Love, Love, Love

Dr. Morfidi and I are engaged in a project where we are interviewing Greek special education teachers about their perspectives on the inclusion of students with disabilities in the general education classroom.  Two years ago Greece passed a law mandating that students with disabilities be educated in the general education classroom if at all possible.  To put this in perspective the United States is celebrating the 35th anniversary of the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). 

As is true with any questionnaire there are some questions that work and some that need further refinement.  However, there is one question that is generating some interesting responses.  In this question, we ask if a teacher could be granted three wishes that would help their student educationally, what would these be?  The first teacher we interviewed, a male teacher who works with high school age students with developmental disabilities, responded to this question by saying, "Love, love, love."  My first reaction to this was to be analytical.  Of course love was important, but a teacher with specific skill sets to teach students with disabilities was more important in my opinion.  However, upon further reflection, I had to admit that this teacher was expressing a universal truth.  If a teacher of students with disabilities is lacking in love or compassion for his or her students, then the battle is over before it begins.  Truly, you need a teacher that can recognize that a student with a disability can learn and can become a productive citizen.  Most importantly, you need someone who can recognize the innate human spirit that resides in every student, no matter how severe the disability.  Perhaps Lennon & McCartney are right: All you need is love.

Zorca the Greek??

The other night it was my pleasure to have dinner with Zorca, a student living in the international dorm.  She is not Greek!  She is actually from Montenegro, but lives and works in Serbia.  She is a high school teacher of Greek.

My dinner with Zorca happened quite by accident.  There is a student cafeteria that I sometimes frequent.  I always eat by myself, which is fine.  Typically, the cafeteria is crowded with undergraduates who are far too busy catching up with each other to notice a guy who looks British or American.  For all they know, I am just another parent visiting.  When you enter the cafeteria, you grab a tray and then stand in front of a Lazy Susan on steroids.  As it spins around approximately six students at a time stand in a semicircle around it, picking and choosing amongst the entrees, salads, cheeses, and fruits.  As I was standing there I thought I heard someone say "hello", but I decided I was hallucinating.  In Greek, students will say "yah-sas", but not "hello".  I heard "hello" again so I turned to look only to discover that it was Zorca.  We exchanged pleasantries and then I went off to find a table assuming that she was with friends.  Much to my surprise and delight, she asked to sit with me.

Zorca is typical of the students I have met in the international dorm.  She speaks six languages (i.e., Serbian, Russian, English, Greek, Italian, and French).  On top of that, she is extremely nice. 

For the next hour, Zorca and I compared and contrasted Serbia and the United States on a variety of issues including immigration policies, typical family size, entrance requirements to universities, tuition for universities, languages offered in elementary and secondary schools, and elections.  We concluded by discussing a foreign film series that the university is offering.  However, I probably won't be able to take advantage of this series: the films are subtitled in Greek.  My Greek is improving, but not that fast. 

As is so typical of an experience like this it is the chance encounters that are the most memorable.  I will have many memories from my time in Greece, but I don't think I will soon forget my dinner with Zorca. 

My Lunch With Eleni

When I first arrived in Ioannina, Dr. Eleni Morfidi, took me for lunch at a former monastery that was high on a hill overlooking the campus.  It offered a great view of the campus as well as of Ioannina and the mountains in the distance.  We started off with, of course, a Greek salad accompanied by feta cheese (every meal includes feta cheese).  The main entree was a rice, meatball, and tomato sauce combination that was quite tasty especially when followed by a glass of Greek white wine.  Who needed three martinis when you could have such a delectable glass of wine?  We dined at a table underneath the portico pictured above.

