The wonderful world of knowledge in ancient Greece
The publication is aimed at children as well as adults, explaining how the school and the world of knowledge worked in ancient times. The author’s words were combined with the images of Filippos Avramidis.
Dimitris Pandermalis
“The Ancient School”
ed. Melissa, p. 54
Illustration: Filippos Avramidis
A book about knowledge, a fan book of initiation, is the book he had written for the children of Dimitris Pandermalis. Its new edition, with its excellent and attractive illustration by Filippos Avramidis, evokes emotion, as it symbolizes in a direct and thoughtful way the eternal mood of the unforgettable professor. I read this book not as a child, but as an adult who revels in the effortless grace of conscious (and condensed) writing and who can revel in the grandeur of simplicity as spoken word delivers.
The “Ancient School” is an educational book, that’s for sure. It opens worlds to us through a beneficial economy of speech and meaning. Economy that does not deprive, but that, on the contrary, adds and enriches the experience. This journey through time, as the reader takes the reader to learn how young people were educated from ancient Greece to Byzantium, is the result of a long process of learning and reflection, which Dimitris Pantermalis filtered in a way that he could conjure up. the interest of children (but also of adults). Reading this book made me reflect on the power of language when addressing young and developing personalities, the potential we have, the magnitude of the responsibility.
The projection of our own experience onto the educational practice of antiquity is almost automatic and largely amusing. I also enjoyed the fragmentation of that monolithic intake of ancient times thanks to the gradations of situations, the variety of human behaviors and the balance between learning and school. One reflects more on the principles of general education, which included not only the imparting of knowledge but also the building of character. The parameter of moral values has been discredited for years.
But Dimitris Pandermalis, with his contemplative look at History, time and man, gave us in a few words a fragment of knowledge and wisdom. But the book itself as an object, large format and hardbound, works wonderfully and it also gives us a lesson in aesthetics. Yes, a book that can make an international career.
Filippos Avramidis has here unfolded his talent, which is rich and discovers on every page. His images are images that mobilize and raise. The color is murky, deep, flooding the senses. The figures are timeless and yet very personal, drawn from the hand of a creator. I don’t know what I enjoyed more, the word or the picture. Perhaps more moving is the intergenerational dialogue, the power of the truth, when you have something to say, and you also know the way.
Melissa publications, close to their scientific publications, a trademark for decades, are enthusiastically cultivating the field of children’s books. “Ancient school” will please and relax the adults as well.