Mr. Yesaki – Division One – Garden City School – 2025/2026

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Welcome to Mr. Yesaki’s class website. I look forward to teaching and working with all of my students and families in the coming months. This is my 23rd year teaching full-time at Garden City School and it is my 21st year teaching grade 6/7. I’ve had previous jobs as Vice-Principal at Garden City, as Resource teacher at Blundell School, and as an English teacher at JN Burnett high school.

I have taught and coached well over 2000 students from many different countries and I am confident that I can help any child given a willingness from the child and family to put forth an honest effort along with a positive attitude each day. I have very high expectations for my students in terms of their behaviour, responsibility, and attitude. I expect their best but I never ask my students to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself. Together, we will push each other to be our best.

Please feel free to contact me at any time if you have any questions or concerns about your child: syesaki@sd38.bc.ca I take my job as educator very seriously and I will address any and all issues as they arise. All the best to you for a fabulous year ahead.

Sean Yesaki

Garden City School – Richmond, BC

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Our story begins in Richmond, British Columbia with the children, families, and shared history of our community.  Our story develops in the classrooms of our school where we teach, learn, and think critically about our constantly evolving world and the complicated people within.  It continues in our shared spaces where we challenge each other to model personal and social responsibility while nurturing our creative and extra-curricular abilities.  Our staff are dedicated to helping develop citizens who are safe, happy, and prepared for the challenges of learning and living in a modern world while respecting the lands and people who nurtured the way for us.  Our students try their best to show their best but we understand that learning can be a challenge.  We are a community of learners engaged in lifelong learning.  Together we weave magic through the simplicity of one day, one mindful step at a time.  Our focus is on the learner but our goal is the world beyond hallways, playgrounds, and school bells.  Garden City’s school story is about our community and our world because we are you.

Back to School: Simple Tips to Consider

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I’ve been teaching kids (and they’ve been teaching me) for over 25 years. It’s never been easy but it’s always been rewarding. School life is complex for everyone but it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Tips For Parents:

1) Don’t try to solve all of your child’s problems at home or at school. Kids need to be able to sort through their issues themselves sometimes in order to be capable of doing the same in a world that is dynamic and unrelenting.

2) Have high expectations of your kids but be realistic.  Not everyone is built for elite level academics, athletics, or performance.  And, that’s okay.

3) Teachers, like parents, try their best. The style may not look like you imagine it should but at the heart is a deep caring for each child.

4) Keep engaged in what your kids are doing and how they are feeling at school. Sometimes, the best remedy is a non-judgmental ear with open arms.

5) Try your best not to imprint your childhood insecurities and life struggles on your kids.  Children shouldn’t be burdened with carrying the baggage of their parents.  That weight does significant damage.

Tips for Teachers:

1) Most kids are not wired to like school.  Most people are not wired to like work.  We’re all similar.  Keep that in mind when you plan for young minds.

2) The most effective role models are those who role model.  Talk is ineffective if it isn’t accompanied by action.

3) Treat all of your students with the same expectations. Imagine your parents favouring your siblings over you. It doesn’t feel fair, does it?

4) Get a life. The year is a marathon not a sprint. If you don’t find time for yourself in the craziness, you will break down before the finish line.

5) You are privileged with one of the greatest jobs – influencing young hearts and minds. Don’t ever take it for granted.

Tips for Students:

1) Remember that the adults in your life are only trying to help you.  We may not always make the best decisions but we are trying to help prepare you with the skills needed for a very complex life ahead.

2) If you think the adults in your life are annoying…wait until you have to take care of yourself in a world where the people around you will not tolerate your mistakes.

3) You are never alone.  There are always others who are feeling like you and there are always people who will listen to you if you need help.  But, you will need to speak up.

4) Put the phone down and get involved.  School life is much more fun when you spend time doing extra-curricular activities with other people.

5) Your job is to be a student.  Your parents’ job is to take care of you.  Your teachers’ job is to teach you.  School = future.  Simple math.

 

It definitely takes a village to raise a child.  The villagers sometimes squabble, sneer, and point fingers at one another but they need to remember that ultimately they all have the same focus: the child.

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Letter to Myself the Beginning Teacher

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I remember you. It’s been over 20 years now. You were so excited about anything to do with teaching. You thought that you could change the world by influencing the minds of the kids in your classroom. You thought that the kids had an extra bounce in their step as they made their way to school each morning. You were excited, yes excited, to write report cards and attend any school-related meetings.   I remember you.

You loved the beginning of the year and the shine off of the desks in the classroom light. You loved the boxes of new school supplies and you didn’t want to write on the chalkboard because it seemed so impossibly clean. You thought that the words you wrote there would somehow be a beacon, a mantra that would be remembered for years to come. You didn’t know that students would soon ask to take a photo of the board on their phone instead of actually having to copy the words with pencil and paper.

You will look at some of your students and wonder when exactly that light bulb will flicker, if only for a moment. You will sit dumbfounded when a student says, “I’m finished!” five-minutes after you handed out an assignment that took you 4 hours to create. You may hear that pin actually drop as that lesson that seemed so fantastic in your head on Sunday night, crashes with a dull thud on Monday first period. I remember you.

You’ll endure the jokes about teachers’ days starting at 9:00 and ending at 3:00 (with weekends off) as you sit there late Saturday night correcting the run-on sentences in a pile of essays. You’ll sit at your book-littered desk at 8:30 at night in a panic, wondering what exactly you were going to teach the kids the next morning and when exactly you would get home for dinner. You’ll be on vacation in a foreign country and see a painting that inspires an art lesson that you could teach your students. You’ll feel the rage as you console one of your crying 12 year-old players as he fouls out of a tight basketball game and the parents of the other team cheer boisterously.

You watch as the public grumble about teachers being too strict, too lenient, too lazy, too demanding, too uppity, too casual, too focused on strikes. You watch it all as Johnny hasn’t come back to class after recess because no one will play with him, Maggie sits in tears because she’s anxious that she might not pass her math test, George is hungry because he didn’t pack a lunch, again, Wendy is in the medical room because she fell and hurt her knee, and the other 26 students are waiting for you in what seems like the beginnings of sure anarchy.

But, you’ll cheer inside when that struggling learner answers that question in a way that their peers couldn’t. You’ll jump when that child who is the shyest in the class is the first up the climbing wall at camp. You’ll be marking papers with one eye open at midnight and you’ll read a metaphor created by one of your students that jolts you awake. You’ll be touched when they come back to school, years after they graduated to say hello. You’ll treasure their heartfelt, handwritten cards of thank you much more than that Starbucks gift card. You’ll never forget their faces, their personalities, and their impact on you.

It’s been over 20 years now. One day, you won’t be as excited as you once were. You’re hoping that you’ve changed your world a little, but you’re not even sure if you changed the date on your whiteboard. You will definitely not be excited about report cards, staff meetings, or new school supplies. But, you will be excited about the possibilities.

I remember you.