Emma Brijlall Nakahara needs to eat every one to two hours. It’s a challenge that led her to become the first graduate of a virtual school to earn one of the highest marks across all of Toronto’s public high schools.
Nakahara graduated from the Toronto District School Board’s (TDSB) Virtual Secondary School with an average of 99.7 per cent, making her one of three graduates recognized for earning the top grades this year.
She chose the online school mainly because she’s severely impacted by low blood sugar, and needs to frequently eat substantial amounts of food to stay focused. Nakahara found it far easier to stay nourished when she wasn’t physically in a classroom all day, and being able to learn at home has made her a big proponent of self-advocacy for accessibility needs.
“Even if it feels a bit weird sometimes, even if your needs are unconventional and people may not understand them, you still have to respect them and you deserve to get the accommodations that you need,” she says.
This fall, when she starts at ϲʿӿ, it’ll be the first time she’s attended in-person classes since she was a child. Despite never meeting her peers and teachers in person, she says she still felt very connected to the school community, in large part thanks to her extracurriculars including the school’s newsletter and yearbook, and tutoring other students.
Outside school, she practices judo, enjoys writing poetry and crocheting, and has nurtured a lifelong love of the environment and conservation by volunteering with the High Park Nature Centre.
“You have to be more purposeful when you’re in virtual school, about getting out there, communicating with your teachers, staying focused,” she says. “I like to get out and do stuff, so I don’t really think being online impacted my experience.”
She also volunteered at the Cedarbrae Branch of the Toronto Public Library in Scarborough. Reading is one of her biggest de-stressors — she particularly likes fantasy — and Toronto's public libraries were a significant place for her when she was younger, prompting her to join its teen council.
The degree she’s pursuing at ϲʿӿ combines several of her interests and experiences, and she’ll soon be in a co-op program double majoring in conservation and biodiversity and public policy, and taking a minor in creative writing.
She chose ϲʿӿ for a few reasons: the option to take three programs and co-op, the convenience of being near her Scarborough home, and the Ma Moosh Ka Win Valley Trail, the path down to Highland Creek awarded for its accessibility features, frequented by Nakahara’s family and many students in environmental science programs.
Nakahara does have one of her upcoming classes online, and she says she’s looking forward to the extra freedom she’ll get in university — especially to explore what interests her academically.
“In elementary school, I was maybe a little bored and that made it hard to do my schoolwork,” says Nakahara, who earned her best high school marks in courses including environmental resource management, calculus and vectors, physics and chemistry. “I think I got higher marks in high school because I was interested in what I was doing.”
She did feel a unique pressure throughout Grade 12, knowing it would only take a few wrong answers to lose her average, but she says she put that stress on herself.
“That wasn’t necessarily something I should have been doing,” she says. “I think sometimes people feel bad when they get low marks, and I felt bad when I lost marks. But school isn’t the only place where it matters to succeed, people can succeed in all areas of their life.”
When asked for her best study tips at a ceremony honoring the TDSB’s top scholars, she told the audience of news crews, teachers and family that everyone is different, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to excelling in school. She had to prioritize eating and broke her school day up by exercising, a habit she’s planning on keeping this fall on campus at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre.
“That really helped me stay energized for my schoolwork, and made it so it didn’t feel like some endless task I had to do,” she says. “Taking breaks was important.”