Hi Mina!
No worries, it sounded to me that Glavkos as well said that plenty of
things are currently happening in Greece and that he was also going on
strike.
Mina, when reading your email two aspects are very striking to me;
* The effort, bravery and strength coming from you in this struggle with
the parliament and politics in general in Greece. I am deeply impressed and
touched.
* Your hope which seems intact and that you most hopefully can feed from it
getting energy and seeing a brighter future. This brings much inspiration
and is a reminder of how important hope for the future is in situations
such as this.
I am happy to hear you're enjoying the efforts that plenty of people have
put down in editing the pages about their education work on outreach. I am
myself moved by the extent to people's work, dedication and engagement in
using Wikipedia (and other Wikimedia projects) in education.
I can only agree with you, we simply cannot function in isolation, what we
do is affected by (and hopefully does affect as well) occurrences all over
the world, both in windows of opportunity and struggles. I'm sad to hear
about the abolishment of the informatics class and that so few people in
positions that can make a difference have responded to this issue.
Mina, thank you for sharing all of this.
/ sophie
2013/9/26 Mina Theofilatou <theoth(a)otenet.gr>
**
Hi Sophie and all
A late reply to an interesting message... sorry for the delay, I've been
terribly caught up in the outrageous measures that were approved by
Parliament in the recent law governing Upper Secondary Education. Teachers
were on strike all of last week and up to yesterday, well actually I'm one
of the few that held out the whole time (not that I have my financial
issues settled but I will sacrifice wages to protest against thousands of
teachers having already been laid off: I know my turn will come soon, the
government is strangling all of lower to middle-class Greek society plus
now we have a fascism trend on our hands too).
No need to get into more tragic details of everyday life in Greece in the
EU, it's all over international news anyway.
I really want to send a heartfelt *"THANK YOU"* for the work you and the
other editors have done on this page:
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education_Portal/Projects_and_Programs/…
I am particularly pleased that my eye-witness account of the situation in
Greek education has been included as an external link. In appreciation
that Wikimedia is not an Foundation isolated from important social issues
especially where education is involved, I have added a link to another
blog post about ICT education in Greece: unfortunately the Informatics
class was indeed abolished from University entry curriculum, which was
described as a "Giant Step Backward" by the Computer Science Teachers'
Association <http://blog.acm.org/archives/csta/2013/08/> in New York, NY
(scroll down to Aug. 26). My blog post however does include around 15
external links (once a citation advocate, always a citation advocate!) so
it's not just me saying these things. Oh and by the way, the CSTA and the EATCS
(European Association for Theoretical Computer Science)* * were the only
two replies I got to the letter: *no reply from the recipient or CC'ed
EU officials and agencies whatsoever. *
**
I also did some editing work on the way...:)
Thanks and keep up the great work!
Mina
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Sophie Osterberg <sosterberg(a)wikimedia.org>
*To:* Wikimedia Education <education(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
*Sent:* Friday, September 20, 2013 7:45 PM
*Subject:* [Wikimedia Education] A page on outreach for each
country'seducational activities
Hi all lovely people!
Just to let you know (and please do edit if something is missing or is
incorrect) there are pages for each country which can be found here;
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education_Portal/Projects_and_Programs
I know some of you have been editing and adding already, thank you for
that! The two main reasons for having these pages are;
* For all of us to quickly see what is going on in education around the
world
* For you to hopefully be inspired by what others are taking on in
education
And of course, to feel great pride of all the work that is currently being
done!
*Be Bold!
Sophie Österberg
sosterberg(a)wikimedia.org*
*Every single contribution to Wikipedia is a
gift of free knowledge to humanity. *
------------------------------
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Education mailing list
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https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
_______________________________________________
Education mailing list
Education(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
--
*Be Bold!
Sophie Österberg
sosterberg(a)wikimedia.org*
*Every single contribution to Wikipedia is a
gift of free knowledge to humanity. *