LifeChanger of the Year Nominee Profile

Lani Matsumura was nominated by her partner, Yushi Homma.

Ms. Matsumura grew up attending Title I elementary and middle schools in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). She noticed the many challenges and inequities her classmates faced every day, including homelessness, food insecurity, and parent incarceration. Although she was raised in a low-income, single-parent household, she excelled in high school and became a first generation college graduate after completing both her Bachelor’s in Education Sciences at UC Irvine and Master’s in Education at Stanford University in three years total, while working several jobs. 

During her two years at UC Irvine, Ms. Matsumura performed research about virtual learning environments in the Digital Learning Lab, researched on another project about underrepresented students in science, and was an author on the publication “How Spacing and Self-Testing Are Related to Learning Outcomes” in PLOS ONE science journal. She served on the board of Teachers of Tomorrow and Kappa Delta Pi International Education Honor Society, taught students of every age from preschool to college, and was the youngest recipient of the most prestigious Chancellor’s Award of Distinction when she graduated from UC Irvine in 2018.

Ms. Matsumura graduated again in 2019 as the youngest in her cohort with her Master’s and credential from Stanford, where her passions for social justice, equity, and utilizing the strengths of diverse students were cultivated. During her year at Stanford, she presented at two conferences, creating a workshop titled "Transforming Elementary Curriculum and Learning Experiences Through Arts and Music" for the Stanford Teacher Education Program Conference, as well as a workshop titled "Activism Through Art" for the Asian American Issues Conference. 

After graduating, she began her teaching career as a first grade teacher at a Title I school in LAUSD, the district she grew up in. One month into the school year, she lost her position due to low student enrollment at her school, and she was displaced. Despite this challenge, she interviewed and immediately landed a position as a sixth grade English Language Arts and Social Studies teacher at a Title I middle school, also in LAUSD. With no time to prepare, she immediately began writing an entire year’s worth of curriculum based on the Common Core State Standards while teaching it to five classes of sixth graders.

Her 90 students were quite diverse. Up to one third of the students per class had special needs, and many had negative views about school due to prior experiences and teachers. After encountering both inspiring and discouraging teachers in her own schooling experiences, Ms. Matsumura put maximum effort into uplifting her students and creating a nurturing environment. She emailed and called parents weekly to give positive news about their children, wrote notes of encouragement to her students, and recognized their efforts. Many parents were surprised to receive phone calls from her and were used to hearing only negative comments from previous teachers. After the school year ended, she moved to Redwood City and began her second year of teaching as a fourth grade teacher at a diverse school in Santa Clara. 

Ms. Matsumura works very hard to build positive, loving relationships with each and every one of her students. Even through Distance Learning, she has successfully built and maintained strong classroom communities while making all content accessible, engaging, and meaningful to her students. She creates fun, collaborative projects that exercise students’ curiosity. She holds a year-long class talent showcase. Ms. Matsumura composes songs with all of her students’ names in them to make them feel valued as part of the classroom community. She also writes educational songs to help them learn and remember concepts. 

Ms. Matsumura founded her school’s first Music Club, where she works with students of various musical backgrounds, writes and teaches arrangements to songs, and creates music videos of the ensembles to spread joy and hope to her school and district communities. She has been online on Google Meet some days until 6:30pm hosting socials for students to talk to one another and play collaborative online games together. She makes trips to the mailbox every Friday because she constantly writes encouragement cards to mail out to her students. Ms. Matsumura personally hand-writes every card, includes home-made stickers, and decorates the envelopes. Her students feel loved and motivated to keep working hard when receiving these surprises. Many say it’s the first time they have ever received something in the mail. She has continued to send these surprises, even to students who have moved and attend different schools now. These have been a highlight of their experience during a year as different as 2020.

Last year, after her previous school transitioned into Distance Learning, she handwrote and mailed out cards to all 90 of her middle school students. She even saved up to send a ukulele to one of her students who had always wanted to learn but was unable to buy one due to low socioeconomic status. Her students feel comfortable, seen, and valued as people in her class, so much that many were sad when winter break approached.

Due to very limited funding at both of her previous schools, Ms. Matsumura financially struggled to personally supply materials to her students last year. Over the past summer and throughout this new school year, while completing five continuing education graduate-level courses, Induction, and teaching, she launched two small businesses to fundraise for books and materials for her students. During late nights and on weekends, she is awake and busy creating custom digital portraits and artwork, as well as running a sticker shop of her original designs. Through fundraising, outreach, and networking, she has been able to bring the outside world into her classroom during her first few months at her school. Her class has had virtual author visits with an award-winning Latina author, a new Black author, and an author who specializes in complex trauma and social emotional learning. She has also had visits from a Broadway performer and an a cappella singer-songwriter. She has done outreach to food companies and received enough donations to supply every family with coupons for free plant-based grocery products. Ms. Matsumura also raised enough money to gift every student with an autographed copy of a book that one of the authors who visited had read.

Despite being a young teacher who had already faced teacher displacement and teaching during a pandemic within her first two years of teaching, she has been strong, flexible, positive, and intentional in all that she does. During her recent formal observation, her evaluator stated that “she is a second year teacher, but teaches like a seasoned veteran." They mentioned the high academic expectations she holds, accessibility, accommodations, professional communication to families, and numerous highly effective instructional strategies that she implements in a natural way. 

Below are a few comments that Ms. Matsumura has saved from emails and cards that both her former 6th grade and current 4th grade students have written to her. These are just a few of many, but they're a glimpse of how inspirational and impactful she is and always has been to her students:

• “Thank you for all the hard work you do for my classmates and I. I really appreciate you. In the beginning of the year, when they switched my whole schedule, I was really sad, but then you became my English/History teacher and made things 10x more fun. I will be getting a new English/History teacher next year, but you will always be my favorite. I may not show my appreciation often, but I really do appreciate you for helping me become a better writer, reader, and student. You have taught me to always try my best, no matter what, and the way you taught me that was by always trying to be a better teacher...So thank you so so much for what you have done.” (6th grader)

• “The reason why I am writing this letter to you is because ever since you walked in the classroom, you had the calmness that the class needed because we were so loud and obnoxious. Also, I want to say that I appreciate you because you always give grace and patience to us, even when someone is being disrespectful. You are the first teacher I had that was calm through every transition and that had a smile on your face every day when we walked in the classroom.” (6th grader)

• "You were really patient with me in the classroom, and I am thankful that you didn’t give up on me. My mom appreciates you, too, because she likes how patient you are and how you reach out to us." (6th grader)

• “I want you to know that you are the sweetest, kindest, nicest teacher I have ever met. There are so many ways to describe you, but I want to say that I really enjoy listening to your wonderful music. You make me smile when you sing or play music.” (4th grader)

• “I am very thankful that you are my fourth grade teacher. Every day you teach us many new concepts in a fun and exciting way. You have many fun activities for us to enjoy. You help us and even bring authors or other people to visit us during class. At the end of each day and class, you give us reminders so we know what to do. You are very amazing and kind to all of us. Thank you.” (4th grader)

• “Thank you so much for being helpful, caring, nice, and joyful to me. I think that you’re helpful because you help me in math, spelling, science, essays, summaries, and on other projects. I think that you’re joyful  because you give us time to play something with you like a game. I think you treat us in the best way and I think you’re kind, caring, and nice because you treat us in the BEST way just like I said. You’re the BEST teacher I’ve ever seen!” (4th grader)

"I cannot think of anyone more deserving of the LifeChanger of the Year Award than Ms. Matsumura. She's an inspirational first generation college graduate, published researcher, accomplished musician, small business owner, and intentional, student-centered, pubic school educator," Homma said.