4 - A Brick in the Wall

Secondary education, the compulsory three years of the Greek Gymnasium, followed by another three of Lyceum, initially, after the tedium of primary school, opened before me an apparently new exciting paths I was looking forward to walk. It was a terra incognita keen to explore for new knowledge, hopefully useful and practical in life, even though aim was attainable through a maze of rigid and, in a way, soul-destroying preparations for the succession of unforgiving exams it involved. It was also a path along which individual characters and personalities would be shaped and matured, one that would open doors along the way for interactions with people, and, for some of my peers, would lead to the discovery of love. In one way or another, it could be said that it was the painful, but the necessary stage in life for growing into a man, a real and proper man.

Reality rarely lives up to the initial expectations. A man, after those six, long slowly dragging years of secondary education,  hardly reaches the point in maturity that he had imagined and, perhaps, had dreamed when this project, dictated from outside and above, began.  The path to adulthood, this physically and emotionally complex process of growing up and maturing, became scattered by the weeds of exams, milestones of either success or failure, and the mental burdens they brought along; in short, a marathon with many hurdles. Exam after exam, a sequence burdened, in my generation’s rather unfortunate case, by a conjuncture of incessant interventions in the education system by successive governments (promoted as necessary modernizing reforms). From this (and not just) point of view, we were unlucky having to sit and endure: exams for entrance to the Gymnasium, from the Gymnasium to the Lyceum, demanding nationwide for entry to university twice in the last two years; exams which over time, one after another, were abolished; exams, amongst others, in now obsolete subjects, such as Ancient Greek or certain chapters of Physics, devalued after a while as anachronisms and omitted from the core of the curriculum. The expectations to perform in those exams was of course high, extremely high, the pressure from the immediate family environment maybe indirect and latent, but real, noticeable and oppressive. Admittedly, I possessed the necessary above-average intelligence and other similar skills not just to succeed, but also to excel in those exams. It was not difficult. Due diligence, basic dedication and consistency, and holding one’s nerve during the exams sufficed.

Pressures from Mother, the primary school teacher, and Father, the once proud scientist, were strong and constant throughout. It was occasionally reinforced by a friendly, school and wider environment, nevertheless it became unbearable at times, especially when I was being introduced and shown around as the ‘pride’ of the family. In a way, I became a showcase for a proud family and its name, the always ‘positive’, intelligent eldest son with an aptitude for knowledge and understanding and few minor gifts, the main amongst them being diligence and tenacity. And I had to somehow handle and justify, in school and gatherings with family friends, those aggressively flattering designations and exposure. Failure at any step along the way would have certainly disappointed; it might have even caused embarrassment and grief, if not a backlash.

Yet on the very first step in this long process, in the twilight of childhood, in the entrance hall of adolescence, I stumbled. The idea of preparing for and taking, as a twelve-year-old child, some demanding exams, for admission to the so called ‘Experimental School of Thessaloniki’, a model school for selected few, conventionally gifted boys of the city, who would be taught by the elite of city's teachers, had its roots in those social micro-prejudices, possibly, propagated by our closest family friends of the time, the Akrivides’. They had strong links with this elite educational establishment of the city. I failed despite my gallant efforts to prepare, imprisoned for hours and days in a little room to study and deprive of our street games, when friends were enjoying their first weeks of summer holidays. Billy, Akrivides’ sone of  the same age, succeeded with ease and bravado. The disappointment at such a tender age was great, almost traumatic. Then I realized for the first time that wounds from such failures in life (exams, rejection in job applications, and so on) heal relatively quickly. Someone gets up, dusts off, forgets that singular pain and sorrow, and carries on. It was one of the fist important and useful life lessons of my youth, the failure in those inconsequential exams, which, at the end of the day, might have been worth it, as it was followed by small glories and the euphoria from a sequence of ‘successes’ in school and the exam arena. The prestige of the family had been more than restored in the following years.

