Not the retiring type: The years add up for 86-year-old math teacher in Alexandria

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Education

Not the retiring type: The years add up for 86-year-old math teacher in Alexandria



For 60 years, Louis Kokonis, 86, has taught generations of math students in Alexandria, Va., mainly at T.C. Williams High. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)

By Debbie Truong October 10

There’s an image of Louis Kokonis enshrined in the memories of a bygone generation of high school students in Alexandria, Va. It’s of the lanky 86-year-old math teacher, much younger, dressed in a suit and covered in chalk dust. ... In the early 1970s, well before he was Alexandria’s longest-ever-serving teacher, Kokonis solved algebra and calculus equations on three blackboards in his Francis C. Hammond High School classroom. He worked from the front of the class, then moved to a blackboard fixed on a side wall before filling up the last slate in the back, recalled Chris Barquin, 64.

Chalkboards have gone the way of grade books and slide rules, replaced by computers and calculators, but Kokonis has remained a fixture in Alexandria City Public Schools — first at Hammond, then at T.C. Williams High, which became the city’s lone high school after three other schools combined when the district racially integrated. ... Kokonis doesn’t offer rousing pronouncements about the state of public education or preach advice to young educators, as might be expected of a teacher in his 60th year on the job, a milestone that school system officials and former students have celebrated in online tributes. .... Flashiness has never been his style. Barquin, a retired civil engineer, recalled that Kokonis’s voice barely rose above a whisper when he taught. Still, he managed to engender respect from students. ... “The guy can teach, flat out,” Barquin said. “He’s the finest teacher I’ve had at any level, anywhere.”
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With the exception of a two-year Army stint in Germany, Kokonis hasn’t strayed far. He moved to Washington when he was 6, graduating from Roosevelt High School in Northwest and D.C. Teachers College before starting in Alexandria in 1959. .... Much has changed in Kokonis’s six-decade career. He’s less likely to teach material if it’s not going to appear on standardized or Advanced Placement tests. These days, he scrawls calculus equations on a Smart board. ... But his routine has remained. He still teaches five 90-minute blocks and tutors students at lunch — a full-time class load. He spends three hours preparing before each class, reviewing notes and solving practice problems. Burnout has never been an issue — daily walks around neighborhood parks help, Kokonis said, as does the sense of meaning and purpose he derives from teaching. ... Kokonis, who never married or had children, has no plans to retire.

He provided pizza and doughnuts for students at weekend and after-school calculus review sessions in the spring, said Anne Williams, a freshman at Elon University in North Carolina. Williams, a gregarious 18-year-old, would pepper her soft-spoken calculus teacher with questions. ... “He’s an introvert that doesn’t share much unless you ask,” Williams explained in a written memory she shared with the school district. “If you are willing to listen and focus, you usually like him” .... He has a particular affinity for Westerns and “Anne of Green Gables.” ... “The world’s tragic enough,” Kokonis said. “I’m kind of idealistic. I like to see everything come out real nice.”
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Debbie Truong covers education in Virginia. She previously reported on local government in Central Virginia for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Follow https://twitter.com/debbietruong

‘Staying as a Teacher’ in Alexandria



Louis Kokonis, a math teacher at T.C. Williams, enters his seventh decade as a professional educator. ACPS Photo

By Dan Brendel/Gazette Packet Monday, October 8, 2018

A 60-year veteran teacher advises students to work hard, teachers not to burn out, parents to begin educating their children early, and public officials to keep schools up to snuff. ... Louis Kokonis, a calculus teacher at T.C. Williams High School, began his career as an educator in 1959. Now 86 years old, he’s still at it, with no plans to retire, as long as his health keeps. In a Sept. 24 interview, he shared some of his life experience.

Kokonis grew up in Washington, D.C. After a stint driving trucks in Europe for the Army, Uncle Sam put him through college. He went on to earn two master’s degrees, one in education and another in math. He taught first at Francis Hammond High School, moving to T.C. Williams when Alexandria integrated its schools. Now he also teaches two dual-enrollment math classes at Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), through which high school students can earn college credits. ... Asked what’s kept him coming back, he said, “I love teaching math. … And I like kids. I enjoy the interaction I get here, with kids and the teachers. … It’s a good job, doing something you like.” He’s kept up with a couple former students — one now a chemist, another an engineer.

The territory comes with plenty of challenges. For their part, students face more pressure related to college. ... “When I went to college, it was just, ‘Come on in,’ that’s it. … The cost of college is out of reach for a lot of students. … By the time they get out of college, they have a great debt. When I graduated, I didn’t owe anything. … The other thing that’s new is all this testing. … So that’s another burden on the students, they have to pass all these tests. … I didn’t have to take an SAT when I went [to college]. It was an easier time for a student ….”

Asked for his best advice to students, he said: “I can only tell them, to get somewhere, you have to really apply yourself. If you apply yourself, in the long run, somehow, it’s going to pay off. You should always try to do your best.”
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Six Decades Of Math And Chalkdust

September 24th 2018

Six decades ago Louis Kokonis began his career as a teacher with ACPS. Now, at 86 years of age, more than twice the age of his fellow teachers, he’s still going strong with no plan to retire anytime soon.

When Kokonis started teaching, The Champ’s “Tequila,” Domenico Modugno’s “Volare,” and Sheb Wooley’s “The Purple People Eater” topped the music charts. He recalls the early days: boys with crew cuts and girls whose skirts had to hit below their knees. Kids flocked to the Hot Shoppes on North Washington Street for burgers and fountain drinks, hung out at the roller rink on Madison and N. St. Asaph, or spent evenings at Tops Drive-In maybe sitting in a winged, turquoise Ford Fairlane.

Our email inboxes were flooded by former students and coworkers this past week wanting to share their stories of “Koko.” Some were physicists, engineers, doctors and professors. All wrote to say what an inspiration their soft-spoken teacher in the chalk-covered suit was.
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Mr. Kokonis explained the process through the chalk dust clouds (courtesy photo)
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I never took any courses from him.

[JudyM]

1. Pretty cool story, working through the ages.

My dad was forced to retire from teaching when he turned 65, back in the days before there was any protection at all. Then they hired him back part time at a much lower salary, of course.