How does this work, Greeks?
Posted by FuckTheCake@reddit | AskBalkans | View on Reddit | 138 comments
Posted by FuckTheCake@reddit | AskBalkans | View on Reddit | 138 comments
CalydonianBoar@reddit
There's a big problem, but "teaching literally nothing" is a total exaggeration
Lopsided_Message_81@reddit
hey, by saying "total exaggeration" you are invaliding my experience of this. Most teachers would enter the class, allow students to do wahtever they want, speak to maybe two students among the chaos, and give virtual grades based on nothing.
Natios_Hayelos@reddit
Hahahahaha I can't believe you actually said that. Who cares about invalidating your experience. It is a total exaggeration.
Consistent_Guava8592@reddit
Still the maximum amount of teachers you would have in your life is around 150, so not a nice sample to say most teachers right ?
Lopsided_Message_81@reddit
Secondary school (Gymnasio) most teachers did not teach any subjects and just coped with a messed up situation. So, for these years my previous statement is the totally accurate. I'm not over generalising claiming that this is an average experience. it's my experience, and the original post resonates to me.
Lopsided_Message_81@reddit
150? Really?
Commercial_Handle418@reddit
I'm not Greek but I have teacher who teach absolutely nothing, and are so stupid they get speed and acceleration confused
I'm not kidding when i say that he literally said "Speed=acceleration"
AllCunt@reddit
The topic is "teachers deliberately teaching nothing to leverage private tutoring". Your stupid teacher is a different case study.
Commercial_Handle418@reddit
Nah I was just venting
PristineMaize970@reddit
It was very real back in the early 2000s. From what I heard, it's not much better nowdays.
Need4Cookies@reddit
I graduated from school n 2013. I have to say that while in the first 6 years (Dimotiko) you do learn stuff, later on it really depends on the teacher. I think that the problem is that no one “checks” on the way they teach and there is no feedback on that.
For example we had some passionate teachers that brought many real life examples, did additional hours after school for extra curricular things, like 4 of us were interested in space travel and black matter and our physicist stayed on his own time to teach us more things about it.
Other teachers just read the book out loud and cut most of our questions…bare minimum I’ll say.
The one think that is impossible to learn at Greek school is other languages. For example we have English and a secondary language of German or French, but the hours are not enough.
I don’t know how it is today, all I know is many teachers get bullied by students…this sound like a bad parenting think though.
gufted@reddit
As a Greek, the public education system sucks, teachers get paid very little and it’s a matter of luck if you happen upon a good teacher. But that’s the end of story. The post above is total nonsense and fake information. Perhaps it’s what op has been told (lies), or was a personal experience of their parents (there’s always outliers). Of course there’s side-education, and private options, but any teacher who would do such advertising, would be reported by kids, teachers, parents and would be dealt with in an official manner.
baxulax@reddit
The paid tutoring isn’t given by the school teachers. They are not even allowed to by law anyway. OP is an idiot
tomikropapi@reddit
i know a lot of teachers that give private tutoring
CypriotGreek@reddit
There’s some truth to it, but it’s so exaggerated that it becomes a lie.
Yes, teachers in Greece are underpaid, that part is real. And yes, extra tutoring (frontistiria) is very common. But the idea that teachers “teach nothing” in school or openly advertise tutoring with posters and threats is just not true. I’ve never seen that happen.
What actually happens is that the curriculum is heavy and classrooms are crowded, so a lot of students go to external tutoring centers in the afternoons to keep up or prepare for exams. It’s more of a parallel system than some kind of conspiracy.
So no, it’s not accurate. It takes a real issue and blows it way out of proportion.
nickmn13@reddit
Even the "underpaid" part is debatable. Teachers in Greece dont earn a lot but they don't get minimum wage (like a large percentage of the country).
tomikropapi@reddit
οι αναπληρωτές δεν πληρώνονται καλά, μόνο οι διορισμένοι παίρνουν καλό μισθό που και αυτός δεν τους φτάνει πλέον.
Ok-Ring8800@reddit
It’s true, when I moved here and discovered this I was shocked that the parents weren’t outraged. I don’t know that the teachers teach “nothing” though. But it really is a problem but the Greeks don’t seem to care. Or maybe it just hasn’t been expressed to me. I put my kids in a private school so it’s not an issue for our family.
konia_goes_insane@reddit
Never seen anything like this honestly. I'd even say there's a bit of rivalry between public and private educators, especially in high school. Because private lessons will speed up the material and start earlier, many students might not pay attention in class because they've already gone through the material. But I don't think I've ever heard of any teacher who works at a public school offering private lessons or threatening to fail people if they don't attend those. They do make minimum wage though
TheoMamal@reddit
Not really the case about teachers not teaching at all in school. Yes teachers do usually tutor but they don't advertise it in school it's a mouth to mouth thing especially in smaller communities. The truth in the truth in the post is that private after hour lessons are the absolute standard especially in the last 2 years of highschool. In my last year of highschool some 4years ago we only actually had classes on the 4 subjects we chose for the final exam the rest of the time we hang out or did homework. The whole system is incredibly taxing on the kids (usually got home at 21:30 for me and a lot of times we didn't get weekends off) and it's a massive financial strain on the parents (350€ a month at a minimum)
Nick_the@reddit
The problem with greek schools is that they adjust to the worst student of the class, mainly because the parents force them to do it. I wan in a class which the students tried to enter med school. But in the same class there were people who knew that will go to a foreign university and wanted to chill at scholl. So they used their parents to put pressure to slow down.
