Slave Teachers

I am reading books about ancient Rome. According to those books, ancient Roman intellectuals were bilingual. Their native language was Latin but they studied ancient Greek as part of their education. Studying a foreign language is very challenging. I am Japanese and I have spent some difficult days studying English. Greece was in the territory of ancient Rome. Some rich Roman families had Greek slaves whose job was to teach Greek to their children. It is difficult to imagine the slaves. Their job was to teach, but their status was slaves. Teaching their owners’ children was probably difficult and complicated. By the way, in present-day Japan, many teachers in public schools need to work overtime – over 100 hours per month. Most of them can’t get enough overtime pay. It occurred to me that today’s teachers might be like those Greek slaves.

 Picture by yopinco