THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 6, 1995 TAG: 9507010139
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 174 lines
IT WAS THE SECOND day of summer school and the air-conditioning was on the fritz. But Chrissy Kouzis was in top form.
Moving among her class of sixth- and seventh-graders like a tender-hearted drill sergeant, she directed every ounce of energy in her petite frame toward her task: teaching reading and writing skills to kids who need to pass the state-mandated Literacy Passport Test.
At the moment, Kouzis wanted the kids to describe themselves with adjectives that began with the letters of their names.
She worked the Lake Taylor Middle classroom, offering an encouraging word here, a supportive pat on the back there, pushing, questioning, keeping them on track.
``You're going to brainstorm,'' Kouzis said, stopping short. ``What's brainstorming? You know what a storm is?''
``A lot of wind,'' one student said.
Kouzis responded:
``What kind of action does the wind give you?''
And on it went.
For just the second day, she had created a dialogue that seemed remarkable. Most of the kids, despite the heat and early hour of the morning, were paying attention and participating.
Ms. Kouzis, one student said, is a good teacher.
``She won't just say, `Do this and do that,' she'll take time with each student,'' said Randy Tyson, 12, a rising seventh-grader. ``She puts it in a way that you understand it.''
For Kouzis, there's probably no higher compliment. And it sheds light on why Kouzis, a 20-year veteran of the education business, has been named 1995 Teacher of the Year for Norfolk schools.
Last month, Kouzis finished her seventh year at Blair Middle, where she teaches sixth-grade English and social studies. What made her the best? This is how George Boothby Jr., her principal at Blair, explained it:
``She handles students with learning problems as well as she does gifted learners. She has a real sense of caring for her students. She looks at the child and finds their potential and then tries to bring that potential out. I don't think a lot of teachers do that.''
Math and science teacher Rick Fuller, who was paired with Kouzis to teach a cluster of about 54 students, called her a dynamo who loves her job and adores her students. At a recent luncheon to honor her, Fuller said, all she wanted to talk about was ``her'' kids.
``Teaching is her life, basically,'' Fuller said. ``She's a lot of fun to work with. She's a very upbeat individual.''
For someone who wasn't really sure she wanted to become a teacher, that's pretty high praise.
A native of Cyprus, an island country in the Mediterranean Sea, she immigrated to New York and the promise of America with her family in 1952. She was 6 when they moved to Norfolk to be near relatives.
Both of her parents spoke only limited English at the time. Her father, Chris, was a carpenter.
``He made beautiful furniture,'' Kouzis said.
Her mother, Helen, fantasized about becoming a teacher but never did.
When she was growing up, Kouzis said, her mother would sit with her and her younger brother, Anthony, and older sister, Tina, at home in the evening and learn alongside them.
``My mother would sit there with a dictionary and the `New York Times' and do homework with us,'' Kouzis said.
Kouzis, who just turned 50, is a product of the Norfolk school system. She attended Granby Elementary, Northside Middle and Granby High, graduating in 1963. She knew she wanted to enter a ``helping profession,'' but when she left high school she was not seriously entertaining a teaching career.
She had finished 1 1/2 years of general college classes at Old Dominion University when her father died in 1967. She needed money for schooling, so she hired on with a dentist, training as a dental assistant. But she wanted something more.
``I needed a job that paid better, and I needed an education to do that,'' Kouzis said. ``Both of my parents had such a strong influence on all of us for education. They wanted us to have not just the learning but the degree and the longtime process involved in keeping up with the world.''
She took a full-time secretarial job in 1970 with Eastern Virginia Medical School, working in a heart unit.
It was during this time that she began to consider teaching, inspired by her mother's dreams and childhood memories of a great-grandfather in Cyprus who told stories to the neighborhood children.
While working at EVMS, she attended night classes at ODU, methodically taking the courses she needed for a degree in education. But even then, she wasn't ``immediately enthralled'' with her classes.