When I took the exams for university, there were specific chapters I needed to learn by heart in order to have a chance... but in school we did less than half brcause some of us felt pressured.
There is the point were private tutoring comes in. Do you want to learn whats needed and have time to review? you need private tutoring. Do you want to know how to write an essay the way they wanted, you need a tutor etc.
As the years progressed this phenomenon became more serious. I have a primary school teacher friend, and she gets calls from parents to remove letters for the teaching material because they are too difficult....
Usernamenotta@reddit
To remove letters? Can you please explain? Like, how? And why? Don't you need them to, like, read?
Nick_the@reddit
No need to pressure children to learn ι η y letter, because it is the same sound. The same issue with αυ ευ and ω ο letters. Lazy parents creating stupid kids.
As for reading there is a push to use one i and one o in all words,,, to stupify the language.
kra73ace@reddit
Similar to Bulgaria... It's only math and languages that are being tutored.
If you're s physics's teacher, you are broke. Biology and chemistry get a second life, grades 9-12. People need doctors.
andthennini@reddit
Although I have had an experience with such a teacher it's a total lie to say that all or most behave this way. I've also never seen the advertising for private lessons thing. Would it surprise me if it happens at some schools? No. But at least in the ones I've been to the teachers have even declined students who reaches our for such things.
Our education system sucks ass but wild generalisations like this one don't help
theonefrombelow@reddit
Lmao what ??????
That's total bullshit
Sensitive-Basis-6885@reddit
it was true and it is even more true now.
The goverment of the last 7 years doesnt like public stuff they prefer the american model.
So teachers in public school are appointed to a tenure spot at around 30 years old and they earn around 800 euros net, 9600 a year.
The avg rent in Athens for a small appartment is around 600 euros. Without electricity, phone, water bill.
You are actually paying too work cause you are in a deficit every month.
They dont say they are against public school but they made it unrealistic. So teachers dont put the extra work, good families sent their kids in private schools and this even widens the gap every year
think_panther@reddit
Just keep in mind that teachers work around 30 hours per week max and that they don't work for about 3 months (summer holidays 2.5 months, Christmas holiday 15 days, Easter holidays 15 days). From my POV they are massively overpaid compared to everyone else with a 40-50 hour week, 6 workdays and 20 days of holidays for ALL year.
No-Championship-4632@reddit
This can't be true, average teachers salary here is about 1400 eur and I was under impression that it's higher in Greece.
The rest is somewhat similar, private tutoring here is common, but mostly associated with exams for admission to high school or university, my elder daughter takes private lessons in chemistry and biology for example as she intends to apply for the medical university, it is virtually impossible otherwise, though probably some gifted kids can do that on their own (if they are studying in one of the few high schools with traditions in that area).
Sensitive-Basis-6885@reddit
the startings salary is 1000 euros gross so net around 850. Thats not the avg but the starting salary. not that you will get much higher with years, My father is a elementary school teacher with more than 20 years on the job he gets around 1300 net( gross is higher)
My starting salary in a corporate job in greece was higher
No-Championship-4632@reddit
So it's quite similar actually, starting teacher salary is 1089 gross/845 net, this is indexed according to years of practicing and they have some bonuses related to leading a particular class (extra administrative work) and payrise as they are promoted to senior. However the ceiling is probably at 1500-1600 and that is with lots of experience (and it's not significantly better in most private schools). Just like Greece it's considered a low paid job as compared to corporate but in smaller towns here it is often the case that teacher/policeman is among the well paying options, like certainly better than a cashier in Lidl or worker in some crappy factory that doesn't produce anything with high added value. There isn't a lot of room to grow, but it's still better than most options.
Sensitive-Basis-6885@reddit
In Greece that wage is not livable it could be 10 years or if you have real estate like my parents.
If you live on rent its unlivable in the big cities and coastal areas because of tourism(thats basically everywhere in greece). Your only option to do that job, is to do it as a hobby because you have other sources of income and i am not exaggerating at all. You cannot live on a greek island village with that salary or in a big city or chalkidiki etc. Either your parents help you or you have other sources of income.
No-Championship-4632@reddit
You definitely won't live comfortably alone with that here either, especially if you pay rent in a larger city (it would be miserable in that case). Perhaps the only difference is that homeownership is higher here (communist legacy) and the country is way less affected by tourism, although this mostly affects services as prices in supermarkets or utilities or gasoline are quite similar in a big city/tourist area and in a boring small town.
