An education

Greece, November 2017. Today I came across this: A primary-school principal has issued a statement. In so many words the school will be implementing a groundbreaking and exciting approach to how they treat kids. For one weekend a month they will be allowed to go home without any homework and spend quality time with their families. Now, you might think “wow, this is good. This is a good start”. Let me tell you why it's not. First, I'd like acknowledge that to the people who came up with this “groundbreaking” idea, it probably really did seem that way, additionally this most likely is all they were afforded, instead of saying "screw homework altogether" which the education system's powers that be would be sure to swiftly shut down. However, it also doesn't hurt said powers, as it is cleverly and specifically designed to cater to the small-minded people (of which there are so many here) -who think they are in fact open-minded-, and their warped little realities. It's like a magic trick, “look over here” while the real trick is happening over there like, “look again, guess what? We tanked the economy”.( just a for-instance, not based on actual events, characters that may bare resemblance to existing people are purely fictional ) In actuality it's just another way to better prepare their future-worker bees. Essentially the age at which you become a worker has been significantly lowered. We are planting the idea, the seed from which our slave-like mentality will later flourish. You are getting time off from work little child, get used to feeling thankful. Gee, a whole, one(singular) weekend to be a kid? Boy, oh boy, that's mighty nice of you! Because as an adult, you will work the longest hours, at an often-thankless job and you will get a day off or two and you will be grateful. As if time off is a rewarding luxury and not a basic human right.

The way the education system works here, is that from a young age you are given a ton of homework. You must learn everything by-heart and generally aren't taught to exercise too much critical thought. I'm romanticizing. You are in large discouraged from thinking for yourself. You must study other people's critical approaches even when discussing the arts, a famously subjective matter. You are told to memorize entire tomes and learn complex, university-level sciences. Then you will be sent to actual University where you will study something you like, but mostly something your parents or your teachers or society has encouraged you to study, because God forbid you don't go to University! What will become of you? Almost all of my friends who are musicians, talented ones, have gone on to study shipping. How odd. Although I cannot in good conscience  judge them knowing what it's like to live here. I can only hope that they hold onto their creative outlets, their music. I remember telling a woman in Greece that I had dropped out of college in pursuit of a writing career. I've never seen a person's face contort that way before, I thought she was having a stroke. I also told a University professor abroad the same thing and he encouraged me and gave me the best advice I've ever gotten. 

  I can't tell you how little I remember from when I was in school, and I was a fairly good student. Over time I learned to filter, keeping the important stuff, reading, writing, basic calculus, some chemistry and biology. I learned how to teach myself about the things I found interesting, how to study the world outside of the classroom and how not to worry about proving that I indeed knew what I was talking about. But what if I didn't have to? I wholeheartedly am against homework, especially in its current format. I believe homework should work in the way of one or two assignments a week. Not based on memorizing the opinions of some old-fart, but in going out and experiencing the world. For instance “this week, go to a museum, look at the art, write about a piece that really struck you. Go to a park, learn about plant-life, conservation and how to save the environment. Go to the beach, learn about the ocean and its creatures. Read a book! Write about what YOU thought of it and how it made YOU feel. Stay home and this time on e.g Chemistry Week, conduct an experiment. Start learning a foreign language”. Kids are like sponges, and yes they learn quickly, but overloading them with useless information, all at the same time won't help educate them any faster. Education doesn't take place exclusively in school, it is a life-long learning process, through experience and discovery of the real world, the world out there. Putting bars on classroom windows and teaching high-school kids college-level algebra does not an educated person make. What it does make is sheep. So if that was your goal, you got it! Here's a plump, thoughtless little lamb!

 Of course in any event after we are done removing any inclination for common sense and critical thinking we send boys to the army, just for good measure. Here they are to be taught discipline and how to defend their country. My best friend is in the army. In the event of a war, I guarantee you homeboy gon' be half way to Switzerland before it even starts. And yet, we are going to take 9 months away from your life, stick you in a filthy dorm with a bunch of snoring morons, where you'll have to wake up at a certain time, sleep and eat at a certain time, follow a specific set of rules under threat of punishment like not being allowed to wear long-sleeves before a specific date even if it's cold, because that's the rule(it's true) and you're going to get sick, you won't be able to go home and you'll only be allowed to see your family on one certain day. So, prison. This is the definition of a prison camp. But it's totally normal right? It's not traumatizing at all! It'll make you into a functioning, disciplined member of society, definitely. Oh and we'll also teach you how to shoot guns which, quote, “are designed specifically to take a man's arm clean off with one shot, designed to kill with one shot”. Yeah, cause boys definitely need more violence.There are some of you who will produce the invalid argument of "we've all been there". Yes, and that still doesn't make it right. You are part of the problem. You have been conditioned to believe in the normality of your situation, trained to justify and uphold the reality of your predicament instead of being horrified, much like many women here aren't horrified by their 1950s-stay-in-the-kitchen status.

 You may think this has nothing to do with education or that none of the things I've written about are connected, but I'm sorry to tell you that you are wrong. It is all in the interest of making everyone into worker bees, all to keep them from looking up. The system throws its breadcrumbs so that you may follow, they present you with an illusion, a sliver of something good in a terrible situation, an exciting denouement in an otherwise uninspired plot that only makes you think you've received an education, the tools for an authentic life, the instruments to play your own original tune. The same way people here have wet-dreams about a romantic past as if they aren't living in that very place of inspiration, art and enormous achievement, in a place that birthed democracy and great philosophers, a place in which today a single fire burns down the entire country, a single flood kills 16 people. You wanna tell me how people here are so educated and yet so incredibly stupid? All of these things are products of a dangerously dysfunctional, ludicrous system, a well-engineered machine that strips people of their ability to think critically, learn from their environment, evolve and adapt and perhaps most devastatingly, dream. 
(P.S If you, friend who is reading this, have come out unscathed, a real-life thinking person, it has little to do with your school education, your homework or your grades which at some point felt like a life or death sort of thing. It has to do with you as a person and your ability to learn and think, and the people who supported you into becoming that person, so give yourself a pat on the back, you deserve it. If you managed to get yourself into the University of your choice and studied something you really loved congrats! If you did not get into the University that your parents wanted or didn't follow the career path that was assigned to you, stop worrying, you'll be fine! If you have held onto your dreams and the power they hold, it's never too late. If you are stuck at some job you hate, but are still educating yourself continuously through the world, a day might come that you will stand up and get the hell out. If you have left Greece and live abroad, you've done the right thing. Traveling and experiencing a different culture is an education in itself!)