Greece: THE TEACHING SYSTEM IS THE TEACHING OF SYSTEM

Your training is a prison
The term ‘training’ in the preceding sentence could well refer to animals that are forced to learn acts to perform in a circus almost throughout their lives. And what the aforementioned animals experience does not differ much from what a person experiences in contemporary society.

From the primary grades, school is a citizenship’s production plant. Moreover, school is where some of the first human contacts with hierarchy, uniformity, discipline and punishment are made. The location of the instructor’s desk is quite characteristic: in a position which enables to supervise and at the same time gives superiority but also a sense of omniscience. Behaviours or even dress themes that aren’t tolerated or escape from normality, are punished. The curriculum is predetermined and its ‘truths’ cannot be disputed, thus killing critical thinking and the ability of further exploration.

The school environment is competitive since there is rating among pupils which separates them into good and bad. The peak of competitiveness comes at the entrance examinations for the faculties, when separation simply changes into successful and unsuccessful students.

Thereafter the role of higher education institutions is to prepare students to become useful gears in the capitalist production or to pursue a solo career within the jungle society of competition.

Indeed, the accumulation of useless knowledge and the expertise led to a very common phenomenon, which is e.g. a person being a very skilled computer programmer but not knowing the basics about land cultivation and some necessary household chores, not having simple technical or manufacturing skills and remaining spiritually stagnant as far as other fields are concerned.

However, the darkest point of several academic institutions and scholars is that they operate through research programs for companies and not for social needs. There are more than a few academics who conduct research for multinationals or the war industry over large sums of money, thus contributing indirectly to the exploitation of man by man and the destruction of the environment.

No draft bill on education – Long live freedom
The enactment of the new education reform bill that was submitted by education minister A.Diamantopoulou, shows once again how easily a democratic oligarchy votes on decisions underground, during dead periods in which large parts of society are, rightly or wrongly, absent from political participation in common matters. But even when society takes to the streets and resists, the Power sends its army of occupation (MAT police force) to silence the people, suppressing any kind of reaction. The students, who are a part of society, take a similar stance when their sole anxiety is to maintain the status quo, as if this was ideal.

Neither private, nor state education; self-organized libertarian learning
We believe that personalities can develop in freedom, only if people discovered by themselves which range of knowledge they’re interested in for further exploring. This could be done after people are first taught some basic skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics, necessary as codes of communication with other people.

From that point on, the need for further learning leads to self-organization via the method of exchange of knowledge between people, i.e. by switching role from tutor to tutee, and vice versa. In this way competition is eliminated, and the collective cooperative spirit is elevated.

Yet while there are cells of libertarian learning in today’s society, as long as the current political economic system exists, state and private education will be dominant. We shall not go through the process of choosing whether our knowledge will be certified by the State or the private sector; we’re interested in the overthrow of the present financial and political system, and the self-organization in all areas of our lives, from production to education. We’re interested in taking our lives in our hands.

Every person should judge individually – think and act collectively
WILD PERMANENT STRIKES
INDEFINITELY OCCUPIED SPACES

Source: Anarchist Hangout Utopia A.D., Komotini (northern Greece),
September 6th, 2011 – utopia_ad@riseup.net