Well, thank you sirs. I think I will need your positive mentality and support – and even more actually- because things are really being a shifting carpet here in Greece. No, I will not set forth the whys and when and who here. My intention is to officially announce my -temporary ?- career shift from Secondary to Primary Education for the current school year, as from 20^th September, 2013.

After teaching English to elder teenagers for sixteen years, this has been a monumental shift! My first two weeks have given me lots to narrate which briefly summarize to:  

• speak at a slower pace and in a much softer tone (at least in the lower classes)
• analyze and give instructions for everything
• recall the needs of your kids when they were that age: «Madam, I can’t unzip my jacket!»
• provide ample time and space
• search, read, learn, make (which I love!)
• always carry pain killers for high pitch hubbab headaches

Surely, all these may sound common place, but they are my new reality. Second thoughts though, instruct me to consider that no matter how unfamiliar or unstable this new reality is for me, there are other teachers who are already experiencing insecurity due to their violent expulsion from education, not to mention every other Greek citizen who have lost their jobs.

Yes, we need to “learn to dance on a shifting carpet”,but then that’s easy; Greeks have always been voyagers and good dancers, thus versatile, and so all this great heritage can only be our vigor. However, we must not forget how much of this “shifting carpet” was the result of our choices and why we reached this point.

Photo credit: Professor Bop / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND