by Sherri Moshman-Paganos

The little silver tray with a white porcelain cup of brewed coffee on it, porcelain milk pitcher, crystal glass of cold water and plate with biscuits and homemade cake that Vangelis’ mother brought me at the beginning of each lesson, gradually disappeared. Rather at first, the sweets vanished, and then the coffee, leaving only a glass of water, until eventually I had to ask for that too. I knew then I was on my way out.

Oh that lovely silver tray! It belonged to a ceremony that Greek parents often followed for their children’s private lessons. The lessons began with the parents bringing in the tray, setting it on the child’s desk and wishing us a “good lesson.” Often before the lessons would start, you would have the obligatory “getting to know you” in the pristine living room of the house where you were looked over and price arranged. The child usually sat in one of the armchairs fidgeting. The agreement over, you might start right away, being led reluctantly into your student’s spotless room, bed neatly made, books put away.

The lesson with Vangelis had begun well. He was articulate with a sense of humor and loved to talk, and his house was just a 10 minute walk from mine. It seemed perfect. Oh yes, and they paid well. What could be better?  At the beginning his mother would open the door with a smile. Or Vangelis himself would welcome me with an ear to ear grin. Having finished the music high school, he was taking a preparation class at college level to reach a certain level of English before taking classes for credit.  He told me that he practiced piano about five hours a day and violin three. Several times when he played for me after our lesson, his mom would nod at me as if saying “listen to him, do you hear what a genius he is?” She was right; the Liszt and Rachmaninoff he played soared with passion; I sat enraptured. This was for sure an added benefit.

***

That lesson, that started with so much promise but fizzled out, was an extreme case, but other lessons too that I gave over the years, while I was teaching grades 7-12 at a private Greek high school, began with high hopes and ended in disappointment. Other lessons never went anywhere even from the beginning. 

Four categories is how I grouped my lessons: kids you looked forward to meeting /  grammar exercise robots / hopeless cases, affectionately known as touvla or “bricks” / adults, who carried their own problems.

The pleasurable lessons were rare. Only three stand out in all my 35 years of teaching in Greece. How much I enjoyed my discussions with Daphne as we did TOEFL but so much more; she talked about her home difficulties, divorced parents, and a father who tried unsuccessfully to buy her love with expensive clothes. Although we also worked on vocabulary and grammar, she was a natural, did well on the exam and guiltily, I felt I had little to do with her success.

Another lesson that was a joy was Konstantinos, whose level too was already beyond the test in grammar, vocabulary and composition. We became friends, I followed him through his windsurfing medals and then medical studies until he became a successful doctor in London. Katerina was a bit slow but her eagerness and her optimism made the lesson a joy. Not to mention that the lesson was right across the street and her mother did the ‘silver tray’ routine with fresh orange juice in a Pierre Cardin glass, coffee and usually some kind of syrupy dessert like baklava or kataifi, a little silver fork and a folded blue and white napkin, the colors of the Greek flag. It  was an art to be explaining the use of the present perfect with your mouth full of that heavenly syrupy sweet and keeping your hands from getting all sticky at the same time.

More often lessons concerned the robot-like kids whose automaton behaviour was encouraged by their parents.who  wanted their children to pass certificates. Although these could be a reason for promotion in the Greek public sector, or some cases be used in applying for universities abroad, in too many cases this paper was a way to let parents show off to others their children’s English level. 

My first lesson in Athens with diligent Christina introduced me to the certificate craving. After entering her room I’d greet her.

 “Hi Christina, how are you?” 

 “Okay, we had exercise 11, page 23.” 

“So how was school today?” I said, trying to find the page.

 “Good. All right, number 1?”checking to see if I was ready. I had no existence beyond being THE ONE WHO KNEW THE CORRECT ANSWERS TO THE EXERCISES.

Preparing for an exam could lead easily to these robot lessons, but Rena was a Christina-clone, even with doing literature. Although she learned to talk about setting and symbol, she felt no excitement in reading. That’s something you can’t really teach. I tried to ask Rena about photos she had in her room of trips, or books she had lying around (I noticed she had The boy in the Striped Pajamas), Did you finish it? No, still reading. Do you like it? Yes. Where is that photo of? Nafpaktos.  What kind of town is it? It’s nice.

