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VY: What would you like people to understand, kind of, in general about teachers and some of the challenges they face?

NO: I don't know. In a sentence? Well, my grandmother was a teacher, and when they came back to Japan, she had the three boys. There was a fourth son, but my grandparents got divorced, and we didn't know this for many years, she was too smart in an era when men were king. So that's another day. And so the teachers and their challenges today, my father is a judo teacher. So we come from working with people, not against people, and showing them, not telling them. I have asked many teachers, "Are you having fun?" Because I always had fun, and I'd like to do new things. And they look so tired, they're half my age, they're tired. And they burn out, they go, "I'm burned out," I'm looking at them like, "You're kind of young." I went to the Teach for America to speak and they said, they wanted to talk to me about retirement. I said, "Oh, you're like, just beginning." They wanted to know what they were going to get. And it's great, but it's getting less because money's getting tighter. So I have a health benefit, this sounds great, but it's really Medicare plus the addendum is covered. So the district isn't paying the big one, they're paying the small one, but that's still a blessing, 'cause it was three, four hundred dollars a month. But that worries me that they're asking questions, "When can I retire?" "I feel burned out," "I'm doing something else," "I left the charter school." I said, "You left a charter school? They are really loose. Come on." They're kind of lost in a way, the Japanese American people that I have met. And are teaching, they're young, they are looking for something. So this generation, they are challenged, it's not teachers are challenging, they are challenged because parents still have high expectations.

My grandson lives with me, and I didn't have him for his first eighteen years, he wants to be a teacher. I smile because I'm thinking, wow, I could help him, but they don't want too much help. But what he learned in the last two years is he can get very good grades. He got a very good job because of my connections, he's working with L.A.'s Best after school, he likes to do basketball, so he's having fun. But I wonder, and I explained to him, "These kids need you. The reason why they're in this program is because their parents are working, that's how they qualify. Because when you were a baby, your mother said, 'Why do you have free preschool?'" She has to pay Montessori prices. I said, "Because they need this help, this step up." So we can't water the program down, because what I discovered is they don't know how to hold scissors, how to hold a pen. So the teacher's job, especially with bilingual children, or monolingual, whatever country they're from, Armenia now and other countries, the job is very difficult, they have to understand their culture, their economic status, what their parents' expectations are, because they're not all equal. Sometimes they're higher than what we are offering and we have to meet that. But I want the teachers and the kids to be happy, and that bothers me that they're not joyful because we only have one life. And you go to school, and you put in all this time, and you should be treated as professionals. And I know that one complaint I get is sometimes they're not appreciated enough. So I spend a lot of time, myself, on that.

I felt I didn't have anything special to offer, I'm just one person. I'd be there every morning, and I didn't bring you flowers, I thought about it, because I grow a garden for two reasons. One is to take flowers to school so that your birthday you get a whole plate of flowers. I don't want to spend any money on it, and I had teas at my house, come for tea under a wisteria tree. And my teacher said she kept all my notes, and I thought, wow, she had a bunch of them, just have a good day, or they come in late and they're expecting you to scream, and I said, "I'm glad you made it." So I think the administrators have to think of how they look at it, and later on say, "What's bothering you, what's going on?" privately, not in front of the children to embarrass them. So my best friend's tough, and I'm soft, but we're really good together, because I tell them why I do it this way, and she'll tell me why I'm wrong. And maybe I was wrong a little bit, so I learned a little bit from her, be a little stronger. But she says, "I can't read your mind, you know." And I said, "Okay," so I have to tell people. Because you're guiding them, you're teaching the teacher, teaching the parents, so you have to think about that. But I'm sad when they're not happy. I think that they have the most important job ever, and every day, I was pretty happy.

Even the day that, oh, my god, challenge, somebody was accused of cheating on a test, that means the whole school's scores are going to be wiped out, that's my report card, oh, my god. It was my birthday. It's okay, I'm strong, I told myself, "I'm strong, we'll get through this." But we will tell the truth, because you never have to change your story if it's the truth, just bear down and get through it, and we did. And this teacher sends me all these cards every day, and I'm thinking, "She doesn't know how much turmoil she caused me, maybe I'll tell her one day." But I finally wrote back to her that I'm glad that she's retired and she's happy. But that was scary because -- excuse me -- it would have erased all of our good work. We worked pretty hard all year long, we analyzed what's missing, how can we pump up vocabulary, these kids are not getting their equations, how do we explain it so they get it. I put them in competitions like Mathnasium does today, it was called something else. And I'd walk them up the street to play the mandolins for the private school up there. The things that... I think that it's their community, and it'd be part of it, and it's how I meet people who still know how to do this. And so that's nice because what it is, is as you get older, we can't learn how to dance without being self-conscious when you're older. Like I used to dance, but my husband doesn't dance. So I just lost a lot of that. But I think you have to expose children to everything early on, and then when they get to middle school, they might join chorus, maybe not, but they're not going to get braver in middle school and our high schools, you have to expose them early. So even though they turn into teenage monsters, they do come back and redeem themselves. But it's a challenging job because you're creating the world, literally.

My grandson wasn't going to vote, because he said Hilary won already. I said, "You get in the car, we're going to vote. We're gonna vote." It's part of a discipline, my father always voted. We vote, we take the driver's test, we get a hundred, this is the expectation. But he was pretty shocked, he was pretty shocked. So I keep my ballot all the time to remind me to vote. You better vote or you're going to get what you get. But anyway, this too shall pass, and maybe our president... there's a cute Chinese comedian, he was on, and he says, "You know, Mr. Trump has done a lot for this country. Before, people sit on the couch and watch TV, now they all go on marches, the women's march the LGBTQ march, we had this march, and everybody's all up exercising, isn't that great?" So that was maybe, you have to kind of look at it from different points of view. I don't remember his whole skit, but I get a kick out of these things, 'cause I think it's funny. It's true, you know, a lot of us were just sitting down and not participating. So poor Alexander will come back from his work and I said, "Get in the car, we're going to go vote." But you've got to do that. Are you good? Are you done? More?

VY: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for doing this today. Is there anything, one more thing that you want to talk about, or is there one thing that you feel like you would like people to come away from this with? I think you've done a really good job of telling your story.

NO: I know hoping for world peace is too big, but I will think about that. Make your life a masterpiece, which is starting within. Because we have choices, and we have to... it's like my name says, to have a cooperative spirit to work together as a team, and we'll make it that way. We'll make it our goal. If you don't set goals and you don't care about anything, it's a life wasted. You really need to care about other people, especially our family. Sometimes you worry too much about other people, so I'm always evaluating how much my kids are missing, because I'm busy. (Not so) we need to care, and show we care.

VY: Well said. Thank you so much.

NO: Thank you.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.