Sensitive-Basis-6885@reddit
Greece has high rates of homeownership not as high as bulgaria or poland but higher than germany. Thats the only reason people survive.
The difference here is that a supermarket cashier or a waiter and everyone in the private sector gets 14 salaries while in the public sector people get 12 so even if u do the minimum wage job here you are getting paid more than a teacher.
except for the fact that you get alot of school holidays as a teacher i dont see a reason to be one in greece
Individual_Page3212@reddit
Damn mate that's even worse than in Serbia wtf
kostasnotkolsas@reddit
We have a massive exam at the end of high school that defines entry into universities, it's notorisly difficult in all subjects and there is gigantic pressure to achieve high grades. Since the 80s there has developed a cram school industry built on that exam, it's very common to go to these schools to have a proper shot at the exam.
Public schools are severely underfunded and understaffed while trying to teach very demanding almost university level curriculum to one half of a senior classroom that wants to go to university while the other half just wants to graduate highschool. The ones that try for uni and go to cram schools are not interested in the day school material since they have probably done it at the cram school while the other half is plainly not interested in school. Given that teacher appointments are done nationally and the positions in the big cities are determined by seniority you have a lot of staff that after 30 years working with rude kids aged 14-18 they might choose to not even bother giving any sort of effort in the class. Why care while the pupils themselves don't care? I don't envy their job at all.
Having said that I have had a lot of good teachers that went the extra mile and actually helped us
kostasnotkolsas@reddit
And specifically that part of high school teachers advertising their private classes is beyond illegal and most likely fake. Some public schools offer their own extra coursework and extra classes in the afternoon FOR FREE.
DropDeadGaming@reddit
I've never heard of a school teacher promoting private lessons in the school or putting up posters and shit, but I've been out of the system for a while so maybe I'm misinformed
gounatos@reddit
Say what you want about school and teachers and their quality, but teachers failing Students and advertising private lessons at school is wildly fake. Heck parents and the ministry would have crucified you.
kostasnotkolsas@reddit
Even kids would probably sqat the school
DropDeadGaming@reddit
Ye that's what I think as well
Little_Miss_Purple@reddit
Yeah that's illegal I'm pretty sure
Zweihander269@reddit
English teacher in Greece here! So,, there is a lot to be said about this "fun fact", but I'm sticking to the basics.
First and foremost, the whole text describes something, not far from the truth, yet distant enough as it is. Reason being that, although it is a rather common phenomenon to have such teachers in Greek schools, it is not something that characterizes every teacher. Secondly, what you read is not the problem but part of it, or (for a lack of a better word) the reason why this problem exists and persists.
So, education in Greece is rather undermined by views of people against most teachers. A great number of parents believe that, since we have lots of time off (summer, holidays, national days/celebrations), that makes us stale and boring. As a result of these ideas, most of our students, don't even do the minimum work required to learn anything. Which gives birth to another issue. Students and parents, come to schools as people demanding attention, perfect grades and most time spent on them (or their kids), all the while they have, either no participation in classes/subjects or no interest in knowing how their kids do at school and if they need to take care of anything, or get better in specific areas.
The above, also brings forth a "necessity" to categorize subjects by importance, rather than giving a balanced attention to everything. This leads to the surfacing of such teachers, who by exploiting that "need" of parents/students to get the highest grades or the best results, go forth and do private classes to some of them, in order to get better. At the same time, the same people (teachers) have zero interest in helping students with lower grades or educational issues.
The other issue we face, especially EFL teachers, has to do with the fact that EVERYONE knows English, yet no one, and I mean NO ONE (apart from miniscule exceptions), studies EFL properly at school. They always have a counterargument to such a case, which may be something along the lines of "I have lots of private lessons", "I know the language but I'm bored to use it properly", "I don't have enough time for school English, I have already learned most things from my private tutor" etc. etc.
This expands to other subjects as well, but it's more prevalent in FLT. All in all, as I said at the beginning, the statement is not false, but the perspective is wrong or one-dimensional, at the very least. If we had parents on our side, rather than the opposite side, we could talk about such issues. But for the time being and the way things go in general, I'd say it is a very difficult issue to fix, and the road ahead is rather dangerous and dark.
Atlandios000@reddit
There are the " frontistiria " that are like a school after school , they are mostly private ( there are few by religious organisations , charities and leftist parties ) , people pay to have their kids enrolled.
Some teachers like the frontistiria , some not there are even few here and there who say " why to teach ? You don't go to frontistirio ".
There are kids who've succesed to get into a high prestige university like medical school without frontistiria or private tutors but they are a small exception.
As for what the comment says , yes ! There are school teachers who do private tutoring that is illegal but not really prosecuted.
They advertise by the word of mouth mostly , they do not pur adds in the schools.
The most extreme but real case I know was in a island. It had two big enough villages for both of them to have a high school but they were close enough. There was a math teacher who taught school in one village and in the other taught the frontistirio of the next village.