Her mother’s rallying cry “Raise that Grade! Raise that Grade!” rang in my ears. Although Rena didn’t seem to particularly care, the mother wanted her 13 year old daughter to raise her 15 (out of 20) in the 1st semester to a 17 or 18 and thought a two-hour lesson was needed. For this family, none of the silver tray routine. After one hour, I would ask for a glass of water, which assumed almost the holy importance that Henry Miller describes in The Colossus of Maroussi. Rena would get up gladly to stretch her legs and dawdle in bringing the glass of water to me. I often had to ask her to open the window, that I was literally and figuratively choking, especially in the springtime softness.

While waiting, I gazed out the window at the pine trees and dreamed of lying on the beach and feeling the cold clear sea on my skin. Two hours were soon reduced to 1 ½. Her tests at school improved slightly, until the final when she wrote only 13. “Why, Rena, why?” I asked her, at a loss to understand. She just shrugged. 

Although her mother had talked vaguely of plans for next year, she soon confirmed my exit in the living room.. I looked around the room as she was shaking her head over and over at her daughter’s grade. I had waited in this room several times before to be paid by her or Rena’s father or the maid. Like many living rooms in upper middle class Greek apartments, it looked like no feet ever dared tread there. The usual huge flat screen TV was its main feature and there was no sign of any books, except a giant lonely tome resting on a glass coffee table, Castles of the Peloponnese, still with its plastic cover. In my mind, the house became a fortress I needed to escape from. Not waiting for the elevator, I ran down the four flights of stairs, opened the front door and breathed deeply: freedom!

Rena lacked personality but she was bright. The “hopeless” lessons were mostly with kids that not only weren’t interested (they were most likely forced by their parents) but they seemed to lack the aptitude for learning a language too. Fotis, who was not really “college material”, decided nevertheless he wanted to attend college classes, but his English needed to improve.

The 1st day of our lesson, late afternoon, his mom carried into the room a tray not of sweets, but what she had made for lunch: pastitsio (a Greek type of lasagne with ground meat sauce and béchamel). How I could have a lesson stuffing pastitsio in my mouth presented an even more daunting task than eating baklava. Another day she brought a portion of stuffed tomato and pepper on a plate with three tiny roasted slices of potato and a small feta cheese slice. Although she was surely an amazing cook, that didn’t make up for the emptiness of the lesson and the ever-yawning Fotis who never did his homework. I eventually started bringing CDs to play and song lyrics for him to fill in, just to break the monotony. When spring burst forth and days lengthened with sunshine, we both agreed to stop these useless exercises in torture.

Sometimes I had two siblings in the same house; one might be sharp and the other not. But with Yiannis and Dinos, they were equally “intellectually challenged.” They weren’t bad kids but just totally uninterested in doing English, much to the chagrin of their go-getter real estate selling mom. Lessons with brothers and sisters happened more than once, but a son and his mother, that was rare. I began lessons first with Takis, a high school graduate who lived down the street and worked in a restaurant. He basically wanted some English to communicate with tourists. He was a huge brute of a guy with black spiky hair and an earring. I used a new book with what I thought were great interactive communicative exercises. But Takis only scowled, complaining how hard English was.

One day his mom asked if she could listen to the lesson.  The next time I went, she was sitting at the dining room table with her son’s book open, ready to begin. He wasn’t going to continue, she said, but she wanted to. At any sign of difficulty with the language, she would cry that she didn’t understand, hold her head in her hands or look up at the ceiling to beg, “my God, why can’t I?” One morning she got up during the lesson to wake up Takis. I heard him shouting at her to bring him some coffee and toast. Scratching his spiky hair, he strode into the living room and half grinning, asked “is she a good student?” I nodded, ‘Of course!’ But a few days later in frustration, she threw the poor innocent book on the floor and cried that she hated it. Right away I made excuses that my school schedule allowed me no time for lessons anymore.

