6 - Teachers of the Gymnasium

 Several teachers walked through the door of our classroom, stood in front of the blackboard or behind their desk on the little platform to deliver their lessons or strolled condescendingly between the columns of desks to establish quiet or identify culprits. Some of them with remarkable and colourful personalities, others insipid and dull; some charming and respectable, others contemptible and despised; some seasoned teachers, others young on temporary assignments; some kind, with cultured with mild manners, a few uncouth savages – despite a university degree in their possession; some old-school, a few young liberal innovators; some ardent right-wing nationalist, a few left-wing progressives, and a handful amongst them trade unionists -initially covertly and after the transition to democracy, amidst the populist waves of ‘Change and Reform’ of the socialist party swept through the country, more overt and demonstrative, even within the school confines. In short, the body of teachers, το whom Greek society and state entrusted with the education and bringing up to future citizens of young people, were as diverse as the student mass they were commissioned to teach. An attribute in the public school system binding most of its public servant-employees was the little or no passion and the lack of ardour for teaching; the procedural and soulless ways they got on with their duties, the distance from their student flock. Some distinct political pseudo-progressivism bore little in the way of conscientiousness amongst some of them, while the right-wing nationalism of others equated to obscurantism and regression. But such trends, or rather maladies, afflicted the state education system for years; to date, in fact.

During the first years of secondary school, the year of Gymnasium, discipline for the most part was relatively easily imposed, mainly because of the young age of the student populace and the well- known freshman’s immaturity and sheepishness. Mrs. Sardelis was a cultured bourgeois philologist who resided in one of the penthouses of the still fashionable Vasilissis Olgas’s Avenue that once after my graduation visited for a reason I do not remember. in fact, most philologists impressed me learned and cultured individuals because of their classic and modern literature subjects they taught). She had lively eyes behind some thick myopia glasses, well-groomed, dyed auburn hair and was always elegantly dressed in light-coloured skirt-suits. She was the very first to enter our class of freshmen, and she did with the air of her many years of experience in work and life. She asserted herself and commanded respect by virtue of her good education and the majestic grace she conducted herself and taught her class. Father used to visit the school in each of my first years, without missing any of the parents' school evenings, to get to know my teachers, first and foremost the year’s philologist and mathematician and discuss my progress. He considered modern Greek and Maths as cornerstones of secondary education. He had the occasional chats with the physics or chemistry teachers, but that more to introduce himself as a former colleague, as well as demonstrate his superior knowledge on those subjects he himself studied in university. He ignored teachers of Geography, Zoology and the likes, as he considered those subjects unworthy in someone’s education and advancement in life, and their teachers graduates of inferior courses in university.) In any case, Mrs. Sardelis was amongst those he held in great esteem, for her kindness and culture: ‘You are fortunate to have such an excellent philologist!’, he exclaimed after their first meeting. Nevertheless, from my first year in Gymnasium and the classes with our philologist Sardelis, I retained just one piece of rather useless knowledge -the first two lines from our textbook of Ancient Greek: ‘I believe in friendship. You know a faithful friend in danger’, whose grammar and syntax we had to analyse and discuss. Not much else, even though she was an ‘excellent’ philologist indeed and even though I loved my reading of books (of modern literature, that is) ever since I was a child.

On the contrary, the philologist in the second and third grades created a bad impression from the first parents’ evening on an a priori negatively predisposed Father. And a very bad one, in fact. Mr. Alexiades was an old-fashioned, old-school teacher, obsessed, as many philologists of his generation (and not just) with the cumbersome intricacies of the Ancient Greek. As the historic predecessor of modern Greek, in a proud cultural heritage, it was one of the major preoccupations of the nation and the Ministry of Education (and Religious Affairs) since the establishment of the modern Greek state in the 19^th century. Mr Alexiades channelled this passion for the ancient language, so to speak, into compiling and publishing a textbook with the conjugations of irregular verbs in ancient texts. Apparently, It was the opus of his career as a teacher and he considered it as his scholarly contribution to the continuity and influence of that precious for the nation’s psyche ancient language. He discreetly advertised his self-published book in the classroom and encouraged his students to purchase as an indispensable ‘aid’ in school exams on classic Greek texts. I had to purchase it too, from the local bookstore which was selling its limited stock exclusively under Mr Alexiades’ instructions.

In the first parents evening of the second year, in the first encounter of Father with Mr. Alexiades, an initially innocuous conversation about my progress in his ‘Greek Language & Literature’ subject, erupted into an intense argument, about the significance and even the methods of teaching the classics for them to attract any interest from young persons. Father's voice could be heard to the courtyard outside where I was waiting for him to do the rounds, to the astonishment of parents and teachers and the janitor and, of course. It must have astounded the bewildered philologist, who was unaccustomed to such scorn from parents of presumably inferior education achievements than him. Since that event and during the school year, any reference to the Ancient Greek classes and Mr. Alexiades prompted sarcastic remarks from Father, with puns and anagrams of the cumbersome tenses and conjugations of the verb έχω (have) in ancient Greek, in particular: the initial root σ- of σ-έχω, which evolved by Hellenistic era scholars to ἔχω, could be an anagram of derogatory and a foul word in the modern language. Clearly, Father never liked Mr. Alexiades.

