<Begin Segment 2>

SY: And then the next step in your career was what, after teaching?

GN: Well, while I was there, actually, the L.A. Unified School District received a large grant to incorporate computer assisted instruction, so we had a mainframe computer that was installed and so I would spend part of the time running that program. And at that time it was a, teletype were being utilized. It wasn't a computer with a monitor and a keyboard; it was actually a teletype. And so those, that was used for basic math and also for English, and what was important with the utilization of the computer is that they would do certain skill tests and they would get instant response whether it was correct or not, and then they would be give the correct answer. So I think in the basic skill those are really important. Technology was used for that purpose.

SY: That's nice, and your interest, 'cause that's way before, this was in the '70s.

GN: Yeah. And then every day I had to download the computer to have a tape of the progress that had been made, and I remember one time I didn't have the time to do that, and I think it was a Friday because there was a game going on. You had to supervise these football games. And so on the weekend I drove back on campus and got inside the building and was downloading, and after I got through downloading the computer I decided to go to the math office, and as I was walking towards the math office this person with a .45 pistol had his gun pointed at me and turns out he was security. And I did not know that the campus had an alarm system, and so when I went into the building it apparently set off the alarm.

SY: Triggered the alarm.

GN: And, anyway, when I saw the security he looked at me and he told me to freeze, and he seemed like he was frightened, so that made me scared when, especially when the guy with the gun is frightened. And I explained to him why I was there and showed him my ID card, then it was fine.

[Interruption]

SY: Okay, so talking about teaching, and then you getting caught by the security guard. [Laughs]

GN: Yeah, so that was an incident that I remember that occurred.

SY: Did you have any run-ins with the students at all? Did you have --

GN: I personally did not. I know in the first segment -- and I don't know, when I was playing it back it seemed like the sound went out when I indicated what had happened, but just to kind of go over that again, near... well, I guess it was the last day of class before the Christmas break, I decided to show the eight millimeter, Super 8 film that I had from world kendo tournament that I participated in, Okinawa. And so I thought I'd show that to the students. I also took some film of the basketball team playing basketball as well, but when I showed the kendo match that I had turns out that the, this one student who the following semester was not in my class but I guess he was ditching school, but he was with a couple other friends, and his friend happened to knock on my classroom door and peeked in. And so his friend told him that, "Mr. Nakano is bad, better leave him alone," and then they quietly closed the door and left. [Laughs]

SY: That's great.

GN: But subsequent to my being at Jordan High School as a math teacher and then also coordinating the, which was called the Model Cities Program at that time, the computer used for instruction, the math department head had left L.A. Unified and had gone to work at Inglewood School District as the project director of the, at that time the Title I SB-90 and early childhood education program for the district. And then they were looking for an assistant director and I got a call from him asking me to apply for the position. I had some reservations in that I wanted to at least teach for at least five years before going into administration, but a lot of times I know that even though you may want to go into administration the positions are just not around. And there were a lot of Asian Americans, I know, in L.A. Unified who wanted to move into an administrative position but never could 'cause it all depended on the openings that were available. Well here was an opportunity for me to move into an administrative position, and I realized that there may not be another position like this for a number of years, so I decided to go in for the interview and they decided to hire me. And so I worked in that position in Inglewood School District.

SY: I see, and the position involved doing what exactly?

GN: It's providing leadership for the schools that's involved, elementary schools, and also for the Title I specialist that they have at each school. They'll have a, like a math specialist, a reading specialist, which'll be part of a pull out program for those students who are, had qualified to be part of that program. And also they'll have a coordinator at each school who oversees the program at that particular site. And so our job is to get the federal and state funded funds and allocate it to each school based on the enrollment of the students that's involved with the program.

SY: And this was for all of LAUSD or just a certain --

GN: No, this was now in Inglewood School District.

SY: Oh, Inglewood, right. I'm sorry.

GN: Yeah, it won't be all the schools. Certain schools would be involved with it. Some schools were located in a higher social economic area and so they were not part of the program.

SY: I see. And what did you learn from that experience? What did you get out of it?

GN: Well, one of the important elements of that program was multicultural education, and so, and it was sort of in the beginning of multicultural education in the education sector. And so there were challenges. There have, there were people who were kind of an expert in that area, and so I would attend their workshops and learn from them and try to incorporate it within our program. And so those are the more interesting parts of it, being involved in anything, is that when it's relatively new they try to incorporate something and find the right kind of program to be a part of the required...

SY: So that was very helpful in terms of your growth later in working in politics?

GN: No, I think the one that was more helpful was eventually I took a position as an assistant principal at an elementary school, and so now you not only have the management responsibility with the classroom teachers as well as evaluating them, but also working with the public, the parents. And sometimes you will have some irate parents come into school, and learning how to handle those kind of situations, I think that was the important part of being in public office.

SY: Managing people.

GN: Yes.

SY: So if you were to do it over again would you prefer teaching or the administration end?

GN: I enjoyed both. And I'm not really answering your question. I think the administration end, one of the other things I did at the elementary school level was I decided to work with the Gates students, the gifted students, and so what I did was -- and I was interested in, like, recreational math -- and so I would pull them out of the classroom and I would conduct the class and do some mathematical recreation with them. I also taught them a little bit about how an airplane flies, why they would fly, just basic things like that. And then what I, another thing that I did was ordered rocket ship models, and there's a big catalog from the educational supply companies and so we purchased that, those items, and I had the students build rocket ships. And then on the multicultural day they would be, they would do the final part of the program, and that is to fire off the rockets in the air. And then this one particular elementary school I was at, Worthington Elementary, it was adjacent to the public park and they had an agreement with the city that while the school was in session the park would be part of the playground for the schools, and so the park had a fence around it to keep the public out so only the students would have access to it. So you had this large area and that is where the rocket ships would be launched, and it would go up in the sky and you won't be able to see it because it goes up so high. And then all of a sudden you see this parachute with a rocket attached to it coming down, but it was exciting for the kids to do that. So those are the kind of things that you could do as an administrator that you can't do as a classroom teacher.

SY: I see.

GN: So there's, both positions are...

SY: Open to teaching.

GN: Yeah, it's new things that you can do that's exciting.

SY: Right, right. So did you notice any kind of interracial conflict while you were in the school system? Was there --

GN: The schools that I was at didn't seem to have that problem. Perhaps it was because at the elementary level. I know at the high school level you could have that kind of problem where you have... and usually it happens when the minority groups happen to be the majority.

SY: And you didn't feel any, singled out as being Asian or any kind of discrimination?

GN: No.

SY: That's great.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.