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Teachers from Greece at West Pasco charter school

Klint Lowry/SUNCOAST

The Athenian Academy charter school in New Port Richey has five teachers from Greece on it faculty. The Greek educators are, clockwise from front left, Maria Pappa Gerasimos Gerassopoulos, George Gennadios, Eleuperios Larisis, Fontina Vlahaki and Marina Mihalopoulou. Vlahaki and Larisis are wife and husband.

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By KLINT LOWRY | The Suncoast News

Published: November 3, 2009

Updated:

Given its name, one might think the Athenian Academy of Pasco charter school has always been an educational enclave of Greek culture, where residents of Greek heritage send their children to maintain their culture.

"I've heard that so many times," the charter school's first-year principal, Maureen Moore, said.

In fact, it's come up so many times in her short tenure, she checked, and found only about 5 percent of the school's students are of Greek heritage.

As of this school year, however, Athenian Academy of Pasco has added a large infusion of Greek culture to its curriculum, thanks to the addition of five teachers who have come all the way from Greece.

The Greeks educators came to West Pasco through an organization called the Amity Institute, a San Diego-based nonprofit organization dedicated to building international friendship and cultural understanding through teaching exchange.

"They have connected us and made the arrangements to have these wonderful five teachers come and spend time with us at Athenian in Pasco," Moore said.

The teachers – George Gennadios, Maria Pappa Gerasimos Gerassopoulos, Eleuperos Larisis, Marina Mihalopoulou and Fontina Vlahaki – have come on three-year visas to teach at Athenian Academy.

"In the framework, we promote our civilization, promote our culture, but also take things from your culture back to our country," Gerassopoulos said.

The Greek ministry of education pays the teachers' salaries and they are considered Greek government employees. Athens considers spreading and preserving Greek culture an issue of national interest.

"Basically the program has its roots because there are 10 million Greeks in Greece and 10 million abroad," said Gennadios. He is in his second year at Athenian Academy and is the designated coordinator for his fellow teachers, who arrived just before the start of the school year.

As much as it is a teaching experience, it is a learning experience, as they have found being a teacher in America is quite different here than it is back home, or even if they went to another European country, and they have bean on a fast learning curve in their first few months.

"There's a big gap," George said, "and you have to adjust. You are not expected to change over completely. But you also cannot come and say, 'This is the way I teach, like it or leave it.' "

Vlahaki and Larisis are married, and their cultural exchange experience has been a family adventure. They have two children who are making the same adjustments, but from a student's point of view.

"One of the big differences is that in Greek schools, there are breaks between classes," Vlahaki said. "In Greece you have a period that is 45 minutes or one hour, and then you have 15 minutes break, and they go out and they play," she said. "Here they come at 8 o'clock and they go at 3 o'clock."

"They find it very strange," Vlahaki said, referring to her children. "It doesn't make any sense to them."

For the teachers there have been other surprises that have taken getting used to, Moore said. For one, the idea that teachers are expected to do things like lunchroom duty came as a rude awakening. Moore agreed that these first months have been a matter of finding compromises.

Mihalopoulou has had arguably the hardest first few months. She teaches physical education, and when the school's regular PE teacher went down with an injury, she found herself pressed into double duty. During the hot and humid days at the start of the school year, she's found American children's reputation for being sedentary to be well-earned.

"I tell them, if you don't like to do soccer, walk, do some laps - but do something," she said.

The students have responded, and her classes have become fine examples of cultural exchange. She has taught some of the younger students traditional Greek games, like The Wolf and the Lambs, sort of a cross between tag and duck, duck goose.

The older students have gotten to try sports like volleyball that they might be familiar with but have never had a chance to try. Meanwhile, with the fall season, the students have been pleased to teach their teacher about what American football is all about.

Greek language is only taught through the fifth grade, Moore explained. The sixth- through eighth-graders take Spanish, to better prepare them for high school and beyond. There are after-school classes they can take, and those have filled up.

Greek being a root language, Gennadios said, it could help the students better understand technical terms in the future.

That's the idea of this program – for all involved, that they all take something from it that will last long after the three years has past.

Klint Lowry can be reached at 727-815-1067 or klowry@suncoastnews.com.

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