THE ‘WORLD’S BEST TEACHER’ SAYS ART CREATES A MUCH CLASSIER EDUCATION
Andria Zafirakou, winner of Dubai’s prestigious Varkey award, tells Noor Nanji about the mission that drives her
Teachers work extremely hard ... we are growing, nurturing young minds and making them into the people we want and need in our society
Curiosity. Creativity. Thinking outside the box. These are some of the important life skills that children learn from art education, but the subject is being sidelined in schools, says the woman who this year was crowned the world’s best teacher.
“People don’t realise the skills that art can bring to the entire package for a child,” says Andria Zafirakou, an art and textiles schoolteacher from north London. “We need to bring art back on to the agenda. I feel really passionate about this.”
It was this passion and dedication that resulted in Ms Zafirakou, 39, being awarded the US$1 million (Dh3.67m) Varkey Foundation annual Global Teacher Prize at a star-studded ceremony in Dubai in March.
As the school term draws to a close, she reflected on a remarkable year with The National.
Ms Zafirakou was selected from thousands of applicants around the world in recognition of her work at Alperton Community School, an impoverished, inner-city school in Brent, London.
More than a third of the children in Brent – one of the UK’s most deprived boroughs – live in poverty, crime is rife and gangs stalk the school gates.
Organisers of the award praised Ms Zafirakou for transforming “her school’s approach to reach often isolated young people so that they can engage in school life and perform to the best of their abilities”.
One of her signature achievements was her complete redesign of the school’s art curriculum. It is something she had to fight for, she says, given the trend to cut arts budgets in schools in favour of subjects such as maths and science. This is a problem that will also have a ripple effect in the workplace, she says.
“Art teaches things like resilience, creativity, curiosity, teamwork, social skills, communication skills,” Ms Zafirakou says. “It also teaches children how to fail and persevere until they succeed. If we don’t teach art in schools, our children will not have these advantages later on in life.
“I’ve met many CEOs and organisations over the past weeks who say, ‘I have engineers but I need problem solvers. Where are they? I need creative thinkers. Where are they?’ So there is a real interest. We need to bring art back on to the agenda.”
Ms Zafirakou says she is immensely proud to be an art and textiles teacher and loves seeing the effect her teaching has on her pupils.
“Our children do really well at art. They love it, they enjoy it,” she says. “It’s a subject in which they can experiment, take risks, fail and start again. It’s a great journey to take and it’s a privilege to teach. They will have lifelong learning from this.”
With her prize money, she is hoping to further promote the arts in education.
“This award has been given to me for what I do in my school community,” Ms Zafirakou says. “So it is important to think about what I can do with it to have a platform for what I think is vital in schools.
“At the moment, what I think is important is the arts and how we can connect the arts with our children.”
Raised in Brent, she is dedicated to her local community and has taught at Alperton for all of her 12-year career. The school is ethnically diverse, with a large number of students coming from deprived migrant families. Some speak very little or no English when they arrive.
To build bridges with her pupils, Ms Zafirakou learnt to welcome them in many of the 35 spoken languages at Alperton. These include Hindi, Arabic, Romanian, Tamil, Polish and Somali. She also helped to launch a Somali choir.
She is quick to dismiss praise for these initiatives. Born to Greek-Cypriot parents, she says she remembered how it felt to turn up at school and struggle to communicate, so she simply wanted to make life easier for children in a similar situation.
“I grew up speaking Greek fluently. English was my second language,” Ms Zafirakou says. “Eighty-five per cent of the children in our school are also EAL [English as an additional language]. I feel very much connected with them and try to put myself into their shoes.
“They’ve come into this country, they enter a building that is scary and they feel out of place, terrified. And I can go up to them and say ‘good morning’ in their language. So that’s why I do it, because it makes them feel special.
“I think that’s how the world should be. We have to go out of our comfort zones.”
The hallways of Alperton buzzed with excitement on the day in mid-March when news spread that Ms Zafirakou had won the Global Teacher Prize. She says this was an accolade to be celebrated by the entire community, not just one person. “We can celebrate it, we can say ‘we’ve earned it’,” she says. “We are such a hardworking community. We are dedicated to our children and we deserve to be recognised.
“I’ve seen how it’s changed my school in terms of the confidence it’s given the children, the pride that’s just oozing everywhere. It’s just such a proud and momentous time in our history.”
As for the glittering awards gala at Atlantis, The Palm, she says it was “simply extraordinary”. “It was like the Oscars
– a huge ceremony, so glamorous, so high profile,” Ms Zafirakou says.
The event was hosted by South African comedian and
The Daily Show host, Trevor Noah, with surprise appearances by stars including Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton. Also in attendance was Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president of France, and other global dignitaries and sheikhs.
When the winning teacher’s name was announced by pupils in a video broadcast, Ms Zafirakou says, she had “no idea” it was going to be her.
“I didn’t even hear my name being called out until someone jumped up and said, ‘Andria, it’s you’.”
Gold confetti rained down as she went up to the stage to be presented with the prize by Sheikh Mohammed.
“It was so mind-blowing,
I was terrified. The Ruler of Dubai, this incredible human being, I can’t even remember what I said. I was in my own little bubble, a dream. It was sensational.”
She was aware that she was in the UAE representing every single teacher in Britain. “That was a lot of pressure.”
But Ms Zafirakou is also full of praise for all the other teachers from around the world, who she met in Dubai.
“Extraordinary doesn’t even encompass who they are, and what they’ve achieved in terms of changing their schools and communities for the better,” she says.
She has not taught in the UAE but friends who do have told her about the strengths of the local education system.
“I know the Varkey Foundation and the Gems schools, the work they do [in the UAE] is quite extraordinary,” Ms Zafirakou says.
“I have many ex-colleagues who work in Dubai and they love it. They just feel that it’s the best place to teach.
“Education is so well respected in Dubai. Teachers have got such an important role, and there is a quality assurance that takes place.” The fact that Sheikh Mohammed is a patron of the prize, and that he attended the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai in March, is also significant, says Ms Zafirakou.
“It shows the country has bought into education. They know how vital it is for growing young minds and for the future of the economy in Dubai and beyond. You can absolutely sense that.”
What is next for the world’s best teacher?
“I am absolutely remaining at my school,” Ms Zakirafou says. “I’m happy here, I love being where I am. Teaching is my vocation, I’d be lost without it.”
But she is also determined to use her achievement to promote the teaching profession, which is something she feels needs greater recognition.
“Teachers work extremely hard but I don’t think we are respected enough,” she says. “Unless you’ve been raised by a teacher, you won’t understand the hours, the dedication that goes into a teacher’s life. You could never set a price on that because it is so unselfish.
“In my view we are doing the most important job in the world. We are growing, nurturing young minds and making them into the people we want and need in our society.”
But there is not enough funding in schools – at least not in Britain, Ms Zafirakou says.
“Can more be done? Absolutely, and I think the government is listening now and trying to put things into place. Whether or not they’ll be successful, let’s see.”