Ms Konstantinidou was the mathematics teacher in those early years. A short and stocky woman, with unkempt greasy black hair, a deep and fierce gaze from deep black eyes through circles, a countenance rather in accordance with her personality. She usually wore a condescending smile and spoke with a flat monotone voice, as if lecturing was a chore and her audience, barring the few eager to learn and bright enough perceive, maths was generally dumb and unreceptive. Yet, those were typical characteristics of most teachers of mathematics I encountered. (After all, an expressive voice and with emotional inflections and rhetorical skills do little to help with the transmissibility and comprehension by an audience of maths knowledge, which targets mainly centers of logic rather than emotions in the brain.) She delivered her dry and boring and, thankfully, brief lectures, with her left hand through the lapel of a heavy long coat covering her short body down to her ankles, like Napoleon Bonaparte, and her right hand permanently holding a piece chalk.

From the first instance she entered our classroom, she commanded a due respect stemming more from the core subject she taught than her personality: mathematicians and the way they handle numbers and symbols on a board, incomprehensible for many and wondrous for some, arouse nevertheless admiration for their deftness, especially for an audience uninitiated in mathematics and regardless of the level of understanding individually. She caused some kind of awe even to me who I was nurtured by Father to the paramount importance of the subject as in the core of any potential career in sciences or engineering for the few bright brains that embark and excel in those careers.  Ms Konstantinidou caused a minor shock in the first parents’ evening with her abrupt assessment of my performance in her lesson: ‘Ah! Are you must be Br_s’ Father? Your son is doing badly in maths. Terrible, Mr Br_s!’ Br_s was the surname of the boy sitting next to me in the same desk in one of the back rows, with a surname bearing a strong similarity to mine. Br_s was a quiet and benevolent boy, however blunt towards mathematics or any school subjects for the matter -not the sharpest pencil in the box, as they say. I used to help him as much as I could in tests, although any support bore no fruits as far as his grades were concerned. He was merely dim-witted, and of those not born to excel in letters and numbers. Seeing Father’s surprise and detecting his intellectual makeup from the way he came across, Ms Konstantinidou realized her mistake, had another look in her little grade book and, modestly and with her usual dry style, praised my initial performance and progress thus far. Father was pacified and we both were satisfied with my baptism of fire in the world of mathematics. I had since rapidly and relatively effortlessly ascended the maths ladder, from the elementary school arithmetic to algebra and later to calculus in the latter years of high school. Those were tough times for the less gifted or privileged and Ms Konstantinidou was not the supportive and constructive teacher with her anti-pedagogical methods for teaching maths in a comprehensive school with various degrees of ability and attainment amongst the pupils. But those defects in teaching did not really matter to anyone concerned.

Mr. Athanasiadis, the theologian, was the stern and formidable deputy headmaster of our Gymnasium, and the meticulous coordinator of blessings, Sunday church services, morning prayers, etc. and the like elements of our religious education. An uncompromising disciplinarian he managed effortlessly and by his mere presence in the class to maintain silence and attention and discipline during his classes. It was not just his severe countenance behind the dictatorial toothbrush style moustache that barely disguised a haughty smile, or the dark suit and tie he was always wearing at school. Nor was the eloquence with which he preached the ‘hot air’ of religion, analysed the gospel and troparia. Most theologians admittedly possessed the gift of eloquence, despite the dullness of a subject which at times overwhelmed most pupils, either devout Christians or religious or non-religious. In essence, were subjected for hours on end to catechism and indoctrination into a Orthodoxy dogma and compulsive attendance of hours long liturgies along with the devout church folk.

We obliged, unwillingly or not, and who knows why? Was it the fear of God that was still lurking in young souls, was it that the Orthodox church had penetrated deeply into the conscience of the Greek nation and stained fabric of its society for historical reasons? I once asked a question to Mr. Athanasiadis' in one of his classed, as he invited queries on theological assertions which barely made any sense to me. In the phrasing of my question, he discerned nuggets of doubt as to the existence of God, His omnipotence and other properties attributed to Him by the church, and then he proceeded and devoted the rest of the forty-five minutes of the lesson, and a good part of the break to dispel such heretical seeds of doubt. In his sermons he often referred and resorted to polemics against satanic atheistic ideologies, predominantly Marxism, and the repressive communist-totalitarian regimes behind the Iron Curtain, the then main bearers of a materialistic atheism, although as young people we only had a nebulous understanding of that was going on globally in that historical junction. Despite there was barely any need in Greece of the time, he had an insatiable desire to proselytize and propagandize some deep-rooted reactionary ideologies. He did that prevent any radical inclinations, fearing, perhaps, any anti-establishment revolutionary ideas finding fertile soil in young minds. Father, with his consistently open-minded progressive a moderately left-wing stance (in front of me, family and close friends at least) unhesitatingly characterized Mr Athanasiadis as a ‘fascist’ who was afflicted by the anti-communist psychoses of the post-civil war era and the seven-years of military dictatorship in Greece.