FrostyAd6883@reddit
What you described is not only not extreme, it is actually not illegal. They just can't teach students of the same school.
HyrkanianBlade@reddit
Mostly fake with some truth sprinkled in. Yes some teachers who teach in public schools also offer private tutoring. Tutoring is done mostly on subjects that are tested in the university entry exams at the end of high school. Yes tutoring is almost expected for those subjects if you want to get into university, but there are plenty of people who succeed without it as well. Teachers failing their public schools students for not paying them for private tutoring is someone’s hateboner fantasy.
FrostyAd6883@reddit
Because of the very obvious conflict of interest there are laws that prevent them from teaching the same students publicly and privately though!
FrostyAd6883@reddit
What the person describes is illegal, if you are employed in a public school you can not privately tutor the same students.
aXeOptic@reddit
I bet this mostly depends on the teacher. There was a teacher like this in my school as well, granted she taught while in class but everyone who went to her course suddenly had practiced every question in the test the day before.
MFouki@reddit
Not that true
There’s some cases where schools are left without teachers for some subjects for months at the time but the teacher being in school and not teaching and only doing tutoring is not true
Dull_Cucumber_3908@reddit
They teach in schools. Whatever every teacher can teach to a class of 30 students.
The private tutoring is just a way for all the teachers to have a job, because we have too many teachers.
nobody1568@reddit
It works by being so exaggerated that it's more or less fake. Education in Greece is shit on its own, you don't have to invent shit to make it look bad.
merdeauxfraises@reddit
I came to second this. Education is far from great but this is not the reason. This makes it sound like our schools are like American schools, which I assure everyone, it's far from being that bad. The teachers know things, they just don't have the right textbooks, child attitude and parent attitude to make much of an impact, and this is infinitely worse in low income areas (saying this from first hand experience).
johnybea@reddit
What are you saying? Greek students performed worse in all three PISA categories than American students. Greek schools are significantly worse than American schools.
merdeauxfraises@reddit
I missed that development... That's the worst news I 've heard today :(
Interesting-Trash611@reddit
There are a lot of surprising things in the PISA Results. For example people love to shit on American schools but they not only beat Greece but Germany, France and Italy too. But I don’t know what’s happening in Greece specifically since even Serbia ranked higher than them.
merdeauxfraises@reddit
Do they only measure public schools though?
Interesting-Trash611@reddit
With Serbia and Turkey I meant that they score higher than Greece not the US,UK, etc. Seems like you got your reading comprehension skills from a Greek public school lol
merdeauxfraises@reddit
I deeply apologize for not reading your piece of text (which lacks proper structure and punctuation, apart from the content mistakes by the way), a simple comment on Reddit, with the attention a scientific journal requires during my working hours. You should be… less confident.
Proud-Ad-5206@reddit
Yep, almost everywhere the child&parent attitudes went full American. My golden child has a right to bully others and knows more that the teachers...
merdeauxfraises@reddit
It's terrible. I absolutely understand parents who want to believe their kids over a stranger but the teachers are invested in the kids they care for, for fucking 6-7 hours a day. Sometimes you just have to take a professional's opinion on your kid and work on it...
viba_1997@reddit
Same thing happening in Romania. Parents spend hundreds of lei in order to give a better chance for their children to get in a good highschool or go to university.
Interesting-Plum4641@reddit
No , yes teachers are underpaid in Greece and yes they do private lessons to get by … that is true, but they do teach in schools , and no they don’t advertise ar hang posters !
oxingames@reddit
This isnt really true. But he's right about not learning stuff most of the time, not because you're not paying attention because many teachers either don't give a shit and most books are useless. Like it's a guarantee to go to a private English school, because there's no way to learn English from public schools. I'm in the second year of high school and we still learn the basics of English (present simple, continuous, etc.). Many teachers in my school don't even use the books at all, and when they do, they do it only because they have to sometimes. I'm mostly studying IT and most books are extremely outdated, filled with unnecessary and bad written stuff. They tell us you can't learn shit from these books, and that they are useless. Mostly about IT tho, the other books are ok
nipzin@reddit
making it seem like it's some conspiracy by the teachers to make money and not a systemic problem is at least funny and superficial at best.
thanasis87kav@reddit
That's anecdotal. The problem with Greek educational system is that is purpose is to lead students to super competitive national graduation exams which could determine the students future since there's little limit for professional mobility outwith your major. On top of that, the lower ranking students only have options to choose from over saturated disciplines (humanitarian or educational studies) which have little demand in the job market, outside public sector (again, there's a system of eligibility list that might take years for new recruits). So, many mathematicians, language teachers, chemists etc end up teaching in tutoring centres. The same system that creates the problem, maintains it because it produces more teaching staff than it actually needs.
Lopsided_Message_81@reddit
My experience confirms this.
We were taught criminally nothing.
Not all schools and teacher are the same of course.
Some teachers and some schools are excellent.
