Twenty-three determined little faces looked up at their teacher, eyes wide, hands held ready.
“This is the first song I ever learned on an ukulele,” Kalae Camarillo told the fourth graders, who were hanging on his every word. “My dad taught it to me when I was 7. This will be the longest song we’ll learn, so let’s start right away.”
And with that, Camarillo set the tone for the class: They were going to learn a new song, a hard song, a song that meant something to him. And by the way, on the third verse, they would play the ukulele behind their heads! A thrill of anticipation seemed to pass through the room. This was going to be great.
Camarillo is the music teacher at Kapalama Elementary, a Title I school with 600 students which sits just mauka of Bishop Museum in Kalihi. Camarillo sees every one of those students in class every week. In an era where music classes are often the first to be cut in a test-obsessed curriculum, Camarillo has made music an essential part of the students’ learning and part of the school’s core identity.
“My goal for the school is to make Kapalama known for music and art,” he said. “My goal for the students is to have them develop a joy and a passion for music.”
His classroom is inside the school gym, and even with the door closed, the exuberant noise from the PE classes can be heard. It doesn’t seem to bother anyone. Camarillo runs the class like a veteran teacher, speaking quietly though commanding attention. There’s no horsing around in his class, no rogue notes played after he says to stop. Camarillo has a mellow but serious, fun-but-no- funny-business, kupuna-in- charge vibe, yet he is only 28 years old.
“I started teaching here when I was 21,” he said, as though that makes him a long-timer. He comes from a family of teachers, and when he puts his father’s and grandfather’s teaching techniques to use, it’s like he takes on their decades of experience. “My grandfather George Camarillo was the first to start an ukulele band in Hawaii public schools,” he said. His father, Rama Camarillo, teaches at Kamehameha Schools Maui. His mother, Cora, is from the musical Kalima family of Hilo. His wife, Layla, also comes from a family of musicians.
Camarillo grew up on Maui, graduated from Kamehameha Schools Maui in 2009 and played men’s volleyball for the University of Hawaii for two years as a walk-on. He left the team when he got into the university’s teaching program because there wasn’t time to do both and his desire to teach won out. In 2012, while working on his degree in special education, Camarillo was assigned to Kapalama as a student- teacher. The school loved him so much they made sure he never left. Though there wasn’t a position open for a classroom teacher, Camarillo was offered a position teaching music. It was a perfect fit.
He was first asked to teach band, so he went about learning to play every woodwind and brass instrument so he could teach every instrument. He started a select after-school ukulele band that has performed at Waikiki hotels and been the opening act for Robi Kahakalau. He has coached talent contest winners and composed songs for the school that the students sing every day. All that, and five nights a week he plays gigs at places like Kanikapila Grill, Aulani and Chart House Waikiki.
“If it wasn’t teaching music during the day and if my other job wasn’t music at night, I wouldn’t have the energy to do both,” he said. “I’m doing what I love to do.”
Camarillo won the 2017 Na Hoku Hanohano award for Most Promising Artist. He released a new album of original songs this fall. The staff at Kapalama Elementary, his ardent fans, all went to his CD release party. The ladies in the school office call him “our rock star.”
“He brings so much pride to this school,” Vice Principal Diane Young said.
During the holidays his students will perform at Kahala Mall and accompany him on some of his gigs. For Thanksgiving he has challenged the kids to write an essay on gratitude. The author of the best essay will receive a beautiful ukulele donated by Koaloha Ukuleles.
The students’ gratitude for Camarillo, though, might be best expressed in how they listen to his every word and follow his instructions to the letter, how they show up after school to help with the ukulele band even after they’ve gone on to middle school and high school, and how they look at him with with such reverence, as though he is a kupuna from another era teaching them in the true old style.
“I guess I’m a young old soul,” Camarillo said.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
