An inventive teacher’s journey through teaching challenges | Stergios Parizas

Stergios Parizas is not just a substitute teacher. He uses music as a tool to build a bond of trust with his students. In his talk, he describes how he created a song with his multilingual students, using words from their mother tongue, during his first year working at a school. When he was assigned as a teacher to Michalis, a special needs student, music became once again a foundation upon which he built a relationship. Together, they played the song he wrote, titled “Don’t forget to love”, in front of the whole school, in a moving moment for all. “True wealth isn’t found in money, and education deserves true wealth”, Stergios says, and he adds: “Asking people older than me, when they discovered true happiness, most of them said it was when they had a family and children of their own. Imagine how lucky a teacher is, spending his whole life next to and raising hundreds of children. This is our family”.