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Janet Mutsumi Daijogo
By Nancy
Harris
In conjunction with the Writer's Center of Marin
“I understand just how trauma can affect a child,” says Janet Daijogo
in an interview with Tirrell B. Graham, “and just how important it is to
empower children who are under severe emotional stress, to show them the
resources they carry in themselves for meeting life’s challenging episodes.”
As a Japanese American child in 1940’s California, Janet knows about
childhood trauma first hand. After
Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, an executive order issued by President
Roosevelt called for the evacuation of all American citizens and legal aliens of
Japanese ancestry. Evacuation was initially voluntary.
Soon, growing suspicion about the loyalty of Japanese-Americans and
antagonism toward those bearing Japanese features convinced the army that these
citizens needed to be removed from the general population. On
March 27, 1942, the U. S. Army began orchestrating a forced evacuation of
all Japanese Americans.
A military police officer arrived at the farm Janet’s parents were
running in Pescadero and searched the premises.
“My mother said that after the MP left, I couldn’t stop shaking for
two hours,” Janet recalls. “I
know that I was traumatized. From
this early experience of my own,
and after years of having worked with disturbed children, I know how frightening
it is for little kids when they cannot control their own bodies.”
Later, when Janet and her family were being transported to the Central
Utah Relocation Center, their train stopped in the middle of the desert and
guards surrounded the locomotive with weapons drawn.
Janet’s mother pulled down the blinds on the train’s windows.
“Many years later, my mother told us she’d covered the windows
because she didn’t want us to see the guards with their guns.
She was so angry. The
eviction from our home and imprisonment in the camp - it was a terrible
disruption to our lives.”
Janet and her family endured the internment camp for three years.
“I was really impacted by the sense that the world was not a safe place
for me,” says Janet, “I had nightmares for years after living in the
camp.”
The camps were dusty and patrolled by soldiers day and night.
Blocks of indistinguishable barracks were surrounded by open ditches
holding sewer pipes. Internees slept on army cots in the large, open rooms that
had been constructed quickly and were unfinished.
There was almost no privacy in the barracks.
Despite the promises of camp officials, building materials for partitions
and furniture were never provided. Avoiding the guards and open sewer ditches,
prisoners looked for lumber after dark. All
prisoners, including Janet’s family, were plagued by a sense of uncertainty
about the future.
“Our parents struggled,” says Janet, “and children carried their
own wounds from memories of the camps. For
most of us, it took a long time and hard work to heal the humiliation and shame,
the feeling that there was something wrong with us because of the way we looked.
The discrimination against us was based on the way we looked, not on our
character; it was racism.”
After three years in the camp, Janet, her parents, and her three siblings
returned to California and resumed their lives.
All four children went on to college under what the family referred to as
“the buddy system.” As the
oldest, Janet went to college first, graduating from the University of
California at Berkeley with a Bachelor’s Degree and going on to obtain her
elementary credential and completing thirty units of graduate work.
Once she’d secured her position as a fifth and sixth grade teacher in
the San Francisco Unified School District, Janet began sending from one-third to
one-half of her paycheck to her sister, who, in turn, was able to attend
college. “In the end all four of
us graduated; both my sister and I became teachers and our brothers earned a PhD
and a doctorate in pharmacy.
Before settling in Marin County with husband Sam, and joining the Marin
Child Development Center in San Rafael as a therapist and teacher, Janet earned
more teaching experience in South San Francisco, San Diego, Tokyo, and Chula
Vista. “Some of the public
schools were very tough,” she remembers, “and some of the teachers crushed
the spirits of little children. I
was determined not to be that kind of teacher.”
For eighteen years, Janet worked with disturbed children at the center in
San Rafael. Her students were at
risk because of a range of difficulties they suffered, including the challenges
of learning differences, severe emotional problems, and autism.
Janet’s learning-disabled students had difficulty with reading,
spelling, understanding spoken language, and expressing themselves clearly in
speaking or writing. Many also
suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.
The combination of an inability to communicate effectively and an
inability to bring their attention to the task at hand or the teacher left many
feeling powerless.
Her autistic students suffered even more devastating disabilities.
Autistic children typically demonstrate deficiencies in verbal and
non-verbal communication, social interactions, and recreational activities.
They often cannot communicate with others and do not relate to the
outside world.
Before a learning-disabled or autistic child is able to study in a
classroom, he must learn strategies for communicating and must acquire common
social skills. Just getting through
to children with these disabilities almost always requires enormous energy and
tenacity. Janet concluded that her
university coursework based largely on theoretical models for teaching
wouldn’t work, despite the fact that so many of her students were remarkably
intelligent.
“To work with these kids, I had to throw out “book learning.” I had
to engineer strategies that worked for me in helping them.
