His Parents’ View
Barbara and Kiyoshi Suzaki
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A parents’ perspective on their own child is hardly unbiased. We pondered what insights we might share that would fill in between the lines of the application to give you a deeper understanding of Kenji. We hope the story that follows brings him to life for you.
In retrospect, Kenji’s arrival into our family was quite indicative of his overall temperament. Forty- four hours of labor did not alter a perfectly steady heart rhythm nor cause him any distress to justify terminating his mother’s torture. He arrived on his due date to coincide with his grandfather’s birthday, a source of great pride to the eldest son in a Japanese family.
Kenji’s early years were full of happy adventures and unstructured play. He was and has remained a very adaptable individual who embraces new experiences. At age 3, he traveled alone with his father on a month long business trip to Japan. He cheerfully attended preschool in Japan that month even though he arrived not speaking any Japanese. Kenji makes friends easily and has a joy for life. By the time he started kindergarten he had visited over 15 countries often spending time with local families. He eagerly accepted sleepover invitations for example, with families in Indonesia (age 5) and France (age 6). Yet, his closest friend, Connor, has remained constant since they first began school together.
An important element of Kenji’s life has always been his summers spent in Ireland. Hectic work schedules in his early years were balanced by three months with Mom and Dad in the Irish countryside uninterrupted by television, faxes or computers.
There he learned the joys of a simpler life, unhurried and unstructured with freedom to explore. Friendships with local children deepened after he attended the 3-room village school for 2nd grade. Visitors from California remarked with surprise as he showed them around explaining the merits of different types of tractors and his latest exploits at neighboring farms. Even now, spending time in Ireland is top of his list for summer adventures. The past two summers he insisted on traveling to Ireland on his own and spending a week renewing friendships before we arrived. He demonstrates pride in this sense of independence displaying a confident grin on his face as we wave goodbye at the airport.
This gives rise to the issue of why we are considering boarding school as an option for Kenji. This was, needless to say, Kenji’s idea. We first visited a boarding school two years ago with the expectation of moving in the future and sending him as a day pupil. Shortly after arriving on campus, his face lit up as he announced that he wanted to go to boarding school and that we need not move. He has not wavered from that initial observation but rather confirmed it after visiting several other schools. Kenji is comfortable with who he is and is willing to choose a path different from that of his friends if he believes it is the right one for him. We have come to believe that this represents an extraordinary opportunity for him to grow both as a person and as a student. We are confident that he will embrace all that a boarding school environment offers from the sense of camaraderie with fellow students to the important human connection with his teachers.
Over the years, several teachers significantly influenced Kenji’s development. He was one of the last in his 1st grade class to master reading but now he is about the only boy in his class who truly loves to read. After his 3rd grade teacher, Mr.” A.”, introduced the Redwall Series and The Chronicles of Narnia, Kenji was hooked on reading. This beloved teacher also played the cello in the classroom and introduced them to Latin. When it came time for Kenji to select an instrument in 5th grade, it simply had to be the cello. His 6th grade Literature teacher, Mrs. Friesen, was very demanding but planted the seed for creative writing. Her readers’ journal had the children writing weekly letters to classmates, parents, and her about the books they were reading. She came to understand him as a reader, frequently suggesting another author for Kenji to explore until he had eagerly read over fifty novels by that June. His 7th grade science teacher, Mr. Renner, was infectious in his enthusiasm for Biology and his ability to relate to students. Our dinner conversations quickly shifted gears to science that year while Kenji would eagerly await the arrival of the next issue of Scientific American.
Watching him in school these past years, we can see that his motivation to excel is derived more from positive relationships with teachers than from striving for grades. By his very nature, he does not see value in playing what is a game to him, at times causing him to be his own worst enemy. For example, last year he worked very diligently on a PowerPoint presentation on stealth technology putting in excess of 30 hours over a two- week period. The presentation was well received (65/67 possible) but his overall project grade was dropped from an A to a B because of the format of the heading on his research note cards. As his parents, this has been a source of frustration watching him overlook the obvious, easy points but characteristically, it has been our frustration and not his. In his work, he generally values substance over form only grudgingly paying attention to details of format. Paradoxically, he enjoys attending cotillion even breaking out the Q-tips after showering for the occasion.
What does all of this tell you about him? We ‘re not sure, which may be the most interesting point of all. He is a happy, independent young man with a solid head on his shoulders and a good spirit but still a work in progress. The next four years in boarding school will provide him with so many new experiences and opportunities to stretch and grow that the end product is not clearly definable now. Whatever he may become, we are confident that he will lead an interesting life of substance and continue to be a source of great joy, and amazement to his parents.
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