By Yannis Moudogiannakis, Librarian of the Orthodox Academy of Crete (OAC).

The school year has begun and students of all levels are back at their desks. The… old students rushed to meet their classmates again, to tell the news from the summer holidays and to start together another year full of smiles, teasing ( well-intentioned), games, excursions and of course reading. The… youngsters started with the excitement of getting to know their new classmates, their new School and their new teachers.

Thus began the school year at the 1st Kindergarten of Chania, where the “infants” went for the first time to the “big school”. There, Mrs. Stavroula Kontogianni, Head of the Kindergarten, with thirty-one years of experience, invited the parents to meet them and inform them about the activities to be carried out in the Kindergarten this year, as well as what exactly to expect parents from the children, and the children from the teachers. Very important!Children, first at home and then at school, form their character. Parents have the most important role in educating the child, but the school environment is equally important. This is what Ms Kontogianni tried to explain to us, that children come to School to learn how to function in a Group, how to develop fine motor skills and how to maintain themselves according to their age. Mrs. Stavroula,whom we thank as well as the rest of the Teachers, began her presentation by saying “as you may have already noticed, our School as a facility is very old and we try to maintain it in every way possible. But I would not want you to stick to this point.

The school is not the buildings, it is the souls…”. This phrase stuck in my mind, it includes everything, the children, the teachers, even the building. I think we all accidentally know this in our hearts. But it is one thing for an Educator to say it looking into the eyes of the parents and another for it to exist as an implication. Educators today need to be close to children, to love them, to embrace them, to care for them. Children should be able to feel safe when they go to school, they should feel that they are going not only for the lessons but through education to become tomorrow’s citizens of society. To be able to talk to the teacher about any problems they have. School is not just about lessons, it is about education, relationships, cooperation, love, empathy, friendship. All of the above are what the Educators are called upon to teach children, to make them proper citizens who will eventually take matters into their own hands, not easy at all. It is hard to be an Educator, it is a vocation in my opinion.

The truth is that the 1st Kindergarten of Chania, like other Kindergartens in the center of Chania, have many operational and building problems and it is good that the City to ensure their upgrade or even in some cases, such as the 1st Kindergarten, for their relocation. Because there are souls in the schools. These souls also crave for a properly maintained School.

Finally, a very important problem that the Educators have to face, and even in Crete, as we read in the media, is the issue of housing which must be resolved as soon as possible, as the Instructors must have a clear “mind and soul” in the School, in order to have a healthy and painless relationship with the students.

“…Letters are one of the noblest exercises and one of the highest desires of man. Education is the ruler of life.” Odysseas Elytis. (From the press conference held on October 19, 1979, at the Hotel Grande Bretagne on the occasion of the announcement of the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature to the Greek poet.)

Happy school year to all children and all teachers!