George Katagiri in 1951
This is the kind of story that I find interesting.
George Katagiri (grandfather of Zach, who is on this blog and the co-owner of Peachyhost, which houses Thymos.org) was the elementary and high school teacher of Joan Harvey, a reporter for the Oregonian. Harvey recounts how whenever her district administrators would ask her to write down the names of her best teachers, she would write, “”Mr. Katagiri, Mr. Katagiri and Mr. Katagiri.”
Check out the story. George Katagiri was controversial from the start:
He came to Abernethy in 1951, when, as hard as it is to believe now, hiring a Japanese American teacher was controversial. There was at least one meeting before school started to “warn” parents that he would be there.
but he quickly commanded respect from the students and teachers. He took his job seriously, and he did it well:
Katagiri had been raised in the neighborhood, as poor as any of us. After only a couple of weeks in front of the classroom, he had us captured. He was young, funny and energetic, nothing like the dour, burnt-out teachers we’d had before. His enthusiasm and wonder for science were contagious. And he was oblivious to the 1950s tenet that girls couldn’t understand math or science.
Still, he wasn’t the kind of teacher who tried to be a pal to his students; he made us work hard.
He treated us all, girls and boys, poor and poorer, with respect. And, in turn, we respected him as we had no other teacher before or after.
What I like most about this description was that Katagiri was passionate about his job, but he was also stern. It sounds like he was also confident in taking ownership of his position, confident in the belief that things would turn out for the best if he was effective, not popular. It sounds like he was the kind of teacher who realized the doors that education could open up, and he made sure that his students learned. Way too many teachers and bureaucrats these days are in it just for the paycheck. As one Thymos member complained, “all they do is take, take, take.” Katagiri was clearly about giving.
Katagiri also stood his ground on matters of race:
Toward the middle of his second year at Abernethy we saw another side of him. We were amassed in the auditorium (the specific event I’ve long forgotten) and there was the usual noisy uproar of a couple hundred children with nothing to do but wait. Suddenly, Katagiri stormed over to two of the most belligerent boys, the school hooligans, arrogant and physically overdeveloped. Katagiri yanked them out of their seats by their shirt collars and yelled, “Don’t you ever call anybody that name again!” The boys towered over him but were cowed. The whole auditorium sat in shocked silence. No one had ever seen Katagiri as anything but affable and friendly. His rage was palpable; it sent vibrations throughout the whole auditorium. One of the boys had called another a pejorative for Chinese.
The silence continued until the principal, unaware anything had happened, arrived and started the program.
I’ll never know if the two boys ever used the word again. But I know every child in that auditorium learned that day that such words were intolerable to an adult we respected and admired. Not only were they intolerable, but they were outrageously intolerable.
It wasn’t easy to take a stand like this back in the day. Hell, it’s not easy to take a stand like this today. By standing up for what he believed in, he set an example not just for those two boys but for everyone who learned from him that such words are not tolerable. Way too many teachers see their job as a popularity contest, and they wind up failing because they only care about being liked. George Katagiri stood for his convictions, and people respected him for it.
I wanted to post this because this is really what the Thymos book project is all about. We want to hear stories about everyday heroes who contribute and make the world a better place. In his role as a teacher, George Katagiri taught. He was not only a teacher, but to Joan Harvey and many others, he was the best teacher there was. I can’t think of a better legacy for a person to leave.
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