Erol Erduran, Cypriot educator and writer died he was , 78 ? Kterrl's ...

Erol Erduran was an influential Turkish Cypriot educator and writer.

Erduran was born on November 4, 1932 in Larnaca, Cyprus and died on August 5, 2011 in Bristol, England. He represented the Turkish Cypriot community on the Fulbright Commission and worked closely with other international agencies including the British Council and the Goethe Institute.
The early influence on Erduran?s teaching philosophy was his father
Hasan Nihat, a well-respected teacher and leader whose fellow villagers,
originally from Aytotoro, dedicated a street in his name in northern
Cyprus 60 years after his death. An obituary of Hasan Nihat was written
by Talat Yurdakul and published in Halkin Sesi Newspaper on 17 August
1948.
Erduran was trained at Morphou Teachers? College, and subsequently
taught in several village schools in Cyprus including at Sinde and Kucuk
Kaymakli. Erduran himself was one of the first Cypriot teachers to be
granted a scholarship to study in the UK where he completed a Diploma in
Teaching English as a Foreign Language at University of Wales, Cardiff
in 1962. Following his return to Cyprus, Erduran moved onto secondary
school teaching at several schools including Nicosia Girls? School where
he taught for almost 20 years educating generations of Turkish Cypriot
women. Apart from Primary and Secondary School Teaching, Erduran?s
career included Director of In-Service Teacher Training and Instructor
at Anadolu Open University Campus in Northern Cyprus. He was a visiting
teacher at George Mason University, USA and was one of the founding members of the Eastern Mediterranean University, the very first university of the Turkish Cypriot community. Following the 1974 conflict in Cyprus,
he helped establish a new secondary school in Lapithos and served as
its first head-teacher. Throughout his career, Erduran made numerous
visits to schools in the United Kingdom, USA and Turkey.
Erduran was an effective teacher who made a significant impact not
only on the practice and policy of education but also on the
intellectual discourse on education in Cyprus. He was a proponent of
interdisciplinary and holistic teaching: ?Teachers, above all, are
responsible for raising the cultural capital of the societies that they
live in. In order to nurture literate and constructive generations,
teachers need awareness of not only their subject knowledge but also
other subjects to broaden their vision. Academic knowledge is necessary
but not sufficient as a strong cultural foundation of youngsters.?
(Erduran, 1954). Francis Bacon?s ?Of Studies?, which he knew by heart,
best captured Erduran?s passion for pedagogy and English literature:
?Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability? influenced
his teaching philosophy in differentiating purposes of education. He
believed in everyone?s potential to learn, and took it upon himself as a
teacher and an administrator to find creative ways of facilitating
learning. He had a rare talent for transforming complex ideas into
simple, striking and animated narrative.
Erduran was also a known figure in Turkish Cypriot literature and
journalism. He contributed regularly to the Ideas and Arts Magazine
?Cardak? where he published short stories. His prose was existential in
nature, and was influenced by international literature and philosophy
including the work of Bertrand Russell, Albert Camus and Knut Hamsun. He
published numerous articles in the Turkish Cypriot newspaper ?Nacak.?
His prose had an existential tone, questioning the absurdity of life and
alienation of humanity, often drawing on metaphors from the natural
world to symbolise aspects of the human condition. In an interview he
reported: ?I must have believed that everything in life, apart from
the earth, is rotten, and everything is lacking of something. It must be
so because the smell of soil has never been missing in my stories?
(Erduran, 1954a, p.?13). The existential undertone of his writing was
uniquely positioned in reference to education where he saw it as the
responsibility of teachers and society at large to help the public
understand and come to terms with humanity?s place in the world.
Education in this sense was a vehicle to promote clarity of reason in
understanding the existential condition of humanity. In his article
entitled ?To Make Live,? he took issue with ignorance particularly in
reference to the role of reading in the Turkish Cypriot community
describing it as a ?deep wound of its cultural life? (Cardak,
1954b, p.?6). Nevertheless he was hopeful that the contributions made
within the community would yield to the advancement of the indigenous
literature to the point of serious competition with the mainland Turkish
literature. His stories were full of lyrical use of the Turkish
language through simple yet deep and powerful metaphors. His inspiration
for writing came to fruition when he would ?lock (his) observations
in (his) mind and wait for (his) characters to riot against them. Then
and only then (he) would feel the necessity to weave the plot onto
paper.? (Erduran, 1954a, p.?13)
One of Erduran?s passions in life was swimming. During the British
colonial rule, he competed in the swimming championships involving Greek
and Turkish Cypriots as well as the British expatriates, having won
numerous competitions. Ayten Erduran, his wife of 50 years died in
London in 2003. He is survived by his daughter Sibel Erduran, Professor
of Science Education at University of Bristol; son Nihat Erol Erduran,
Mental Health Manager at the National Health Service, London. His
obituary has appeared in the Times Higher Education Magazine (25 August
2011),^[1] The Times (17 August 2011) and Cyprus Mail (14 August 2011).

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