I was fortunate to have the support and encouragement of some very gifted
mentors, including Jim Donovan, a well-respected psychiatrist and invaluable
friend.” Janet recognized quickly
that if she was going to make progress with the students, it was essential to
reach each one individually on an intimate level.
“I really had to connect
with each child’s heart. Before
establishing that connection, these at-risk children were lost to me as a
teacher. Unlike normally-developing
children, they didn’t approach me with the expectation of getting what I, as a
teacher, had to offer. I had to
dive in, bring them to me, and give them a sense of me, as I tried to get a
sense of them. Once I had that
connection with a child, I could clear blockages, I could begin imparting
information to an individual who was focused and able to engage with me and
other people.”
With Janet’s help, many of the students at the center were
mainstreamed. “That was the goal
and most of them made it,” she adds. The
mother of one of her students writes that Janet reached her son by engaging him
in games that boosted his self-esteem. “Looking back now,” she writes, “I
am able to appreciate her creative and innovative techniques directed to
teaching ‘the whole child.’ She
was the catalyst who made it possible for my son to enter the local public
elementary school. He soon became an honor student and went on to study at U. C.
Berkeley.”
Dr. James Donovan, Janet’s colleague and friend, writes, “Janet’s
work with the children under her care has been exceptional.
She has displayed warmth, caring, and a willingness to remain in contact
with both her students and their parents under any circumstances.
The depth of her commitment and her understanding of their needs has
enabled her to work with assurance and patience.
Janet has a unique ability to be both firm and loving, is able to
maintain discipline while encouraging creativity, and has an unusually thorough
understanding of the children’s emotional problems without losing sight of the
goal of providing them with a solid education.”
Janet’s work at the center was challenging and she believes it was
because of her own personal good fortune that she was able to meet the obstacles
of her career daily for eighteen years. Her
husband is her “incredible life companion,” her daughers, Tane and Maki,
“an extraordinary gift”—normally developing children who were so different
compared with the population Janet taught at the Marin Child Development Center.
She laughs, recalling that she “was easy on Tane and Maki.
I just enjoyed who they were. They sustained me.”
Janet Daijogo discovered another source of spiritual replenishment during
those years at the center: she became an accomplished designer and seamstress of
art-to-wear clothing. Art-to-Wear, Merlin’s Collection of Mill Valley, and
AuCourant of Sun Valley have featured her designs. Janet mounted an exhibition and slide show of her work at the
Mill Valley Library.
“It is important for me
personally to keep a balance among work, home, and craft. I need to work with my
hands or practice Aikido or I begin to get anxious.”
Within a year of launching her clothing line, Janet found an art that has
become her mainstay, the modern martial art of Aikido.
Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, designed an art based on four
principles: centering, the extension of energy, grounding, and executing
techniques with relaxation. The name itself reflects the principles of this
practice, which is both a martial art and a spiritual discipline. “Ai”
stands for harmony, “ki” for life energy or the essence of all natural life,
and “do” for the path or the
way. Janet considers the techniques
of Aikido in terms of their metaphoric associations with techniques for living.
In the Shambhala Guide to Aikido, author John Stevens
describes the goal of Aikido: “to subdue one’s base nature and triumph over
one’s weaknesses or fears rather than to defeat an opponent in some trivial
game.” Grounding and centering,
the first two basic principles of the art, are achieved by cultivating an acute
awareness of and focus on the senses.
Some techniques for developing awareness and focus include concentration
on breathing, balance, and gravity. “By
cultivating our concentration for staying with our sensations, we develop a kind
of strength which enables us to stay in the present,” writes Wendy Palmer in The
Intuitive Body: Aikido as a Clairsentient Practice.
Centering through the practice of Aikido helps an individual live in the
here and now, to be present in a moment as it unfolds.
It also provides a place of security and confidence from which to assess
the energy of another and to know how to act in the face of that energy. Aikido
nurtures confidence and self-empowerment.
“I think the genius of Aikido is in the concept of the blending of
energies,” adds Janet. “If you
were about to attack me, for instance, I would literally turn to look in the
same direction as you in order to see from your point of view.
I would gain control over your energy and guide it in order to neutralize
it. In me, our energies would become blended.”
When Janet Daijogo joined the faculty at the Marin Country Day School as
a kindergarten teacher, she recognized Aikido as a valuable teaching tool and a
means of promoting self-esteem in her students. Combining the principles of Aikido with the traditional
classroom curriculum, Janet imparts the message that her students and everyone
around them has energy, that however they project themselves is energy, and that
they have choices about the kind of energy they project. “They can choose, for example, to be cooperative or to be
mean.”
She teaches the kindergarteners to describe their energy and that they
can use their energy with skill. “In
kindergarten, children are individually responsible for their own energy.
If a child is faced with someone emitting negative energy, that child
must get centered and self-accepting in order to know how to respond.
