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AI: Okay. We're continuing with George Yoshida, February 18, 2002. And you, we're now in the year 1963. And you were, you took a sabbatical from your teaching job.

GY: Yes. Up to that point, one of the fulfilling, I guess, and enjoyable part of my teaching as an elementary school teacher was that it was such a diverse day in terms of the curriculum. There was reading, writing, arithmetic, music, art, science, PE, all that stuff, and different aspects of each of the subjects. And one of the things I enjoyed doing thoroughly was the art class every week, not just one hour. And if you have time, go to the art table -- and you could use crayons, and that's art today for many kids. In those days, in the '50s, the school district provided workshops for teachers in art. For example, we'd be sent to a special class or have the option to do that, and professional artists will give us advice in terms of the curriculum. And so I really picked up on that, and I, myself, was not an artist in that sense, but I could appreciate art. So I, I tried many different techniques that were very successful, very successful as far as I'm concerned. And the principal at that time, Dr. Harold Maves, was a person who just enjoyed that, cultural arts. And being successful in it made me do it more, of course. And so we did such a variety of artwork, watercolor, using crayons, melting crayons, prints -- linoleum prints. What else did we do? A lot of watercolor. And the prints were very good, too.

And about that time, I met -- oh, yes. One of the consultants we had in art was a professor at the University of California. And he knew a Japanese artist from Japan who was working in San Francisco and living in the back of the Buddhist Church. He was a young teacher, elementary school teacher of art. And this art consultant introduced me to Mr. Oe, Takashi Oe. Marvelous young, very modest Japanese man. You know, they're not very outgoing, these Issei, you know. So I had sometime, difficulty in, in communicating, but he showed me his work, this large, white paper with sumi-e, but abstract, very abstract. But used a lot of different shades of black, gray, and some whites, open there. And that was what he's doing, he spent a whole year in the back of this Buddhist Church, small room, in a cold room, doing this work. And I think he had a show in one of the museums there. But I was, I would visit with him, and I enjoyed his work, and he sold me one of his works, and I still have it in display at my house.

But he would encourage me and he would tell me about art education in the elementary schools in Japan. He would show me booklets that were part of the curriculum, and it was a standard art text for children. And each grade had Book 1, 2, 3, 4 -- different grades. I was really impressed. And I was impressed with the time they spent with a professional artist. I was impressed with the curriculum because of the -- the medium -- the media they use. Print materials and different kinds of print, crayons, cutting up pieces of plastic and making abstract shapes, woodwork. You name it, and they did it. It was really impressive. And I thought, how neat. Golly. He said, "Come to Japan. Come to Japan." Well, I'm not going to -- I'm going to go to Japan.

<End Segment 42> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.