Similarly to china eveything depends on a final exam, so students start preparing years in advance, resulting in classes where each student is at diferrent level.
In my case - the high school i attended was criminally bad.
RazvyD@reddit
In Erasmus rn in Greece. This is TRUE, they don't really care about us. AT ALL. But it is the same in Romania, a lot of the teachers are offering "private tutotring" in exchange for some money.
TinyAsianMachine@reddit
It's BS, the schools are shit yes. But teachers offering private lessons to their students, no way.
I had a very hard time in the failing Greek system as a non Greek speaker. But that does not happen.
Korica4k@reddit
My chemistry teacher has a wife that also teaches chemistry and they tutor the students their partner teaches.
They are the most frustrating couple in the faculty when I went there, those who didn't give a shit got a barely passing, but those that took their class had better grades, wink wink.
Gargantuar69@reddit
We have this problem here in glorious romania as well
Beginning-Pair-8239@reddit
My daughter has finished school in Greece, from the first grade to University. In elementary school there wasn't a single teacher who promoted tutoring, not a single kid went to any private lessons, only foreign language. Fronthistiria or private teachers are used later if someone needed to prepare themselves for university or if anyone had difficulties with some subject. Schools are not excellent but not bad considering that kids nowadays and their parents are rude, acting like they are already know better than teachers and not willing to learn.
Dependent_Coyote271@reddit
As a current 12th grade high school student, I can totally second this.
I've got 3 kinds of professors
1) Professors that do their jobs. They care for us students and work with us to not fail. They also help kids that do not have the money for private tutoring, succeed.
2) Professors that partially care. They do care enough to at least make sure we know basic methods to solve things like integrals, economic functions etc but it does not go beyond that. They know almost all students have a private tutor so they just assign homework that is hard enough for the student but easy enough for the private tutor to help the student
3) Useless "professors". They are a category of their own in this thing. They do not even know what they are teaching most of the time because you know something is wrong when a professor hands you an exam made in 1999 with outdated material that is no longer relevant. It's also painfully obvious that most of the time these professors are people that randomly got selected with few to no credentials. The epitome of "Salary Farming".
All in all, I too have 4 private tutors for each of the subjects that I care about but I cannot tell you how lucky I feel about that. I see other students that do not have the money for private tutors, suffer daily from incompetent professors that are too bored to do their jobs correctly or just god awful at it. The problem is also too deeply rooted in a tradition that even my parents have been through.
begboli@reddit
a similar case exists in turkey, ofc 'teaching nothing' is an exaggeration but it may actually be the truth. you learn nothing of importance that would help your exams during school, you pay for private tutoring and then you may learn something.
lionman3937@reddit
Is this why the greeks were so mad and confused by “2” Macedonias?
Im kidding my greek friends
PckMan@reddit
At the end of your last year of high school there are nationwide university entrance exams. Your performance in these exams determines what universities you can get in. Cram schools are commonplace and it's practically the only way to guarantee a good performance in those exams. They work kinda like prep schools but you don't go there instead of regular school, you go there after school. This is not unlike other places that have very competitive and crucial entrance exams like in China, Japan, Korea etc.
For most students, the last years of highschool are pretty much entirely dedicated to those cram schools. They don't pay much attention at school, they don't care much for homework, because they get more done at cram school and in the end it doesn't matter how well you do at school, the only grade that matters is the one you get at the exams at the end.
Does that mean that schools teach you nothing? Not true. Teachers still go through the material as normal and still cover the things kids need to know. There are still tests, you're still being taught. But the classes are bigger and teachers can't focus on students lagging behind. Some of them are phoning it in because they know the students will just go through the same stuff in cram school. However I had many teachers who really went above and beyond trying to help kids. They asked them if there was something they wanted to go over again, did as much as they could in class for kids who didn't go to cram school. Tried their best to help kids.
There are also kids who do great in the entrance exams without cram school or private tutoring. They're rare but they exist. I have a cousin who's a doctor now who didn't go to cram school. Yeah the public school system is underfunded and has deficiencies and successive neo lib governments have allowed this to happen as they do for all public institutions in favor of privatisation but saying that teachers don't teach anything at school is an exaggeration.
FitBunch3357@reddit
Teachers make 1200€ per month and only work 3/4 of the year. That's not a bad deal for Greece. And advertising your private lessons at school is illegal. So just a bullshit post.
greekbal@reddit
dis so true like even if they teach you something only half or less of the class will learn it I'm Greek too
SnoopCheesus@reddit
It's pretty hard to learn things in public schools in my experience, and I did get tutoring, but not from school teachers (though I know some of them did that).
