The Greek School With One Single Student

If 8-year-old Christos Kamposos misses school, that means there are no classes for the day at Arkoi. On this tiny Greek island on the eastern rim of the Aegean Sea overlooking Turkey, there is one single school and this school has one single student.  

Christos usually eats the lunch his mother packs him alone on the school’s patio. The school had twice as many students until his brother Panayiotis graduated.

Now, educating "half as few students", the school depends on Christos, and vice versa.

This photo-essay takes us on an odyssey to the blue and green world of Arkoi and in it, to the world of Christos. In author-photographer Demetrios Ioannou's words:

The island’s last census was taken in 2011, when Arkoi boasted 44 residents. Today, that number has dwindled to about half, including seven in the Kamposos family, whose youngest — the bright, brown-eyed, eight-year-old Christos — is the sole reason this little village has a school.

The Greek Ministry of Education appoints a teacher every year. This school term, Maria Tsialera, who is originally from the second biggest city of the country, Thessaloniki, started teaching Christos in September. Tsialera volunteered for the job and is very content to be teaching Christos. She is both his only teacher and only friend at school; they study and play together. 

There are many ironies hidden in this lonely existence amidst the idyllic, but deserted setting. 

At the beginning of the school day, Christos rings the bell. In any other school, the sound would send students running through the halls to their classrooms. Here, Tsialera says, “it’s more of a symbolic act.”

All in all, the existence of Arkoi's only school is "more of a symbolic act". 

Ioannou's photojournalism article lets us delve deeply into thinking about generations young and old, about haves and have nots, about loneliness and solidarity, about simplicity and complexity while looking at the visuals of Arkoi's only school's and pupil's life.