The Edge Foundation has been running the Island Education Network since 2018, bringing together a range of islands around the British Isles, Channel Islands and British Overseas Territories to discuss education in an island setting.
The Strathclyde Centre for Environmental Law and Governance (SCELG) leads Island Explorers, an exciting school programme that introduce primary school pupils to sustainability using islands as geographical context.
Working together, Edge and SCELG want to support colleagues working in island education to tell their stories. In the third in this series, Labrini Grigori, Principal of the Gymnasium of Astypalea reflects on their journey over the last couple of years.
Οur school is situated in Astypalea, a small island in Greece. Astypalea is one of the Dodecanese islands - very close to Santorini and Kos. It has an overall of 1,330 residents. It is a rather small island but with great natural beauty and a sense of strong energy. It is a tiny but entrancing island known as the “Butterfly of the Aegean’’. It is 10 hours away from Piraeus by ship and just 45 minutes away from the mainland by plane.
If I had to describe my island two things come in mind.
- Astypalea is the first smoke free island in the world.
- Astypalea is on the process of becoming a smart and sustainable island constituting an environmental and social model for the world.
The Gymnasium of Astypalea has got 59 pupils and 15 teachers. The students’ ages vary from 13-18 years old.
Before the first lockdown on the 11th of March 2020 we didn’t have any previous experience in distance learning. We have an e-class in our school where our students are in contact with the digital part of education but we definitely couldn’t say that we are digitally literate. The same goes for the majority of public Greek schools. We had never been properly educated so as to be effective on line educators and learners. Only a limited group of teachers had attended an educational program concerning digital skills offered by the Ministry of Education.
So it was a great challenge for all of us to cope with the new situation. The Ministry of Education gave us an educational platform to work with. We had problems with our internet connections. Some of our students didn’t have computers or weren’t connected to internet. Online education was offered on an optional basis so not everyone participated. Schools reopened on the 11th of May and it was a great relief for everybody.
The second lockdown came on the 9th of November 2020. It is the 30th of November and schools are still closed. But now we were prepared. We did our homework and both students and teachers were well prepared. We now use the Cisco Webex educational platform and we are really satisfied with it. What our students really love is breakout sessions when working as groups. They are really cooperative doing projects, tests online etc. Teachers in our school have a database of material they are going to use when coming back to the real class.
After closing and reopening many times, we were back on track in May 2021. Wearing our masks, doing self-tests on a regular basis and always carrying an antiseptic liquid in our backpack, we were back at school. Schoolchildren were really exhausted and frustrated with the back and forth during the school year.
While writing this article our kids are sitting for the university entrance exams - the so called pan-hellenic exams. It has been a difficult year and they have been trying their best to copy with the new situation. We really hope that their dreams will become true against all odds.
We keep our fingers crossed for the upcoming school year. Three out of four residents on our island are vaccinated. We do hope schools will remain open and never close again.