Of course in working with children, you usually dealt with their parents who understandably wanted to know how little Kostas or Maria were progressing, if they’re ready to take the exam, if I’m giving enough homework, if they’re doing it. What was preferable about giving lessons to adults, is that no parents lurked in the background. But the disadvantages were that generally adults started out with enthusiasm but soon tapered off, as they had other responsibilities.

Because they were adults like Takis’ mom, they weren’t necessarily more enjoyable lessons. Sato, a Japanese businessman, used to ponder the meaning of new words. “Adept” ah yes, “adept” he would say and look into space, look at his watch, shake his head, ask if he could smoke, look at his watch again. Minutes crawled by in the overheated room; if I didn’t drink water right away, I felt I would faint.

But with Thanos, I looked forward to our lessons every week. Reading “Death of a Salesman,” gave us opportunities for wonderful discussions about identity, living in denial and the “American dream,” discussions I could never have had with someone younger without life experience. And a caring person! Once after a rough day at school when I was on the verge of tears, the next time he brought me a half dozen red roses to cheer me up. But like other adults, he often cancelled due to work and other commitments.

****

By Christmastime, Vangelis was gushing to me on the phone, “You are the best English teacher in the world!” Now along with the tray of coffee and sweets, his mother added some walnuts and tangerines, making a beautiful Dutch still life. As I worked with Vangelis, I realized I had overestimated his language skills. His writing was full of errors, in both language and logic. He was wired too, often drumming on the desk, his feet moving up and down. I was worried. Did he get out enough from his house?  And his mother who had seemed so sweet and interested in his welfare, started to seem clingy, and appeared more and more like a demonic control freak over her son.

After Vangelis went up a level in the preparation, it got into his head (or perhaps it was his mother’s idea) that he needed to get a certificate of English competence. I didn’t see any point at his age to go for it, but to concentrate on university preparation and his studies. I always felt these tests emphasized test passing and not the language. But he insisted. Against my advice, he registered for both the British (Cambridge) and American (University of Michigan) certificates and he failed both. 

That failure spelled my doom. Suddenly my status went from best to “worst teacher and unwelcome in the house” and that’s why I had to start begging for just a glass of water, and eventually even the lesson payment. Two months after the failure, his mother nowhere in sight, Vangelis told me that he and his parents (I saw his father only once) decided he was stopping the lessons. I never saw him at the college or in the neighborhood again. Soon after “the end,” I ran into his internationally renowned piano teacher, who told me he had to discontinue the lessons because the mother was always on his back, telling him what to do. The boy, I was sure, had all the ingredients for a nervous breakdown.

***

So I know I was never “the best English teacher in the world” nor probably the worst. I came to think that Greek teachers of English were more successful than expatriate teachers in teaching to pass exams. They were used to this structured learning environment and seemed to know better what parents wanted.

Even during the lean years of the financial crisis that affected everyone, some of my colleagues had kids that returned to them year after year. I never did; maybe I was bored and showed it, or I was too much of a softie, I didn’t give enough homework, I didn’t push the kids enough, the parents wanted someone tougher and tangible results. It wasn’t enough for the kids to like English or use new vocabulary or write better, unless they passed the exam at hand. I think in the end I preferred having a classroom, where, freed from the exam passing mentality, we could be more creative and the students really learn from the interaction of being with each other.

I’ve wondered over the years about  students I had. Christina is probably a serious accountant somewhere. Kind Thanos must be playing with his grandchildren. I wonder about Daphne, and the friendship we had developed. I think of Konstantinos and how proud I am of him. For Vangelis, I only hope he is well, studying, playing piano and violin and spreading joy with his music.

Since I’ve now retired from any kind of teaching, the years of the little silver trays have retreated into the past.. The years of reassuring anxious parents that their kids are doing their homework, of taking surreptitious looks at my watch to see if the time has passed, pouring the milk from the little pitcher into the coffee, figuring how to eat the syrupy baklava without getting my fingers all sticky, that’s gone now, as is going over exercises, correcting grammar, doing practice tests, explaining new words. All a phase happily over in my life. I just hope that the students and I both helped each other on our mutual journeys through language and life.