O πρόεδρος H Γ. Γραμματέας
Δημήτρης Μαριόλης Άντα Παραφόρου
A’ ASSOCIATION OF PRIMARY EDUCATION TEACHERS OF ATHENS
www.a-athinon.gr, E-mail: asillogosathinon@gmail, Zografou
Open letter to the parents of our students
Dear parents,
We wish you a happy school year. We choose to contact you through this letter, feeling our shared concern for the education and progress of our children.
The Minister of Education stated the day before yesterday that “We are proceeding with the rationalization of classes in order to achieve better educational results”. What does the policy called “rationalization” mean? At least 1,000 classes nationwide are closing! To save on teaching staff, downgrade public school and boost private education. In this way, however, the number of students in each class increases.
Why is the school with 25 students in each class much worse than the school with 15 students in each class? The amount of time a teacher has available to teach is not unlimited. A lesson lasts 45 minutes. Suppose we give all that period of time to our students to talk, to discuss, to read a text. If there are 15 children, it corresponds to 3 minutes each, if there are 25, it corresponds to less than two minutes each. If a teacher teaches 15, 16, 17 children, she can read all the texts written by all the children and have a discussion about them. But if you have 23, 24, 25 children, you don’t have time. A kindergarten teacher with 25 children, a teacher with 25 children has much less time to check the children’s work, the level of understanding of the material, proceed with individualized teaching, sit next to a child and chat with him, to explain to some children a difficult exercise, to answer questions (which will clearly be more), to deal with the complex problems of social relations and friction between students.
According to the circular of the ministry of August 25th, only one parallel support teacher will be provided for each class, even if there are two or three children in need of parallel support. Behind the numbers there is a daily school life with a series of problems that this year is impossible to deal with. We have a primary school with 48 children in the 5th grade (3 classes), with 32 children who were taught French in the 5th grade and 16 children German. now in the 6th grade are only taught German! The classes collapsed into 2 and now require 7-8 children who learned French in E, to change to German in C.
We have reached the point where we are cramming children into caged rooms and schools that are at the least unsafe. For example, the case of the 5th and 6th Primary School in Zografou where after a marathon of checks it turned out that one of the three buildings is not safe and was evacuated! We have a kindergarten in Zografou which for the previous 3 years had 5 classes of 17-20 students (1 at the entrance of an apartment building + 4 annexes in the front yard of the neighboring Primary School). Today, 1 section is abolished and 4 sections remain with 23-24 children, in cage rooms.
We have a common interest, against the evaluation that wants to promote the categorization of schools, to fight for a school that will not distinguish children according to the socioeconomic family background! Α school that will provide comprehensive education to all children and not to a few selected! They promote the marketized school of semi-literacy, the school where anyone who can pay succeeds. We are fighting for a truly comprehenshive, public and free school that will develop the full potential of each student. For the school that will meet the modern educational needs of our students, far and away from the regressive notion that there are children who are “unteachable”!
