“It was so damn hot, I couldn’t even concentrate to hear what my kid’s history teacher was telling us. I kept fanning the collar of my shirt and whispering to my wife, ‘Dude, I gotta get outta here. I gotta get outta here.’”

But that was just one evening in a school in upper Makiki, not every day on the Ewa plain or Waianae Coast.

And, like a lot of us, Nakamura wonders how priorities got so messed up in this state.

“Who cares about the accoutrements of advanced learning if one can’t sit still for more than two minutes to, in fact, learn?” Nakamura said. “I couldn’t sit still to even focus on what the teacher was saying for a 10-minute session. It would be ridiculous to sit for a test in that environment.”

Gov. David Ige was talking big back in January, pledging to cool 1,000 public school classrooms by the end of this year and thousands more in the following years.

“For me, our highest single obligation is to take care of our children. The classroom is a sacred learning space, but students will fail to learn the lessons of their teachers when temperatures soar to over 100 degrees,” Ige said.

Well, it sounded good in the speech.

Ige wasn’t sure how the state was going to pay for the project, though. We know now he also wasn’t sure how much the project was going to cost or if any contractors were in the mood to give the state a kamaaina discount.

Here is another classic Hawaii example of promises made (rail to Ala Moana …) before questions were answered (… is gonna cost HOW MUCH?!!).

We used to have a word for that: shibai. Yes, throwing down that word is like firing a shot from a big rusty cannon, but in this case, it’s apt.

It’s like when Daddy promises Mommy, “We’re gonna put in a whole new bathroom with a soaking tub, rain-forest shower, pedestal sink, a full-length mirror that makes you look skinny, the works!” Then when a contractor deigns to take a look at the job and gives an estimate that is more than the value of the house, Mommy ends up with a trip to Vegas and an upgrade to a hotel suite with a jet tub because that’s all that was in the family budget.

Daddy was bluffing, but he played to get a trip to Vegas. Mommy probably knew all along she wasn’t going to get her fancy bathroom, but she gave up on big dreams a long time ago.

That’s an allegory, you guys. And it’s sad and familiar and wrong.

The quote from Ige’s State of the State speech continued:

“There is enough blame to go around. Our children deserve better from us.”

Well, that part was true.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.