We have frontistirio for actual learning:
bleedingslvt@reddit
Education is shitty but this is an exaggeration and definitely illegal
enteralterego@reddit
It could be worse. It could be motivated by Islamic beliefs
Portokalinio@reddit
My mother makes 50% more than minimum wage, her work is 5-7 hours 5 days a week. If other teachers make that much money, I think they should shut up and stop complaining because that is a lot of money for how little work they do, don't forget that they do not at all in the whole summer, winter and Easter. Teaching, especially elementary school, is one of the most mental straining jobs you can do, it is as if the kids come pre-trained in mental warfare. But if you just completely ignore them and not care about them until you eventually have a smart kid or a kid that is good at school stuff. Then you should be able to manage your mental pretty easily. This is what I put from the collective of thoughts and tips from every teacher I have asked, and they range from teachers that are at their wit's end all the way to the laid back teachers who don't care at all like if it is all sunshine and rainbows.
nickpc107@reddit
This is a very exaggerated truth. Not everyone does that and I think it isn't allowed.
_starboiluke_@reddit
this also used to be the case in turkey. my father couldnt afford the teachers tutoring so he repeated classes lol
Plenty_Bumblebee4823@reddit
Same in Romania. Teachers are treated so poorly by our gov that in the last decade only few new teachers applied for jobs, its less and less seeked as a profession sadly. Some do tutoring but its frowned upon
Acouaria-real-acc@reddit
I was both in a public school and private school in greece, i have 3 tutors at home from middleschool to high school, 1 of which was a day time school teacher, she would say some crazy stuff about what was happening in school like, adults who were dating school girls waiting for them right there behind the bars of the schools, smoking in the school by students, teachers paying students to take a out their grudges for the schools managment on their behalf like messages with graffiti on the walls, a lot of people would say that they didn't really learn in school since the teachers would only try to teach those they deemed interested in the lesson (which i completely get since ask kids we are talk that someone is only serious when they yell but you learn to ignore that too if you only hear yelling all the time). Some people say that kids in public schools develop more of gang mentally, though i wouldn't know about that. In private schools it's more like the managment of the school and sometimes teachers look down on you and have kind of a snooty attitude as well as the kids do too because their parents payed so, in one hand you could say they have some more individuality and ''freedom'' to be themselves.
But "frodistiria" and study groups are very usual, the teachers there help you do the homework for you, in the final year of highschool it is kind of expected that everyone will enroll in one even if they never had to be able to study for "Panellinies" basically panhellenic test all kids have to write to get into uni, which is known for being difficult. (unless they go into a private one)
ParticularDebt8010@reddit
It is but its illegal for public school teachers to actually do this so they do it in secret.
But sadly public schools dont teach enough for the child to actually understand the subject because private tutoring is so normalized that public school teachers just dont put the work anymore,assuming everyone will learn from private tutors.To pass the final exams before graduation to go to university you basically have to do private tutoring or else you dont pass because the subjects arent taught well enough for you to pass.
computo2000@reddit
The original poster probably has misunderstood the 2nd and 3rd years of high school. For those 2 years, yes many people do private tutoring for some subjects and school is useless in comparison on these subjects, but this is done to prepare for the university entrance national exams, and only on a few subjects where the student wants to score super high. People who only follow school have worse odds of success for the university entrance exams, but no teachers will still try to do their part, and will not advertise themselves with posters rofl.
Old_Resident8050@reddit
Lies
Prod_Meteor@reddit
Totally possible. Only needs statistical proof.
IcePuzzleheaded7333@reddit
Looks identical to the educational system in Romania.
InformationTop3437@reddit
Yes, it's bad, but that's a fake story that OP posted and it's not identical with romanian system.
Usernamenotta@reddit
My mother works in Education and my little brother is still in school. (No, not at the same school). The things I hear make my blood boil. Both parents-kids and many teachers are too far gone to be useful to society
InformationTop3437@reddit
Mine too, was a secretary at a local high school, until she retired a couple of years ago. I also have a preteen in another school. There are teachers that are awful, it's true, but not all of them are. I finished high school in 2003 and none of my teachers would accept gifts, other than a flower or a chocolate when it was our birthdays. When I was hearing that other kids were buying expensive bags or jewelry for they teachers, I was shocked. From my own experience, the university professors were more corrupt than the ones in the mandatory school systems
Dienekis_TheSpartan@reddit
As someone who is currently going through this ( 12th grade student in Greece ), the post above is a mix of truth and exaggeration.
In school wether you are doing lessons or not depends highly on the teacher and the lessons.
Because at 11th grade students are put into classes depending what they want to do later , which are called " Directional classes" ( Katefthinsi / Κατεύθυνση) and focus on specific subjects , which are the ones the students give at the National Exams
For example, a teacher who is teaching a Directional class will infact do his job , but if the class isn't, students will most likely ignore it . Why ? Explained in a bit
Now , because the system is extremely competitive, due to the entry seats of unis being limited and depend on how you do in the National Exams, most students go to after school lessons ( frontistirio ) which focus specifically to these exams
However, due to the fucking simply overwhelming amount of work the frontistiria give to students in preparation to the National Exams, students are forced to study more for them , ignore schoolwork and focusing mostly at the frontistiria, infact the amount is so much that we are even studying in non Directional classes at school. Also because of that some teachers adopt the mentally of " frontistiria put in the work, so why should I teach them if they gonna do the same later "
And yes some school teachers do offer private afternoon lessons ( which is illegal , but here no one cares ) in preparation for the National Exams, however there is no advertising or anything like that, it goes simply by word of mouth.
