GOTO-HEALTH

“EVERY CHILD CAN BE EDUCATED” -Dr.Shinichi Suzuki

 

 

A Spring day walk, April 1967, around the block on Seattle’s

Capitol Hill with our 3-year-old, changed my life! That was when

I was talked into starting Suzuki Violin Music Lessons for our

older daughter, Lynette, with Sister Annella at the Little White House

across the street from Holy Names Academy.

 

Sister Annella saw that I was of Japanese heritage and a teacher was coming to Seattle from Matsumoto, Japan, where Dr. Shinichi Suzuki had developed his Talent Education program. Suzuki music was being introduced to the USA by people like Vilem Sokol of Seattle’s Youth Symphony and his friend John Kendall of Oberlin College. Sokol also lived in our  neighborhood and his children were involved. When Mihoko Yamaguchi arrived, I was asked to translate for some of her first sessions with the teachers Sister Annella had recruited for her Suzuki program. I learned the importance of skill building in the early years before high school for good self-esteem.

 

I helped incorporate the Suzuki School of Music in Seattle. Also at that time, my husband and I set a goal, “To see responsible, kind and honest great grandchildren with good self-esteem”.  We have five grandchildren. Number three is graduating from UC Santa Barbara with some first place swimming titles and number four is graduating from high school with a first place Washington State Drill Team title for Mercer Island High School Drill Team.  Self-esteem is built with learning a skill. Dr. Suzuki starts children at 3-years of age to get in 10 years of practice before the independent high school years.

 

Today, April 2026 almost sixty years later, I am finding another life changing mentor. I am listening to Arthur Brooks, professor of “Happiness”, a course he teaches at the Harvard Business School, saying, “I teach HAPPINESS and teach you to teach HAPPINESS!”. Brooks grew up in Seattle and was involved, maybe with Suzuki in his preschool years, but with Sokol’s Seattle Youth Symphony with his French horn.

 

I find synchronicity in these mentorships in being similarly led to serve my USA community with aspects of my Japanese Heritage. Brooks constantly cites examples from Asia for happiness and fulfillment with right brain “why” learning to balance western left brain “how, what, where” learning.  My master’s thesis was on the difference between the right and left hemispheres of our brain.

 

My new mantra will be to: “Teach to teach Happiness!” So, where do I start? I will gather and reorganize some of the successful tools I have developed the 87 years of my life - developing skills, learning from my heritage, writing and sharing. 

 

My first goal is to have deep conversations and find more connections. Last week I had lunch with Bruce, owner of Chin Music Press. We agreed to develop a speaking, writing and publishing group for the purpose of sharing our Japanese Heritage Values with school children around our Washington state. I started a writing group, 35 years ago, OMOIDE (memories), that still meets monthly and publishes regularly. OMOIDE VI publication is part of JCCCW (Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington) which I helped incorporate 2003.

 

The unfair incarceration of all those of Japanese heritage during WWII in the 10+ prison camps around th USA is a way of getting attention. The stories we share about overcoming the horrors of the incarceration, discrimination and becoming successful are key. Research backs the value of heritage story knowledge and writing.

 

First, I educate the real child in myself and practice being a good person. Then, as a team: BE INVOLVED WITH THINGS THAT MAKE LIFE BETTER!!