Practitioners of Aikido say that when they wait for the right response to
come to them, they are allowing skillful actions to make themselves known.”
“If a friend says she is not going to invite you to her birthday party,
you don’t argue with her or hurt her feelings.
Your first job is to center yourself, to become quiet and calm.
When you’re in this focused state, an appropriate response will make
itself known.” Janet explains
that by achieve a sense of calm centering, a practitioner of Aikido can go
beyond the negative tape that runs repeatedly through the mind.
“We all have tapes we play
in our minds: ‘poor me,’ or ‘I gotta be first,’ for example.
To transcend the tape, individuals must focus on their fundamental
presence, must sense their personal energy.
To really be in a relationship is to attend to another person. It may
sound strange, but you really want to serve the other person in a way.”
Word of Janet’s unique educational approach spread throughout the
community. “When she presents a workshop or seminar, we flock to her with our
notebooks and pencils, trying to take down every word of wisdom,” says one
student’s parent.
Janet’s work with her kindergarteners, their parents, and other
educators soon earned her the
prestigious California Educator Award. The
award of $25,000 is sponsored by the state Department of Education and financed
by the Milken Family Foundation in Los Angeles. Each
year, 12 outstanding California educators receive the prize.
The foundation members commended Janet for her leadership in nurturing
self-esteem in her students, her demonstrated commitment to growing and sharing
with colleagues, and her efforts toward creating a professional development and
evaluation model for the school staff at Marin Country Day School.
When notified of Janet’s award, Marin Country Day School Headmaster
Timothy Johnson noted that “in an extraordinary way, and with great
simplicity, she invites children, parents, and colleagues to understand and
honor themselves.”
With colleague Diane Maxon, Janet offered
an enlightening presentation to MCDS parents entitled “Self-Esteem.”
Drawing on her own personal experiences as a child traumatized during the
second world war, as a teacher, and as the holder of a second degree black belt
in Aikido, Janet gave a compelling talk encouraging her audience members to
adopt a stance from which they could foster self-esteem in their children.
M. E. A. McNeil-Draper, reporting for The MCDS Piper,
quotes Janet’s recollection of a pivotal experience that gave her valuable
insight on the issue of self-esteem.
Janet described an emotionally disturbed student she had been coaxing
into contact with her. “I kept
saying, ‘Be in the present. Be in the now’ as I urged him to look at me.
Later, in family therapy, the student’s mother sat absent-mindedly, and
he went to her, looking into her vacant eyes, saying, ‘Where is your gift to
me’? I realized he thought of her attention as a gift that she was withholding
from him.”
Janet saw just how important it is to seize the opportunity in moments
like these, when a child expresses the need for acknowledgement from parents and
teachers. The acknowledgement
of a child builds self-esteem by saying “you are important enough to
listen to.” Listening, says
Janet, requires the practice of bringing oneself into the present. “Whatever
is keeping you from the present,” she says, “is not worth it.”
Covering Janet’s address at a gathering of Chinese for Affirmative
Action member families and their guests, reporter M. J. Pramik described her
talk. Janet discussed the ways in
which parents can foster a positive self-concept in their children. When parents
compliment their children, accept their mistakes, and offer physical affection,
the children’s self-esteem increases. When
children feel good about themselves, says Janet, they are better prepared to
meet the challenges that lie ahead of them in adulthood.
Adults with high self-esteem take risks more willingly, make friends more
easily, join group tasks more readily, and are generally better at accepting
their mistakes with humor.
Janet Daijogo has devoted her life to helping children acquire skills to
sustain them in the adult world. Her
passionate pursuit on behalf of her students is driven by a lifelong curiosity
about what allows children to become ready to learn and a determination to
discover how lessons can be taught effectively.
“It sustains and inspires me to keep finding better ways of reaching
kids, of managing content and subject matter so that children like it and have
fun with it.”
When asked by interviewer Tirrell Graham what she would have done
differently if she could change her life, Janet responded with certainty.
“Nothing. I like my life. I like what I’ve done.
I feel true to what I wanted to do.
I really want to be in the classroom.
I feel happy with what I chose to do and how I chose to do it. I want to
continue my life as it is. If I go
out as a kindergarten teacher, I’ll be perfectly happy.”
She adds that her next challenge is turning toward a new generation,
since becoming a grandmother on her very own birthday.
“My impulse is to transmit my love of books, science, craft, Aikido,
energy, and enthusiasm for life to this granddaughter.
To her and to other young girls, I offer this advice: do what you want to
do, follow your own dream, and have a center so you can be informed of what you
want to do and not what somebody else wants you to do or what you think society
expects of you. Follow your heart.
“And I think all the rest comes to you if you are true to that one
central principle. You’ll find out what you need to know, where you need to go
to school, who your true teachers are going to be. In fact, if you can stay open to your own needs and desires,
the very best teachers will probably fall right into your lap.”
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