During lunch, I had the opportunity to explain to Dr. Morfidi about the research project I wanted to initiate during my semester at the University of Ioannina.  Specifically, I told her about my plan to interview special education teachers in Ioannina about their experiences with the inclusion of students with disabilities, especially teachers of the deaf and hard-of-hearing and speech-language pathologists.  As we talked, she said that she was more familiar with quantitative research designs whereas this project was more qualitative in nature.  In other words, this project focused on interviewing and observing of teachers rather than developing a research design to test a hypothesis.  She seemed to enjoy the challenge of implementing a project with a qualitative focus.  She informed me of a colleague in the College of Education, Spiros, who was in the Ioannina schools often and could act as a liaison between the teachers and us.  That was reassuring to me because nothing helps more to gain entree into a school than to have someone who has a good relationship with the teachers and the principal of a school.  We then discussed the type of questions to ask.  Dr. Morfidi offered to translate the questions into Greek and to act as the interpreter when it cane time to interview teachers.  Although most of the people I have encountered speak English, Dr. Morfidi said that the teachers would probably be most comfortable answering these types of questions in Greek.  While someone else may have found it awkward or odd to go from one language to another while interviewing subjects, I was perfectly comfortable with the concept because of my work over the years with sign language interpreters. 

After lunch, we lingered for a bit looking at the rest of the monastery.  I learned that it was not only a restaurant, but that the university allowed guests to stay there.  We accomplished a lot over lunch, which whetted my appetite to return again soon.

A Good Omen

Whenever I make a major decision, such as accepting a Fulbright grant, I look for signs that it was a good decision.  In the year since I applied for this grant, I have encountered several situations that appeared to be signs that this was a good decision.  The following are a few of these good signs or omens.

First, Montgomery County Community College offered a course on introductory Greek during the spring semester of this year.  Even though I had not been officially selected for the Fulbright grant to Greece, this seemed a sign to me so I took the class.

Second, once I was selected for the Fulbright, then began a lengthy process of completing a variety of tasks and forms before being allowed to leave for Greece.  The most nerve wracking was getting fingerprints and sending these to the FBI office in West Virginia.  I had been forewarned that the turn around time on this could be from 8 to 12 weeks.  I was planning to leave on September 21, but without the FBI clearance I was not going anywhere, because I could not apply for my Greek visa.  The middle of August came and went and I started getting nervous.  Finally, the third week of August I got my FBI clearance.  I exhaled and breathed a sigh of relief.  Another good omen.

Third, I caught a Trans-Bridge bus the following Friday to the Port Authority in New York City.  From there I caught a taxi to the Greek Embassy, which was near East 79th and Park Avenue.  Up to that moment, everything about this process seemed unreal.  However, once I walked through the doors of the Greek Embassy, it suddenly became real.  I filled out a variety of forms and then waited to be interviewed.  I thought that I had all the forms that I needed, but the person interviewing me asked for my airline itinerary.  I wasn't expecting that.  I began thinking that this would stop the whole process and that I would have to return the following week with my airline itinerary.  That would mean one less week for the paperwork to be processed for my visa, and my timelines were already tight.  However, my penchant for checking my voice mail from wherever I am in the country saved me.  In my file folder that has my teachers' voice mail numbers, I quite by chance had placed a copy of my airline itinerary.  I quickly found it and produced it.  Again, a good omen.

Fourth, I had to give up my passport while my visa paperwork was being processed.  I was informed that it might take one week, possibly two weeks for it to be processed.  I had to walk over to a post office on Lexington Avenue to get a prepaid envelope in which to mail my passport to me.  For the next several nights I would lie awake wondering whether the passport with my Greek visa would show up in time or if it would get lost in the mail.  A week later I came home from work to discover my passport with my Greek visa in my mailbox.  Another good omen.

Fifth, when I got to Ioannina, Dr. Eleni Morfidi, the professor that I will be working closely with for the next four months, showed me around the University of Ioannina.  Finally, she took me to the International Dorm where I would be staying.  When I got out of her car, I noticed a rosebush next to the entrance of the dorm.  While a rosebush may seem inconsequential, it was the first and only rosebush that I have encountered in Greece.  More significantly, my mother loved roses and devoted hours tending to her rosebushes.  My mother has been gone for two years, but suddenly I was keenly aware of her presence.  She was here with me.  That was, indeed, a good omen.

Mutual Understanding

One of the basic tenets underlying The Fulbright Program is promoting mutual understanding between the people of the United States and those of other countries.  When I think about mutual understanding between countries, I often have visions of diplomats or heads of state sitting in chairs while a horde of photographers take a picture of them shaking hands.  While I am sure that mutual understanding does take place during these meetings, I have learned that mutual understanding often takes place in more subtle ways, away from the photographers. 

