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.