Θέσεις και σημειώματα [Positions and notes]

What values can today’s education system of Greece obtain from the concerns, questions and views put forward by Christos Tsolakis from 1996 to 2012 in his “Positions and Notes”, published in a journal where one expects to find comments on current events? What is the usefulness of gathering together these notes into a volume published in 2018?

Teachers, philologists, and students of all grades will easily discover the answer by browsing through the book. They will soon realize that Tsolakis’ texts remain useful and vivid for three main reasons. Firstly, because our educational system is still deeply afflicted by the same old problems that led him to write his “Notes”. Secondly, because he draws upon the words of poets, novelists, philologists, linguists, philosophers, historians, pedagogues, and many others, from Homer’s time to the present. And thirdly, because the point at issue for him is not that of formal, systematic education, but of paideia, i.e. broad cultural education; and the demand for paideia, especially as articulated by the author, who anchors it in ancient Greece and follows its history to the present, continues to be a burning issue. This is the reason why these texts, even when they refer to events and situations of the time they were written, have a strongly timeless aspect, which Tsolakis’ pen makes almost atemporal.

Readers, particularly those who knew the writer personally, will agree that in these very texts, which he did not even bother to sign (!), he emerges very much alive. And those who did not have the chance to meet him in person, have now a unique opportunity to get to know him and become acquainted with his work.