Brother Walter

Walter Kirimitsu, the first lay person to head 160-year-old St. Louis School, brings a fat resume and a wide body of knowledge to the job

photo: Jimmy Forrest

When Walter Kirimitsu was a junior at St. Louis High School, he came home from a weekend-long religious retreat inspired. He told his parents, who were both Buddhist, that he wanted to become a Marianist brother like his teachers and dedicate his life to the service of others. His mother was despondent. His father was angry.

The next day at school, he explained to his teacher and mentor (who was also a brother) what had happened at home. “I can’t become a brother. It will kill my parents,” said Kirimitsu.

“Well, you should at least become a Catholic then,” said his teacher.

Back at home, the young Kirimitsu told his parents that he had rethought his wishes of joining the clergy, but he still wanted to convert to Catholicism. His mother and father, relieved, agreed.

Last July, nearly 50 years later, Kirimitsu returned to the Kaimuki campus of his alma mater and took over as president/headmaster. The 1958 graduate, who was student body president and valedictorian, is the first non-clergyman to lead the 160-year-old school. He brings with him to the job a fat resume and a wide body of knowledge after having spent 25 years as an attorney in private practice, four years as an intermediate court of appeals judge and the past eight years as the University of Hawaii’s vice president for legal affairs and general counsel.

On his second week on the job, Kirimitsu sat down with Hawaii Business and talked about the importance of a Catholic education, the challenges of teaching boys and St. Louis football.

HB: What was the most important aspect of your schooling at St. Louis and is it still vital or even applicable today?
WK: When I attended St. Louis about 90 percent to 95 percent of the faculty were brothers. They taught us, they attended mass with us, and they played sports with us. It seemed to me that their only reason for living was to educate us. I saw total dedication and that made a big impression. That part of St. Louis is a part of me, a dedication to the students. I thought I needed to do something to continue that tradition and help as much as I can.

Is it still around? Very few brothers are left. We’ve gone through a drastic change in the composition of our faculty and administration over the years, but I still see that kind of dedication in our teachers today. They still believe in discipline, education, building the whole person so that students devote their lives to family, society and the Catholic religion. On the other hand, we aren’t here to make anyone Catholic. We welcome anyone from any faith. We will teach you family values and how to make decisions in life and how to make a whole person.

HB: That sounds as though it might be harder to do 50 years later.
WK: It’s a challenge. In our days, respect for your elders and your peers was pounded in our heads. You had to respect the teacher, because he knew more than you. You did whatever your doctor told you. But times have changed and youngsters question authority a lot more, and thank goodness for that. They question, they reject and they oppose. That makes for a better society, but it also makes our job tougher. We try to tell them that even if you question, the basic respect for another individual and their point of view should still be there. You can express another opinion and be respectful. If you can’t do that you will have a dispute and, ultimately, war.

When I was a student here, the goal was to prepare the student for college and be a meaningful member of the Hawaii community. Now, our job is to educate our students so they are meaningful members of the world community.

HB: How will that be reflected in the curriculum?
WK: I’d like to introduce Korean and Mandarin, because those languages are prevalent in our society today. I’d like to see ethics and philosophy taught with religion, so that our students learn about what is right and wrong but they also can see how they can apply those principles and think about how they can make society better.

The next question is: Why don’t we include girls? There is a nationwide focus on how to educate boys. Boys are biologically, mentally and psychologically different than girls, so they need a different type of educational environment. Their brain is different. It is more adjusted to motion and spatial education. Statistics show that boys lag behind girls in the classroom, from grade school to high school as much as a year and a half. Maybe that’s why boys are really good at computer games. Girls excel at verbal skills and most classrooms emphasize those skills. I don’t know about you, but when I have to put something together from Sears, I can’t read the directions. I just want to dive in.

>> FAST FACT: According to the Gurian Institute, a Colorado-based educational training organization, of the children diagnosed with learning disabilities, 70 percent are boys. In addition, 80 percent of the children diagnosed for behavioral disorders are boys and more than 80 percent of children on Ritalin or similar drugs are boys.

I’m in the process of contacting the Gurian Institute, one of the leading authorities on how to educate boys. In partnership with Damien [Memorial School], I’d like to bring people from the institute to talk to our faculty, even have some of our teachers go over there to train. I haven’t sold this to the faculty yet, since they are still so busy getting ready for the new school year. But we need to keep progressing on how to improve our techniques to teach young boys.

HB: St. Louis has a reputation for being a football factory. How important is it to dispel those perceptions as you move forward?
WK: First of all, I love sports. The first thing that I do in the morning is to read the sports page. I totally support athletics, and I will do as much as I can to develop our sports programs. However, my biggest priorities are academics and discipline. We need to improve our academic programs. I’m not denigrating what we have now, but we have to elevate it to the next level. When we achieve top academic performance and when we get the word out, people’s perceptions will change. I spoke to the principal at Campbell High School and she said that some of her outstanding students were outstanding because of sports. It gave them an opportunity to express themselves on the field and that carried over into the classroom. There are some students, probably a lot of boys, who need athletics to reach their full potential in the classroom.

HB: Is St. Louis going to win the ILH football championship this year?
WK: Let’s just say that we will be very competitive.

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