3 - Thoughts on the Social Backdrop

Performance in school and exams, as mandated by the system for progress to higher education stages and its climax, that is, entering the university and obtaining a degree, was the imperative of every petty middle-class family, faithful the established social dogma and traditions for their offspring: in the suspended anxiety for the preservation of social status, for stability, entrenchment and self-affirmation, and ideally ascendence to a higher income and wealth bracket, all those elements of class mentality I criticized and treated with contempt and sarcasm later in life, despite being an organic member of these classes. There were, of course, some infernal goals, less obvious than the ingenuous of graduating with a degree and whatever knowledge that certified, which laid bare the class cynicism in the whole project: it was a position in the state-bred and -fed apparatus and bureaucracy that would ensure forever, without worries what tomorrow would bring, until death, a relatively comfortable life away from the plebs of wages and toil, or ascendence to the proud bourgeois caste of doctors, lawyers, engineering contractors, etc., the bourgeoisie proper of the city. At the root of all this, of course, were the accumulation and preservation of private property and wealth, this materialistic vanity that man in capitalism measures and preserves as something sacred, which one daily looks after like as much as he does his eyes, as the saying goes, ignoring the fact, one day, all this will be pulverized and scattered in the chaos of the universe, along with the bodies of the men that produced it.

This system of raising children and bringing up adolescents into adulthood in Greece has become more elaborate over the years. During the post-dictatorship period and its generation (that is, my generation), a gradually counterproductive and parasitic development of the Greek economy was taking place, evident even to immature young eyes. It was directed, in some deterministic way, by globalization, international competition and global division of labour. Such changes of historical magnitude, which direct the future evolution of a nation’s economy, were normally hidden behind sporadic, apparently insignificant news nobody paid much attention to: such as the shutting down of a textile or electric machines factory or the ritual advertising of each government increased tourist arrivals and revenue. Dependent on the global economic centres in a obsequious manner in a clientelist framework, panting behind technological advances, despite the anaemic and usually ineffective reform policies attempted by governments from time to time. The contradictions of this unproductive model of growth would unfold spectacularly a few decades later in a historically large and unprecedented economic crisis.

Economic reality and systemic crises, now and then, demystify given preconceptions and beliefs about the socioeconomic structure of Greece, although they are quickly forgotten, until the next crisis occurs. As a rule, they fragment and impoverish layers of its middle class, and devalue the political system and state apparatus that was built on and recycled -to serve and in turn be supported by this class.  In the meantime, however, it forms the peculiar characteristics of those transitional, ‘floating’ small and medium-sized strata and defines the temperament, idiosyncrasy and peculiarities of Greek society: children of the middle classes have to be educated at all costs, hoard degrees and certificates; at worst, follow in the footsteps of their parents in the public sector or in their professions in small primarily retail businesses, at best, advance a bit further than the previous generation, but not diverging too much from the same, ‘well-trodden path’. In short, many personal ambitions were drained in the pursuit of a rather predetermined career, under the auspices, directly or indirectly, of the gigantic and ubiquitous state. The motto of civil servants (the elite amongst them prefer the euphemistic title of ‘public functionaries or official’), the multitude ‘freelancer professionals’ and to a certain extent the vanity of the Greek middle class, stems from latent social instincts of self-preservation and perpetuation. It could be summed up in the phrase a family friend, a grand local lawyer of the ‘shark’ species, had solemnly uttered in one of Mother's rare soirées: ‘Sans-culotte I may end up, but I will make sure my daughter gets her university degree!’ And she did. And she worked and succeeded as a solicitor in her father’s legal practice, along with her more capable brother, whose education cost less.