So in conclusion, the current situation is caused by the small budget for education and the decay of the educational systems, which in combination with highly competitive entry exam have caused the creation of a massive para-schooling system.
Ps , this is purely with my experience in the place I live , in other places it might be a lot different.
Unique_hobo@reddit
Tiny bit of truth (there are issues, and there are very few teachers that do what is described) but this is 99% exaggeration
Nice-Panda-7981@reddit
Same in Romania.
InformationTop3437@reddit
In what bubble are you living in? It's illegal to ask for money from your own pupils. The teacher of a class will only be allowed to tutor the entire class at once, for free, if there's a major exam coming.
Nice-Panda-7981@reddit
I have no idea whether you are sarcastic or living on Mars.
Usernamenotta@reddit
The guy is probably living on Mars or is just ragebaiting. I've had plenty of classmates, well, myself included, who were taking tutoring privately with professors that were teaching in their class
InformationTop3437@reddit
I live in a town where kids have free group tutoring in highschools. If you want extra, you pay a teacher that's not from your school.
Yavannia@reddit
I am a teacher in Greece and this is extremely wrong with some sprinkled truths here and there. Obviously the "they literally teach them nothing" is very wrong. Some teachers do private tutoring, but they are the minority and you certainly cannot advertise it at school, that just has never happened. Also they tutor students but not from the same school they teach at.
Leather-Matter-5357@reddit
This is so extremely exaggerated that any traces of truth in it are miniscule compared to the bs.
MrSnoozieWoozie@reddit
I remember that from Elementary till end of Junior High School, my teachers and classes in public school were awesome and very interesting (same with everyone i knew).
The problem is at High school were 80% of students have to pay for outside tutoring cause teachers in high school rarely teach you something useful. And that is because THEY KNOW that all students are not expecting to learn something from them, not because they are bad at teaching but because they already learn that class from paid tutoring (they learn ahead of schedule) so whats the point?
It's basically an endless loop, one feeding the other. Laziness or underpaid teachers lead to students paying for outside help and then they in turn show indeference in class so teachers dont care either.
That's literally the case for the past 25 years in Greece.
Little_Miss_Purple@reddit
It's not that they teach "nothing" at school due to being underpaid, it's because the conditions in public schools make it almost impossible to teach effectively. Most classes have over 25 students, in some cases up to 30. So if you want to get into university you need to get extra tutoring for the subjects that are examined in the final Panhellenic examinations. Also for foreign languages, if you want a certificate
Low_Gold9754@reddit
Source: w/e I just need to post something.
FallenJkiller@reddit
its fake.
Greek schools are pretty good. But the final exams are extremely hard So private tutoring exists as a concept.
Budget-Community-982@reddit
CommunicationNo4547@reddit
This seems far. Its so sad we live in a society that doesn’t value teachers, we know because they provide no value to billionaire child eating predators
SaraJuno@reddit
Just an aside but why is the text here all different sizes..? it looks weirdly edited
Nikoschalkis1@reddit
There are a LOT of exaggerations and outright lies in this, but frontistiria do exist.
It all is based on the University entry system. At the end of the 12th grade, kids take part in national examinations in certain subjects, the grade of which give you points which are then compared to every other examinee as a ranking, and the best get to enter the more prestigious universities (which are free). For example, University X has 100 seats, and the ones to enter that uni are the first 100 students who've scored higher compared to everyone in the country, the rest go to lower universities.
Frontistiria take the student by hand, and teach them only what is necessary to succeed in these examinations. Their sole purpose is for the students to score as high as they can in order to enter their desired uni.
Of course school alone is not gonna cut it for the average student, the parents basically pay in order to give their kids a higher chance of entering.
Not teaching them enough in school is a joke, because parents will pay for a frontistirio EITHER way.
Since university admission is so competitive, it's only natural that payed classes will arise in a society.
kamarjera@reddit
Yes, there are also parents who pay for kids private school AND frontistiria. The kids go there on weekends too. Time around national exams which is happening now is crazy, I always feel for those exhausted teens. ‘Diavasma’ it is for 24 hrs 🤯
Ethelserth2@reddit
That is a fucking lie, the whole first paragraph.
gotzapai@reddit
Because it didn't happen to you, is it really a lie? Be honest now, nobody gives a shit. We're stranger on the internet anyway 🤷
Ethelserth2@reddit
For fuck, i am Greek and as everyone else in the comments calling this out as a bland lie, i know what i saw.
The ops claim is a lie and propaganda because he probably have an agenta.
Or just someone stupid that never pass outside a Greek School.
Ethelserth2@reddit
And for further reference, nobody i know payed for tutoring in elementary school, but everything payed at highscool, but his have nothing to do with teachers and more about the University Exams and their competitive nature.
