Bryan Silver, who earned his Post Baccalaureate Certificate in Seconday Education and Special Education at the UH Mānoa College of Education (COE), was named the 2025 Hawaiʻi State Teacher of the Year. A science and Career and Technical Education (CTE) teacher at Kalani High School, Silver will represent Hawaiʻi in the National Teacher of the Year program this spring in Washington, D.C.
“I am grateful to my colleagues and administration who supported so many of my crazy initiatives of getting kids out of the classroom and getting their hands dirty in the real world while embracing the mess of authentic learning and failure,” Silver said. “Success is an accumulation of learning from mistakes.”
Inspired by his mom and aunties who were all teachers, Silver has found himself in teaching roles throughout his life. From his time as a merit badge camp counselor, an electronics sales associate, and a SCUBA instructor, he says he has been educating others. The COE dual certification program in secondary education and special education was a fitting next step.
“Since I was a student who was identified as ‘special needs,’ I felt I could make a positive impact on other students like me as I had a unique perspective on their struggles and needs,” Silver said. “The COE classes and instructors have had the biggest impact on how I approach learning in the classroom, giving me the permission to forge into the unknown to find many ways to express and demonstrate learning.”
In addition to leading successful robotics and coding programs, Silver and his science and special education colleagues are opening work-based learning by growing produce to be used in their high school’s cafeteria. With a goal to replace 10% of the produce used in the cafeteria in three years, they are developing a smart greenhouse to monitor growth and nutrition levels for plants while providing opportunities for their students to run an agricultural business.
“Working with the Environmental Club and AP students, I want to see Kalani become a Green lead school, processing our waste on site and turning it into new products,” Silver said. “We have machines and processes to shred and remelt plastics into injection molds and aluminum into lost wax casting. We have also been recycling used milk into soap bars and packaging them to be given away to shelters, thanks to a supportive grant from the Kupu Foundation.”
Silver says he would like to help more teachers get recognition for all of the amazing work they do as well as see more teacher preparation programs offer CTE training to create the next generation of strong and knowledgeable CTE teachers.
Each of the 16 Complex Area and Public Charter School Teachers of the Year receive monetary awards from the Polynesian Cultural Center, the Teacher of the Year program’s corporate sponsor for over 30 years. Silver will also receive a one-year lease of a 2024 Nissan Sentra SV courtesy of the Hawaiʻi Automobile Dealers Association and King Windward Nissan.
Silver Shoutouts:
- Former Kalani Principal Randiann Porras-Tang (who hired me)
- Amazing staff of Kalani and the Special Education Department
- Science Department who comes together through group Halloween costumes
- The CTE department collaborations that make school a connected workplace of learning
- Community collaborators, like the AOK Foundation, who get my students out building houses for the homeless among other community service activities
- Kalani Principal Mitchell Otani for his support of the programs I run in and out of school
- The STUDENTS who took a chance on my classes and embraced my level of classroom antics, helping to redefine what education can be
