The decision last year by at least one US university to prevent the teaching of Plato’s Symposium has alarmed many academics. Texas A&M University, which had already fired a lecturer for teaching that there are more than two genders, has told professor of philosophy, Martin Peterson, that he may not teach Plato’s book because one of its ideas – that there could be more than two genders, and that lesbian and homosexual love was a natural part of life – is a form of “gender ideology”.
Gender ideology, along with ideas about “difference”, are targets of Donald Trump’s campaign to make the United States monochrome again. He may have adopted this idea of polarity from Aristotle (a pupil of Plato), who could be regarded as the father of the binary system on which all computing is based: if it is “A” it cannot be “B” and vice versa – or, in computing, “1” and “0”. The exclusion of anything “in between” suits Trump’s scheme perfectly.
Trump may also have taken a leaf out of the history books – after all, Socrates was put to death in Athens in 399 BC by the anti-democratic government of the “Tyrants”, allegedly for teaching young people anti-establishment ideas. This, too, could be seen as a forerunner of Trump’s strategy for silencing pluralism.
The teaching of difference and diversity is also noticeably absent from modern Greek education. This is due to the heavy insistence in the Greek educational system on the learning of facts, rather than any interpretation of those facts. No “how?”, no “why?”
And the curriculum, which has not changed for at least the last 30 years, stops short. Modern Greek history – that is, the events of the past century – is absent from the standard secondary school curriculum, which proceeds from classical times up to 1922. No mention, and certainly no discussion, of the Greek civil war of the 1940s or the military junta of 1967-1974, or the arguments for Greece joining the then EEC in 1981. No opportunity in civics to debate the concept “Greece is part of the West”.
Pride in the successful evolution of the Greek state, and the historical connection between modern “Hellenism” and the “glories” of classical Greece, is one of the big factors in education. Fitting a child to be a responsible citizen seems to require little more than the inculcation of facts. I read some years ago of a child in tears because in a school test he was required to recite the names of the Greek prefectures, to demonstrate that he was “a good citizen”. Similarly, “knowing the country’s history” (but only up to 1922!) is regarded as a fulfilment of citizenship.
A recent research paper on the “PanHellenic” syllabus (the equivalent of Ireland’s Leaving Certificate) states that the “standardised testing culture” leads to a “narrow focus on rote memorisation at the expense of critical thinking, creativity and holistic learning experiences”. It pointed to the “need to balance assessment practices to encompass diverse forms of evaluation”.
Greece is bursting with youthful creativity, but the educational system, relying on learning by rote, inhibits that creativity, the sort of diversity and of critical thinking that is now being attacked in the US. In particular, it diminishes the possibility of imaginative or lateral thinking. It is one of the factors encouraging inventive young Greeks to emigrate and seek rewarding channels for their ideas.
[ The other Nato island crisis: Greece, Turkey and the Aegean fault lineOpens in new window ]
This may be exacerbated by the aim, in the current revision of the Greek national curriculum, to focus on digital technologies as a key objective. We have already seen this in action in the Ionian University, where “digital” is seen as the way forward at the likely expense of the humanities.
A further problem with school education in Greece is that it is focused almost entirely and exclusively on Greek history and Greek culture. This obviously does not apply to universities, but even here the lack of latitude is noticeable. I recently encountered a group of Greek postgrad students of music, who were unaware of the music of Sibelius; their undergraduate study had focused almost exclusively on Greek music and its history, with little reference to the wider ideas and artistic movements in the history of music – so much so that they had no opportunity to experience the music of one of Europe’s most important composers.
I recently heard a “keynote” address by a Greek university professor to an international literature conference, which consisted of a recitation of facts. I suspect the organisers had hoped for a presentation of new ideas, perhaps even stimulating insights into the subject – but they got a catalogue of facts that anyone in the audience could have produced, given the appropriate books. This is symptomatic of the lack of inquiry that stifles original research and wider exposure of students and their teachers to intellectual excitement. Trump might approve!