EVERY CHILD CAN BE EDUCATED
Dr. Shinichi Suzuki, the originators of the SUZUKI METHOD of learning has a favorite number. This number, 10,000, is the number of repetitions it takes for one to become a professional of a skill. Anyone who is Japanese and in the arts understand, through hundreds of years of traditional history, the idea of the ten years it takes for any student to become the first level of “Master” in their practice.
Malcom Gladwell, in his book OUTLIERS, suggests that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs repeated the skills they loved enough to put in 10,000 hours related to computers.
Twenty hours a week of practice is one thousand hours a year. That is why Dr. Suzuki started children at the age of 3 to start practicing the violin as he developed his method of education. He said, “That way, children can get in the ten years before they get busy with high school studies.”
A three-year-old does not start with three hours of playing the instrument every day. It is just as important to develop an attitude of accomplishment - listening to the music recordings for where one is aiming; parents have to organize their lives to include even 15 minutes a day of practice and going to lessons.
In 1967 Mihoko Yamaguchi came from Matsumoto, Japan, to help Sister Annella develop Seattle’s first Suzuki School of Music at Holy Names Academy.
![Touring Portland Japanese Gar...]()
Touring Portland Japanese Garden
Last weekend, I met my high school classmate at the Portland Japanese Garden where I was treated to a private tour because he is on the board of the 12 acre garden. The esthetics live up to the claim they have created one of the most authentic Japanese Gardens in the world outside of Japan.
Proof of the garden’s popularity is that I drove around for half an hour before there was even one parking spot to be found. It seems that a large percentage of the visitors are from out of town.
Calvin Tanabe and I met at the ticketing enclosure and gate. What I found stirring is Calvin’s commitment for the sharing of our Japanese Heritage Values for the benefit of our larger American community. We entered the “Calvin and Mayho Tanabe Gate”. The “Tanabe Gallery” adjacent to the gift shop provides the community with the year-round opportunity to deepen the visitors understanding of the art and culture of Japan.
We spent four hours sharing stories and reminiscing the path taken to this point in his life. I am humbled to know Calvin who, grew up and graduated with the 117 of us at OHS ’56 from the Eastern Oregon town of Ontario.
After medical school and training as a neurosurgeon he served in Viet Nam. His comments were that he kept himself totally consumed with work, as one of Portland’s top neurosurgeons, until his retirement and is currently enjoying his garden and fresh vegetables.
“Calvin and Mayho Tanabe Address” is a program established in 2014 with Oregon Health & Science and Portland State School of Public Health to offer differing perspectives on important topics related to public health. Each year a speaker is selected to bring diverse ideas to the community and encourage a free exchange of ideas.
The following day I toured the Japanese American Museum of Oregon on Flander Street. We toured the exhibit in the “Calvin and Mayho Tanabe Gallery”.
What a privilege to know individuals like Cal and Mayho!
![Yuki Inagaki, Yuka Shimizu, Co...]()
Yuki Inagaki, Yuka Shimizu, Consul General Inagaki, Hiro Tojo
Dee Goto, Michi Hirata North
The newest Consulate General from Japan to Seattle is Hisao Inagaki. Three of us, Michi Hirata North, Concert Pianist and PianoTeacher; Yuka Shimizu, creator of the Bellevue Children’s Academy, and I were special guests to meet Consul Inagaki and his wife Yuki, arranged by Hiro Tojo.
Michi Hirata North and I are best friends because the Suzuki “Talent Education” for violin, cello and piano was first developed in Michi’s home in Tokyo. I helped start the Seattle Suzuki School at Holy Names Academy where I helped interpret when the first teacher from Japan, Mihoko Yamaguchi Hirata, came to develop the program started by Sister Annella.
Because of Covid-isolation there had been no large welcome events as usual for the new Consul General. We arrived at 6:30 pm and didn’t leave until after 11pm because we had such a good time talking and telling stories around the seven course dinner created by Chef Kenichiro Tsushima.
The story of this experience will certainly be retold for several years to come. There is nothing I enjoy more than person to person, in depth, discussions and sharing the stories of what brings each of us to our “present” circumstances.
![See all the fruit bulbs from wh...]()
See all the fruit bulbs from
which the flowers originally hung?
Where am I putting my energy toward a fulfilling life? I just spent the last hour redirecting the energy of the fuchsia plants hanging across the front of our house. What we want are thriving branches with flowers to show off beauty and inspire us.
Watering daily is a given, but in the month or two that we’ve had the plants, I’ve not paid attention to the beauty for the rest of this year’s growing. The first thing I do is to pull off the dead flowers and bulbs that become fruit if I want the energy to be redirected to new flower buds.
Similarly, in my life, I am thinking of where my energy is directed beyond the “watering” or daily essentials. I need to cut off putting energy into what I no longer want?
My goal is to develop inspiring Japanese Heritage related stories that are flowers, of a legacy of values for a better world, that carries on to the next generations.
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