YiaZach@reddit
Well don't let the facts ruin a good story
Various-Barber-7162@reddit
Wow thats some real corruption on daily basis. But what can do people about it right?
Corruption and poverty is all the source of this kind of things in all around the world.
merdeauxfraises@reddit
It is corruption in the sense that rightist politicians over decades so people finally go to private schools and the govt doesn't have to pay and maintain a functional school system. Anything socialistic is dying, including things tied to human rights like health and education.
Various-Barber-7162@reddit
Yeah literally. We had the same problem in Turkey until early 2000s.
TheCharalampos@reddit
It was fucked when I was at school.
My family was poor as shit so I was one of the few kids who didn't go to private school afterwards and it was torture. I kept slipping back more and more and it's a wonder I passed high school. Was preety convinced I was dumb as a rock.
Lo and behold when I did college in the UK ages later I was passing things with A+. Turns out when you don't have to memorise things exactly and you can think things are easier.
windozeFanboi@reddit
I learned from public school in Greece.
Minority of teachers were not good teachers at all. I had some great teachers/professors though. That was my life at a small rural place.
I'm not sure what the after hours classes at no cost to student were called but I had those and those were usually new teachers that needed credit until they get permanent positions at a preferred city.
I did get all my help from that.
Then we had the paid tutoring and paid classes called frontistiria. Fk that shit. Luckily didn't have to do that. Paying 10-20€ / hr on 2010 was gonna be brutal. They only really do mock tests and target exam material specifically .
I only did English as a paid class. And that was kinda slow pace too.
I agree that the description in the post is accurate though. It's super widespread. And erodes the actual school and education system.
Poseidwn@reddit
yes very true. they also have things called 'frontistiria' where they do private tutoring after school and literally 90% of kids go for it.
not because they're dumb, but because they can barely learn something in the school
SonrieAlaVida@reddit
It's not the same teachers that work there though. While there's teachers that work both in the private and public sector they are a minority. In these "frontistiria" there's usually teacher graduates that didn't get into the public sector. I've gone through it all, I've only met a couple that were working in the public sector and they were working privately secretly, if anyone important found out they'd be in trouble.
Poseidwn@reddit
yeah its not directly related to the 'scam' tactic described but its a part of the larger problem in education
Rumbling_Butterfly1@reddit
Yeah a public school teacher doing private lessons in frontistirio is illegal. Also owning a frontistirio while also being a public school teacher is illegal too. But for the thousands of teachers that are not employed by the state, they do it just fine privately. And it has become so prevalent that no one bats an eye.
Defiant_Being_9222@reddit
This isn't the case. I haven't heard of a single such instance. Usually students are tutored outside school but not by their school teachers.
merdeauxfraises@reddit
Exactly.
Marakajin@reddit
I haven't been in school for about 20 years, so things might've radically changed, but since I see *some* recognizable truth in this, I'll call bullshit on the post. Assuming the system is the same, teachers will do tutoring (usually not private, as in not one-on-one), but will absolutely do their jobs in school as well.
This frames the whole situation as corruption in school, when instead it was the result of a broken system that made high school graduation and uni admission needlessly competitive and essentially trivialized the last couple of high school grades, because the traditional school environment isn't adequate to go as in-depth and deal with each student individually.
Now, things might've changed a lot since I was in school and I don't know how competitive the system is anymore, but this idea that it's normal for teachers to advertise their private tutoring and that this is so normalized that it doesn't surprise anyone is 100% out of that person's ass.
Substratas@reddit
This was common in Albania back in the 2000s - my parents were paying my teachers to come over to my home during evenings to tutor me, occasionally 1 or 2 other students who were paying the teacher were coming over too.
It became HIGHLY illegal at some point.
BurgurluGenc031@reddit
Ngl ı wont suprise if this starts to happen here too,ı remember some of my teachers (which is one of few good teachers they were) do extra paid classes out of school bcs even teachers get paid above minimum wage,it barely pass hungry limit and 1 month rents are equal to 2 3 minimum wage salaries. Heck one of them was started whole bussiness for paid classess with test book sponsors.
neoberg@reddit
This was the norm back when I was in school in Turkey (around 2000-2010)
Substratas@reddit
This was common in Albania back in the 2000s - my parents were paying my teachers to come over to my home & tutor me in the evenings, occasionally 1 or 2 other students who were paying the teacher were joining in too.
It became HIGHLY illegal at some point.
historydude1648@reddit
not really true. this is a huge exaggeration, and in the majority of cases, teachers in schools are not the same as those doing the private lessons. i dont know why this person is lying.
the source says "im a Greek Slovak" but also says this is the reason their parents stayed in Slovakia. meaning this person doesnt have any personal experience from Greek schools.
Rare-Pumpkin-9867@reddit
Are they usually Math teachers ?😅
fesagolub@reddit
Ah, so there are tiers lower than where we are.
Timalakeseinai@reddit
Nah, that's fake.
Nooberin@reddit
This is true.