There were other souls in our school implanted with remnants of the so-called junta mentality, less politicized than Mr. Athanasiadis, but equally fettered by the extreme nationalist and religious Orthodoxy dogmas established in Greek society since the end of Civil War. Mr Topalidis, our physical education teacher was one of them, in his protruding belly under a grey shiny tracksuit and a moustache of the authoritarian ‘Pinochet’ type not dissimilar to Mr. Athanasiadis’. Affixed also to a nationalistic tradition was he,  so much so that the bulk of his ‘physical education’ hour, after brief periods of jogging along the perimeter of the courtyard and light Swedish exercises, involved the tedious and repetitive teaching and rehearsals of folk dances, like Kalamatianos or the more intricate Chamikos and other traditional group dances, as well as, torturous preparation for participation in the student parades taking place in towns and cities on national holidays. The final grade in his classes would have reflected our performance in those dances, but they would mark our posture and zeal, individually and in groups, in the school parades.

There were lighter and more relaxing moments in those first years. The young and beautiful Miss Kangelis brought a fresh breeze to a class, whose nerves were often straining or its patience and endurance were being exhausted by other teachers. She taught Geography, but along with her subject broadly considered insignificant, she rekindled teenager boys’ desires and inflamed their urges. Many of us, males in a vortex of unprecedented hormonal changes of our age, were stupefied by watching her moving elegantly between our desks and were inevitably carried away into our secret world of fantasies and daydreams, by the sight of her beautiful female figure in a tight one-piece dress and high heels and the resonance of a sweet and sensual voice. Such fantasies in some teenage minds produced more conspicuous effects on occasions: a thick mass of semen on the seat of the last desk behind me caught my eye one afternoon after the end of her class. Yet, Miss Kangelis, on par with Mr Athanasiadis, managed to command silence and assert herself thanks to the sweetness of her manners and sexuality. Most brains were frustrated recycling sexual fantasies during her hours.

The Chemistry teacher in the first grades was the only other young person in the school staff, besides Miss Kangelis.  That young man was on a temporary assignment to our school after his graduation from university. He belonged to the so-called ‘polytechnic school’ generation, after the insurgence against the dictatorial regime in 1973 instigated by student of the National Polytechnic School in Athens.  As such, he was an anti-conventional type, almost bohemian, with anti-authoritarian if not anarchist sentiments. He sported a well-trimmed beard, wore John Lennon-style glasses, and turned up to his class with a khaki military jacket. I do not remember his name or any of the Chemistry he might have attempted to teach in the couple of hours a week allotted to the course, but I do remember him opening his lectures with a few spicy anecdotes and concluding them with discussions about rock music, Pink Floyd and the like of the progressive and rebellious rock genre.

He left the school unsuspectedly and his Chemistry course taught by Biologists or Physicists. The rumours had it that he was suspended after a motion by the ‘fascist’ Mr Athanasiadis. That would have been unsurprising, as much as unsurprising would have been his reinstatement in the profession a few years later. One can imagine the general awkwardness and discomfort a young man like him coexisting with the likes of Mr Athanasiadis or Mr Topalidis or Mr Alexiadis… Also unsurprisingly, he caused antipathy and dislikes amongst classmates with ‘reactionary’ family heritage and backgrounds, with right and far-right wing creeds. Eliopoulos, for instance, was the son of an army officer who was duly promoted through the miliary ranks by virtue of a long-term tenure in the barracks rather than qualification and training obtained in a military academy and had the shallow ideological-political as much as fanatical beliefs, typical of military personnel that served in the army during the junta regime and the few first post-dictatorship years. The alphabetical order in assigning seats in the classroom brought us on the same desk, next to each other for the best part of our Gymnasium and Lyceum years. Eliopoulos was one of the first to confront our Chemistry teacher during his class, first by questioning and mocking his progressive musical taste. It was a time when political persuasions on either side of the spectrum, of conforming to the mainstream and trendy, on the one hand, and challenging the established norms, on the other, were demonstrated in Navarino Square of the city, often with yoghurt and fights taking place: between groups of rockers and anarchists, aptly named ‘freaks’ for their unkempt appearances, on the one side, and, on the other, of pretentiously dressed and groomed dudes -of the John Travolta type,  branded τσινάρια (chavs) by the former who frequented the most fashionable discotheques of the city. The latter group, and amongst them Eliopoulos, the handsome, athletic, sociable bloke with the bravado and swagger typical of army officers and cops, had undoubtedly a comparative advantage and scored early conquests amongst the female population. Those amongst the boys who did not belong to any of those fractions of teenage society and, thus, deprived of disco dancing with girls ahead of other pursuits, furtively envied Eliopoulos’ ilk.