``It started clicking for me as the course work shifted to middle school classes,'' Kouzis said. ``I just relate to that age group. It's a big transition that happens to them, both in physical and mental growth. I'm teaching all these skills and then all of a sudden you see them developing what they learn. You see them flying independent.''
Kouzis graduated from ODU in 1975 and was hired right away by Norfolk schools. Since then, she has taught communication and social studies to fifth- and sixth-graders at Stuart, Sherwood Forest, Chesterfield Heights and Blair.
She is single and shares a home with her mother. But she has a large extended family: her students, she says, are her children.
Because of her cultural heritage and extensive travel, Kouzis opens a broad window on the world for her students. From 1979 to 1983, she taught military dependents at a school in Bad Kreuznach, Germany. She has visited classrooms throughout Europe, including Russia, Czechoslovakia, Netherlands, England, Spain and Greece.
``I just thought it would be exciting to do, to teach overseas - it would be a challenge and allow me to travel,'' she said.
One thing that impresses her about the European education system is its emphasis on languages. She met children who spoke three and four languages.
She also appreciates the pride in work that is instilled in children. In most European countries she visited, students are separated into career paths based on their academic abilities: the highest achieving go to the universities, while others go to trade schools.
``The thing I liked about it is that the ones sent to trade schools were made to feel proud,'' Kouzis said. ``I'd like to see that in America - more respect for all workers, not just those going to college.
``In America, I'd love to see more parents involved and encouraging their children to push in school and in life.''
For the past four years at Blair, Kouzis' teaching headquarters has been modular unit 125, a mobile classroom stationed among a pod of units behind the school, located in the Ghent neighborhood off Colley Avenue. While the nondescript modules draw criticism from many, Kouzis said she loves teaching in one.
``We can regulate our heat and air-conditioning, they're spacious - this is my home,'' she said with an infectious smile.
Posted on the classroom walls is work by her pupils, some of it identified by a Polaroid photo of its student creator.
On the first day of her summer school class, she snapped a picture of each student to attach to an autobiography they wrote the same day. And she pinned on a bulletin board the smiling mugs of two ``students of the week,'' selected by her and the students based on their good behavior and willingness to help in the classroom.
``It's a motivator for them, seeing their picture showing what they did,'' Kouzis said. ``It makes them see they can do it and can do it again.''
Kouzis wants all of her students to do well, and she'll figure out ways for them to get extra credit. In social studies, for instance, students can write a paragraph about a subject they're studying for a few points to pull up a grade. She also spends hours in after-school tutoring classes.
``She really cares; she doesn't want you to fail,'' said Karen Goldburg, 12.
But she's no pushover. Out of her 50-plus students, only a handful made straight A's in her classes for the year.
She helped Donte Harris, 11, buckle down and try harder.
``She was telling me if I didn't shape up I'd be back in this grade again,'' said Donte, who's headed for the seventh grade, proud of his accomplishments.
Benjamin Stewart, 12, said he was making C's and D's and misbehaving at the start of the year. But Ms. Kouzis, he said, straightened him out.
``She said, `You can't be doing this because it's not going to get you anywhere.' She just helped me a lot,'' said Benjamin, who even made the honor roll.
On the final day of school last month, Kouzis' students gave her flowers. They posed for photographs, more for the scrapbooks she keeps of students. And they talked about what made her so special.
``She's always listening. Sometimes she gets in her moods, but she's always there to help you with your work and if you need somebody to talk to,'' said Francina Conner, 11.
``She really gave us a good start for our middle grade years,'' said Louise Woolridge, 12. ``She's always trying to convince us we need to be serious about our work and to do good in school.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color cover photo]
Staff photo by BILL TIERNAN
Chrissy Kouzis, Norfolk's 1995 teacher of the year, works on a
writing assignment with 13-year-old Iris Johnson during the summer
session at Lake Taylor Middle School.
Milton Miller, 12, gets some suggestions from Kouzis while working
on his autobiography at Lake Taylor Middle School.
Chrissy Kouzis helps a student post the class' work for the day
KEYWORDS: TEACHER OF THE YEAR NORFOLK by CNB