From this year and on, schools in Greece will have more than one book available for each subject for the teachers to teach from, that will be chosen by the teachers. This is the so called "Multi-Book" (Πολλαπλό Βιβλίο). There are pros and cons with this new approach that our government decided to enforce, but this post is not about them.
A friend recently sent me some screenshots of excerpts from the new textbook of "Social and Political Education", a subject for the 9th grade. The excerpts have been chosen and highlighted by the Instagram account @sexismproject.
I have translated the more important parts to English. In each expert, besides my translation, you will be able to find my opinion on the ideas that the text promotes and the original screenshot of the text (in Greek, as taken from the Instagram account).
Let's begin!
People are not born equal. From nature, they have different development abilities, since nature grants them different abilities and skills. (emphasis mine)
This is not too bad but I think it promotes the idea that people are unequal, and therefore some people should are superior or they should have more rights, "from nature" as the text says.
Screenshot of text
Self-improvement requires self-awareness and self-assessment. If these exist, the improvement process is relatively easy. Of course, there shouldn't be any anxiety or rush. We should want our improvement. And if we want it, we can succeed at it. There is no "I can't", there is only "I don't want to". So: if I want something, I can get it.
This is literally wrong. If people got something because they just wanted it, I suppose there wouldn't be any homeless people, because I'm sure that they want to own a house. Or maybe they don't want it hard enough I guess? This just promotes the grind mindset to kids and teaches them things that are just not true.
Screenshot of text
The teacher's role is important. This important role requires important people, meaning teachers that will have, in theory and practice, vision and passion for a better education system and society. Teachers that can enlighten the students and contribute to the improvement of the education system. Attention: not with their own and personal, political, ideological criteria, but with the criteria of the society, as they are expressed by the education policy of the current government. (emphasis mine)
This is the worst of all in my opinion. So the teachers should always teach the students only whatever the government believes, and nothing else. And we'll be teaching the students that this is "the perfect teacher", a teacher that repeats all the propaganda that is served to them by television and social media, making the kids of the new generation perfect government-supporting machines. What else can I say? Literally 1984.
Screenshot of text
However, young girls should be informed from a young age for the biological and mental differences that they have from men. A few practical pieces of advice for facing men are:
- Remember that men are bigger in volume and in strength.
- Avoid "dangerous places".
- Avoid violent, aggressive, arrogant, narcissist, manipulative men, those who don't have empathy.
- Stop your relationship, if your partner uses violence, because even if they apologize a thousand times, he will use violence again.
This promotes that men are superior to women, they may use violence against them and women will just have to protect themselves. So now young girls learn that they will have to fear men, and just tolerate the sexism. Also the last bullet point looks like it was written by Donald Trump himself.
Screenshot of text
@sexismproject has uploaded more screenshots of more similiar texts from the same books, talking about marriage and drugs, I just couldn't bother to manually translate them.
Anyway, if you made it to the end thanks for reading, sorry for any grammar errors you may find, I will try to correct them as soon as possible.
Big thanks to @sexismproject for pointing all these out! I'm not affiliated in any way with them, I just saw them, I got mad and now I'm trying to get more people to know about the stuff our government is pushing to the new generation.
Well, most men are objectively stronger than an average woman, are they not? It's not about superiority, it's about a fact you need to keep in mind before picking a fight.
You wouldn't want every anti-vax and Holocaust/Holodomor denier teacher to teach only their point of view, right? They should make clear, at least in a neutral way, what the government/societal consensus thinks.
Of course this is true, but it this combined with the other points teaches girls that it's normal for men to use violence and therefore they should fear them.
Yes, but what if the government is the one supporting these ideologies. In my opinion this is to protect children from the teachers that lean left on the political spectrum, not to protect them from misinformation. (Although you're right, in your specific case it helps)
I don't know about government/societal consensus being the standard by which we teach. I'd prefer expert consensus on subjects being taught more. As a US citizen, Governments and societies are often bigoted and delusional.