Three examples of mutual understanding in my brief time in Greece come to mind.  The first took place while I was waiting to catch a bus from Athens to Ioannina.  As I sat waiting for the bus, an elderly gentleman sat down next to me and smiled.  He said something to me in Greek and I shook my head to indicate that I didn't understand what he said, and then I pointed at myself and said, "American."  His actions indicated that he did not know English.  However, I was resourceful.  I had my Greek/English dictionary with me so I quickly looked up the Greek equivalents for visiting, professor, four, months, and university.  He took great delight in my attempts to say these words in Greek and, best of all, he understood.  From that point on he took care of me all the way to Ioannina.

The second situation occurred yesterday at the little cafe in the Education Building that is frequented by students.  I bought some hot tea and sat at a table to warm myself up on what proved to be a rainy and cold day.  An older man was sitting at a table next to me and began speaking German to me.  Once again, I indicated that I was American and that I didn't understand German, or for that matter, much Greek.  He was undaunted.  He  moved over to my table and in a mix of German, English, and Greek explained to me that he had lived in Athens, Rome, Boston, and Ioannina.  He also wrote the number "28" on the table to indicate that he had been a professor at the university for 28 years, but was retired.  He also gestured that he was a photographer. 

My last example involves the man who works behind the counter at this cafe.  His English skills are great.  However, he delights in providing me with Greek words associated with ordering food.  He also likes to help me with my pronunciation.  I must admit that I am struggling with the "X" sound in Greek; it is a mix of "h" and "k".  It is not quite a fricative and it is not quite a plosive.  I can hear it, but I cannot quite master it.  Unfortunately, it is present in the Greek word for "thank-you" (i.e., ef-ha-ree-sto).  Every time I tell him "thank-you', he smiles and repeats it again with the proper pronunciation waiting for me to try again.

While these encounters are not changing the world, I do think that I am doing my small part in promoting mutual understanding.  I find that the Greek people are more than willing to meet me halfway, especially when I try to use the few Greek words and phrases I know.  Benjamin, a student from Thailand living in my dorm who is studying Greek, watched me as I listened to a couple of other international students engage in a long dialogue in Greek.  When they finished, he looked at me and said, "Was that all Greek to you?"  Surprisingly, I understood quite a bit of the conversation.  I guess there is hope for me.

My Window to the World

My new home is the international dorm, called Starros Niardos, at the University of Ioannina.  The window for my room is in the upper left hand corner of the first photo.  My room looks to the east.  The next three photos were taken from my window.  In the second photo, I am looking north.  In order to take that photo, I leaned out my window and over the balcony.  You can see some of Ioannina in the distance nestled up against the mountains.  The third and fourth photos are facing directly east; one features the sun setting on the mountains and the other the sun rising over the mountains.

The dorm is truly international.  There are a variety of students here to study Greek for the year.  They hail from the following countries: Armenia, Egypt, Japan, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Thailand, Ukraine, and the United States.  I am sure that there are other countries represented, but I haven't met all of the students in the dorm yet.  For several, this is their first time outside of their countries.  Every one of them is able to converse fluently in English with me.  They all speak and read several languages.  My favorite is Arthur from Armenia.  He knows six languages.  Yesterday, I saw him on the couch in the common area of the dorm reading a textbook in Greek.  He said for fun he likes to read something in Greek and then translate that word or phrase into Armenian, then into Russian, and then into English.  They have become my tutors while I practice Greek with them.  I enjoy them thoroughly.  When I am around them, I find their curiosity, intelligence, and kindness invigorating.  Because of young people like them, I think that there is hope for the world.

