Teachers working at the community’s schools in Istanbul talk about their important cultural mission and share their love of what they do

“Our city is not just its monuments and memories. Our city is alive, because there are still teachers who work with love, faith and vision. There are still students who are eager for guidance from their teachers and who are inspired by your example. You are not just educators, but guardians of our identity, pillars of our language, flames that keep memory and hope alive, so that Hellenism continues, through you and our children,” said Giorgos Papaliaris, president of the Rumvader Association for the Support of Greek Community Foundations (RUMVADER), summing up the effort to preserve Greek education in Istanbul.

A few days before the end of the school year, Kathimerini met the teachers who work at the Greek Community Schools of Istanbul in the courtyard of the Greek Orthodox Church of Agia Triada, near Taksim Square, at an event organized by RUMVADER and the Stavrodromi Community in honor of those teachers at the Phanar Greek Orthodox College (Great School of the Nation), the Zappeion and the Zografeion Lyceum.

The event aimed to express gratitude and recognition to all the teachers for their continuous contribution to the education of the Greek community. Three of the teachers who are retiring were also awarded honorary distinctions for their valuable and long-standing contribution: Aris Tsokonas, physics teacher at the Zografeion Lyceum, Tina Del Re, secretary at the Zappeion, and Kiki Samouilidou, physical education instructor at the same school.

Kathimerini spoke with local teachers and others sent from Greece, as well as education executives about their feelings over the present and future of education in Istanbul.

Savvas Panagiotidis
Physical education instructor, Phanar Greek Orthodox College

“I started in 2006. I am a graduate of a Greek school in Istanbul. Being in a city with such a great cultural heritage and participating in a vibrant educational community is an honor. Being an educator here gives you the privilege of seeing your work come to life. Education in Istanbul will always have a future. We try to keep all our schools alive. Others talk about [guarding] Thermopylae; we try, in the best way, to keep these schools alive.”

2. Dora Senikoglou-Diakrousi
   English literature teacher, Zografeion Lyceum

“Education here is a lot like motherhood, because what you do for your children, you also do for your students. The children are attuned to Greek education – they get it in their homes, but we also carry it on at school. I am optimistic about the future.”

3. Evridiki Pingou
   Chemistry teacher, Zografeion Lyceum

“I was born, raised and studied in Istanbul. I started at the Zappeion, continued at Zografeion and later attended the Istanbul Technical University. My entire life is in Istanbul. It is particularly important to me to serve in the school that raised me, the school where I learned and fell in love with mathematics and chemistry, and decided to become a chemist. And after all these years, my teachers have now become my colleagues. This gives me great joy. I never lived in Greece; I was always a part of the Greek diaspora. When I was at Istanbul Technical University I saw that we live in a particularly small society. I see it in our children too. They live in this small society and feel free. They learn Greek, and Greek culture.”

4. Aris Tsakonas
   Teacher of physics, chemistry and mathematics, Zografeion Lyceum

“My mother and father were teachers. My aunt too. I got married and my father-in-law was a teacher. My sister-in-law, too, and, of course, my wife. In other words, my entire life was a school. I came into the profession late; I didn’t want to become a teacher at first, I wanted to do something different. However, at the age of 35, fate had it so that I would become a teacher too. I am a chemical engineer from the National Technical University of Athens and have a master’s degree, and I spent 15 years working in the paint industry. Today I teach physics, chemistry and mathematics.

Teachers have the same duty everywhere – we do the same work. The difference for us is that our children do not speak their mother tongue, Greek, fluently. But we are working on it. Teachers contribute more than anyone to preserving the language and tradition.

As a community, we come to around 2,000 people and the teachers are only 50-60. However, they are cultured and educated, they not only contribute to schools, but are also members of clubs, actively helping the Greek diaspora.

I also translate classical Greek literature into Turkish. This is very important, because this is how consciousness is formed. My books sell 200,000 copies a year – that is, 200,000 Turks learn about Greek culture from my translations. I have translated Plato, Aristotle and Xenophon, as well as Cavafy, Elytis, Seferis and Ritsos – and I will carry on doing so. I am currently translating Thucydides.”

5. Christina Govesi
   Teacher of Greek literature, Zappeion Lyceum

“The sense of education here feels like something that comes from deep within the centuries. You’re from Greece, and it’s as if you’ve lived through ages past. At the same time, you’re grounded in the present. As a teacher, it’s like you carry within you all those who have come before. Even if you’re not of Greek descent, you still embody the modern aspect of education that exists in Greece today. It’s this dual existence – this double sense of time and presence – that makes it all feel magical.

Walking through the corridors of the Zappeion, the Zografeion and the Phanar Greek Orthodox College, looking at the photographs and the desks, you feel the souls of the people who have been here. It is as if the souls of the teachers who taught here have settled down inside you. The difference with Greece is that here there is greater intimacy and respect. You really feel like you’re at the center of people’s attention. The kids respect you, the community values you. In Greece, we’ve been looked down upon. Here you feel like education is important.”

6. Evangelia Kanari
   Director of Zappeion Kindergarten and Elementary School

“It is a special feeling for me to have graduated from Zappeion. I feel proud to be teaching and to serve in the administration of the school from which I graduated. What interests us is to pass on our identity, the Greek Orthodox tradition, to our children. The history of Zappeion is a heavy legacy for us. However, we will continue to exist – we will never cease to be. The message is clear: as they used to say in the old days, ‘we are few, but countless’”.

7. Dimitra Vourdoglou
   Coordinator of education in Istanbul

“The future is in our hands and we must all join forces – no one is excluded. Coordinator, director, teacher, student – all together. I have served in various regions of Greece. Education in Istanbul has a particularity: It is a challenge – and we must conquer it.”