In conclusion, the absolute minimum degree of success of the offspring of a family of civil servants or city professionals would be measured by a degree or certificate, their number and prestige. The sought-after type of university subjects and the possibility of further postgraduate studies was usually based on an arteriosclerotic and, by and large, obsolete by contemporary standards and irrelevant assessment of the employment opportunities the Greek society could offer and which was generally belied by a rapidly evolving global reality. And the final restoration of the young graduate into the  ‘comfort zone’ of prescribed and entrenched professional spaces. In turn, the achievement attainment of intermediate or ultimate goals (the acquisition of that one or more and better degrees and diplomas), presupposes incremental successes and advancement in a closed education system of successive loops of ‘delivering the curriculum’ and examinations on this ‘teaching material’. The level of comprehension, resting often on learning mechanically and by heart and memorizing the study material, and the final success in the exams naturally depended on the zeal and intelligence of the student, but also on the support one would happen to receive, amounting to the supervision and where necessary the ‘push’ from the close family and, lest we forget, the private tutoring centers run side-by-side and ‘shadowing’ the public school system. The latter and its teachers were simply the long arm of a ministry in a bureaucratic educational organization, the intermediaries so to speak, who mechanically taught (‘delivered’, would be a more apt term) study material compiled by ‘expert’ civil servants in a cramped office of the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs. Creativity, critical thinking, initiative, cultivation of skills and talents were attributes forgotten or neglected. One wonders: what creativity could one draw from repetitive orthodox religion studies or the grammar and syntax of a half-dead language? What history can be learnt from texts tailored to a narrow national and nationalistic narrative? The means provided for an aim or to an end in life, were grossly inadequate. And blessed were those who left school with their initiative and spirit not fully checked.

2 - Schooling for the Transitional Classes

Adolescence, for the main body of Greek youth, that is, the offsprings of educated to semi-literate members of the lower and middle urban strata, whose population was increasing rapidly after the war (and not much slower, since the transition to democracy and growing dependence of many a career on political clientelism and favouritism), revolved around the days spent in public secondary schools, appended, by daily attendance and throughout the calendar year, of that innovation of the Greek educational system: private tutoring schools on the main subjects. The effort of tutors, parents and pupils, of everybody barring the uninterested teachers of public schools, were focused on the imperative of success in the final year nationwide exams that would ensure admission, preferably to a university or, if that was not achieved, to some form of college education. At the end of this process a holy grail for many families would be reached: one or more university degree or certificates, which would, supposedly, open the doors into a future materialistic prosperity –an ambiguous state of well-being that for most was akin to a leisurely paced, low-stress, ideally government sponsored employment for life with a fixed income, for fewer with an applicable  family tradition, to more lucrative careers in law and medicine.

Although lacking structured class consciousness in the early years of adolescence, admittedly I also belonged to this mass of children, merely by virtue of the fact that I was born into that lower middle class, which is the backbone of Greek urban societies; from relatively educated parents, neither poor nor rich, parents who ardently and often desperately strived to maintain and strengthen their economic and social status in the city,  as well as, of course, that of their descendants; without, however, too many an aspiration outside the city and national borders, and the pre-eminently state-run economy that would safeguard a regular income, monotonically increasing with years of service, along with some ‘tranquillity, peace, and security’ ad vitam, paragons of middle-Greece (and, to be fair, not just Greece!)

Those low family horizons and mundane goals, as contemplated by Mother, Father and members of the extended family, were rather predetermined, as much as clear and distinct in their minds. Education and schooling, along with the succession of mandatory exams at different stages the arteriosclerotic and sterile educational system required, in which success meant more or less an end in itself, omitted or, at best, bypassed more important attributes: intellectual edification via creative and critical thinking, maximum possible utilization and optimization of one’s inclinations and talents -latent in every human from birth, the liberation and strengthening of one’s physical and mental powers, the cultivation of soul and mind to embrace the timeless virtues of human nature, such as love, sociability, companionship, sympathy and empathy, cooperation, logical thinking, provide insight into the world and nature around. The Greek school, even when viewed through the eyes of an immature person lacking life experience, even more so now from a temporal and geographical distance, did not offer much more than a quantity of knowledge, by and large of no practical use and detached from reality outside its high perimeter walls; a reality, however, which was in a fervent evolution, changing at an incessant pace and leaving an inert educational system lagging.