Fulbright Foundation of Greece

The first two photos are not necessarily the most exciting, but they offer positive proof that I found the Fulbright Foundation-Greece office in Athens.  The first photo displays the plaque for the Fulbright Foundation-Greece office (the middle plaque), which is located at 6 Vassilissis Sophias Avenue (i.e., Princess Sophia Avenue).  The second photo is the door to the Fulbright Foundation office located on the second floor.  By walking through that door, I eventually encountered all of the "Fulbrighters" featured in the third photo.  We are standing in front of the Temple of Aphaia on the island of Aegina that was built in approximately 500 B.C.  The Temple is built high on a mountain that overlooks the Aegean Sea and you can see Athens in the distance.


The people in the photograph are as follows (from right to left):  Angi-Staff person for Fulbright Foundation-Greece; Kate-Teaching English at an elementary school in Thessaloniki, will attend graduate school at Boise State next year; John-Graduate of Seton Hall, doing an environmental studies project with the School of Law at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki; Dallas, doctoral student in history at Ohio State University, affiliated with the American School of Classical Studies at Athens; Stephanie-Graduate of Seton Hall, teaching English at an elementary school in Athens; Tatiana-Staff person for Fulbright Foundation-Greece; Georgia, graduate of Florida State, doing a nutrition study with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Crete; Kevin-Supervisor for the Bucks County Intermediate Unit, Doylestown, PA, doing a project at the University of Ioannina focused on teachers of the deaf and hard-of-hearing; Artemis-Executive Director of the U.S. Educational Foundation in Greece; Nicholas-Educational Advisor for the Fulbright Foundation-Greece; Alan-Professor in Linguistics at Michigan State University, doing a study on Broca's aphasia at the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens.

The Runner

On my second day in Athens, all of the "Fulbrighters" packed our bags (I never got time to actually unpack my bags after arriving from Philadelphia the day before) and took a ferry ride for a little over an hour to the island of Aegina.  We had a two day orientation there that consisted, at least in part, of getting to hear two local experts lecture on antiquities in the area.  This was followed up with tours of two temples on the island dating from the B.C. era.  I will discuss these in a later posting and provide some pictures of the temples.

However, for this posting I want to focus on a dinner that we were all invited to on the Thursday evening of the orientation.  The dinner was at the home of Costas Varotsos, a world-renowned sculptor, who lives with his family on the island.  His home is on top of a mountain that overlooks the Aegean Sea.  The topmost picture is the view from his patio.  It is breathtaking.  If you look real close, you will notice tiny fiber optic lights in the patio itself that give the patio the appearance of having stars.

The photo below is of Costa's sculpture, The Runner, which is in Athens near the Hilton Hotel.  He specializes in working with plates of glass.  Again, if you look closely you will notice that the sculpture is made up of hundreds of sheets of cut glass layered on top of each other.  This medium does give the appearance of the "runner" breaking the wind.

Costas was a former Fulbright recipient to the United States several years ago.  We had a wonderful dinner and then he gave us a tour of his studio, which was in the basement, again with a great view of the sea.  There were many sheets of glass ready to be shaped.  The visit to Aegina was memorable, but this was the most memorable.  If you are interested in visiting his website, it is www.costasvarotsos.gr.

At the Acropolis

After being in Greece almost a week I made it to the Acropolis.  Not wanting to be a typical tourist, I was ambivalent about visiting the Acropolis.  However, my American friend, Vicki, who lives in Athens, coaxed me into it.  She proved to be an adept tourist guide.  It was hot day, but we walked up many steps and made it to the top.  However, we stopped for a break at the Theatre of Dionysos where you see me sitting above.  After a few minutes, we continued our trek and made it to the Parthenon.  Photographs do not do it justice.  Even though it is in serious disrepair, it is majestic.  It is amazing that architects and engineers so long ago could have built something bordering on perfection. 


Vicki and I descended to the other side of the Acropolis and got to stand on a small, rocky hill called the Areopagus.  This is where the Apostle Paul stood to address the Athenians, just before he departed for Corinth (you can read about this in Acts 17:15-34).  We concluded our day by visiting a museum of the Acropolis, which just opened last year.  In excavating the site for the museum, the builders discovered a small village from antiquity.  They ended up building the museum over and around the village.  As you walk through the museum, some parts of the floor are transparent so that you can see the village under your feet.  The museum is a fitting tribute to the Acropolis, especially the Parthenon.