Inmates watching a Math class on Prospathodas TV, or Trying TV. Photos: AP
Setting up a television channel from scratch isn’t the most obvious or easiest thing for a math teacher to do – especially without prior technical knowledge and for use inside a prison.
But that is exactly the task Petros Damianos, director of the school at Greece’s Avlona Special Youth Detention Center, took on so his students could access the lessons that coronavirus lockdowns cut them off from.
Greek schools have shut, reopened, and closed again over the past year as authorities sought to curtail the spread of the virus. Like their peers across much of the globe, the country’s students adapted to virtual classes.
In a Greek Detention Center, an Official Uses TV to Teach Prisoners
February 28, 2021
Prisoners sitting in a room while they watch a recorded music lesson in Avlona prison, north of Athens, Greece. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
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The director of a detention center in Greece is using television to teach the young men there who have no other way to get an education.
Petros Damianos is the director of the school at Greece’s Avlona Special Youth Detention Center. He started the school in 2000. The men held at the detention center are between the ages of 18 to 25. Attendance at the voluntary school became popular. By September 2020, 96 percent of the prisoners had signed up.
The Daily Universe
Inmates sitting inside a room, watch a recorded music lesson in Avlona prison. With Greece’s schools shut due to the pandemic, all lessons have gone online. So the Avlona Special Youth Detention Cente found away to virtual learning even with all internet devices banned by law from the cells. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
Young men ages 18-25 can be seen watching a televised education program cell to cell in the Avlona Prison north of Athens. Men follow along making purses out of newspaper, learning the basics of math, exploring science and more. The program was a long process in the making. When the pandemic began, Greece’s schools were moved online, but the students of Avlona Special Youth Detention Center did not have access to electronics and the teachers had no experience setting up a TV channel. This did not stop the school’s director Petros Damianos.
AVLONA, Greece - Setting up a television channel from scratch isn’t the most obvious or easiest thing for a math teacher to do especially without prio.
A math teacher in Greece has figured out a way to make sure that the education of young inmates is not ignored: TV classes in a detention center. School is “a bit more human than the rest of the prison,” said one inmate. “It’s a bit like family.”