The weak initial interest in subject lessons, therefore, was exhausted after a few first weeks at school; notes from the lectures covered a maximum of one or two pages of subject notebooks over the school year. From then on, attending classes became a routine undertaking. We only opened the piles of textbooks furnished gratis by the state at the beginning of the school year, for a quick, indifferent look, and that in anticipation of a written or oral examination. These were the tedious drags the most conscientious amongst us, nevertheless uncomplainingly, performed at the expense of personal freedom and happiness. Spirits were understandably lifted in the days before the holidays or those sunny days of school trips, when few hours and days of sought-after freedom from the shackles of schoolwork were granted.

1 - Thankless Times

Through the endeavours of maturity: for ordinary mortals to bring food to the table and roof over their heads, for many of them to raise children, for others to care about their old folk, for a few just to enjoy and please their partners and friends, the little time amongst the innumerable and forgotten days of a daily grind leave for inner reflection and a chat with ourselves,  to review actions and thoughts, it is in this little time the nostalgia of childhood is rekindled; with its innocence and naivety, its purity and sweetness, its vitality and carefreeness. At this time, we are often overwhelmed by the feeling of missing longed-for past situations: sunny afternoons playing on the dusty streets and sandlots of the old neighborhood, the hot summer holidays by the sea, times and places of joy and carefreeness, when each day we reached new horizons. But the more we long for and miss those, the more we feel the inadequacy to slow down the passing of time, the more they hopelessly fade in our minds until they have become forgotten change in a box. For many, however, nostalgia does not have the attain the same magnitude with the recollections from the years following those of childhood, those of adolescence. It may have to do with the thudding intensity and dull colour of the experiences associated with this age, and a chaotic perception of the world. Perhaps, it has to do with the fact that we come to a better understanding with ourselves via a bumpy and rough road towards the crystallization into whom we finally become.

The review of adolescence, that whirlwind in our inner world, the complex and awkward as much as transformative period for spirit and body, remains very personal and subjective, at least, for an introverted boy, soon to become an ambitious young man, but who was eventually shaped into an inward looking and withdrawn person. I felt adolescence was an almost exclusively esoteric experience, with few occasions and examples of outwardness and externalising thoughts and feelings along its course. It is clearly a period when one develops at a rapid pace, both physically and mentally, conquers higher levels of self-consciousness and begins to perceive through emotional regressions, sometimes severe, one’s becoming and being. As the time gap from adolescence widens, the deeper that period is pushed into the memory banks of the brain and, thereafter, rarely recalled: with its secrets, the feelings of repression, the disorders, and some unhealthy or unsavoury habits. Whenever those memories resurface (and that occurs every time I dig into the being-in-itself, the person I grew up into) that period is projected as disorderly sequence of abrupt hormonal and physiological changes, as an emotional turbulence without a defined cusp, with vague beginnings and undefined ends, not easily affording a rationalisation and correlation with the present. Although paramount in the process of integration as human beings, it rarely becomes a point of reference and barely recognized as one of the foundations on which our life rests. For me and possibly a few others like me, it was in life what the Middle Ages represented in the history of the human kind: a dark, but historically deterministic prelude to the Renaissance. The era when a major chunk of the character and personality is sculpted and painted.

There were the times when oppression by the family environment, as itself formed by preset structures and established dictates of the Greek society of its milieu (because oppression seemed and was intensely felt as such), the weariness of the school and the ordinariness and mediocrity of most of our teachers, the exclusion from wider circles of friends and schoolmates and the joys I saw they could offer, in short, the curtailing of individual freedom, created situations that at times became unbearable to the point of implosion. Compulsions found fertile soil inside the soul, often I found myself stripped out of creative imagination, and dried of creative thinking and feelings; frustrated by unfulfilled desires and the absence of outlets for joy and creation, where passions and repressed desires could be channelled or where some latent talent could be detected and flourish. The result was an ever-increasing inwardness and circular or dead-end thinking, further isolation from the external world of peers and adults, unwarranted hostility towards people around me; all in all, a vicious spiral starting from and ending into myself. There were moments when I felt that I could not claim even a tiny share of the external world around me, that I belonged to it only in nominal terms, an emotionally alienated oddity, a stranger amongst strangers. I had no mates but a family and a room, and a school to go and get educated. For the most part, life revolved around the latter.